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Pioneers to the Present
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Filipino Americans
Pioneers to the Present

By Concordia R. Borja-Mamaril and Tyrone Lim
2000, 332 pages, Paperback.
Book Description from Back Cover
Mission Statement from Back Cover
About the Authors

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Book Description from the Foreword

It first begins in the Philippines. It always does when the search for roots concerns Filipinos and how they got to the United States. That's the story of Filipino Americans in Oregon, whose book details their lives in the Beaver State. However, in their quest for a more promising life in these United States, these Filipino Americans-Pinoys, I shall call them proudly - blazed their own version of the Oregon Trail leading them to the Pacific Northwest.

The Oregon Trail, according to history, was the longest of the great overland paths for White American settlers in the westward expansion of the United States. Their journey, beginning in Independence, Missouri, gave these settlers a severe test of courage, strength and endurance during a two-thousand-mile trek. The whites began to settle by 1811. Oregon was admitted into the Union in 1859 - thirty years before the State of Washington wherein Seattle became a major shipping port of entry for new settlers, including those from the Philippines.

Even then, Filipino crew members were on board Manila galleons off the Oregon coast by the 17th century and on exploratory and trading ships on the Columbia River as early as the 18th century.

Pinoys came to settle or work in Oregon by the turn of the 20th century. Oregon's Pinoy population dramatically increased with the Fourth Immigration Wave of Filipinos to the U.S., beginning in 1965. No matter when and how, these Pinoy Oregonians exemplified several traits in common after having immigrated from a distant and familiar land to one new and alien - courage, strength, endurance, plus hope. These brown immigrants began their journey not from a town called Independence but rather from a state of mind: independence. Their trek came not overland from the east but across an ocean from the west and more than just two thousand miles. Despite all of the hardships as newcomers, these Pinoy Oregonians survived. In many cases, they triumphed. Their emergence have been solidified by their children and grandchildren, respectively the second and third gen­eration Filipino Americans.

Although the main setting of this book is at the end of the Oregon Trail, the Filipino American version of their own Oregon Trail leads to other landscapes and shows Pinoys throughout America. The vista becomes United States history made possible in the telling by the Oregon Chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society.

Happy trails to all.

Dr. Fred Cordova
President Emeritus
Filipino American National Historical Society

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Mission Statement from Back Cover

"The mission of the Filipino American National Historical Society shall be to promote understanding, education, enlightenment, appreciation and enrichment through the identification, gathering, preservation and dissemination of the history and culture of Filipino Americans in the United States."
- Fred Cordova

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Background on the Authors

Concordia R. Borja-Mamaril, Ph.D., had her education and training in chemistry (M.S. in Analytical Chemistry, Purdue University, 1959; B.S. in Chemistry University of the Philippines, 1950) and biochemistry (Ph.D. George Washington University, 1963). She has written and published in scientific journals - papers on the synthesis of carrier ampholytes for isoelectric focusing; identification, purification and physicochemical properties of staphylococcal enterotoxins; cholesterol absorption; and determination of free and total cholesterol.

Her interest on the history of Filipinos in America started when she became a member of the Oregon Chapter of the FANHS in May 1990. This interest continuously intensified becoming in 1991 the first editor of Chapter One, the newsletter of the Oregon Chapter. She has also written articles about individuals and organizations for the Philippine News, The Asian Reporter and Heritage magazine. She has presented historical research papers at past national conferences of FANHS.

Tyrone Lim has a B.A. in Mass Communications from the Far Eastern University in Manila, 1973. He worked as an information officer at the National Food Authority (formerly National Grains Authority) from 1974 until 1986, when he came to the United States. He is presently the managing editor of The Asian Reporter, a weekly newspaper for the Asian community in Oregon and Washington.

He joined the FANHS-Oregon Chapter in 1997.

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