Shayne Nuesca is a founder of MANA, which aims to reclaim Filipino American history in Alaska.
Filipinos and Filipino Americans have more than 200 years of history in Alaska, but there is only one book that tells our story. It's called "Filipinos in Alaska, 1788-1958," written by the late former Alaska state Rep. Thelma Buchholdt, who herself made history. Buchholdt was the first Asian American and Filipino elected to the Alaska Legislature, and the first Filipina elected to any state legislative body.
October is Filipino American History Month, which has been officially recognized in Alaska state law since 2023, through legislation by Rep. Genevieve Mina, who is the second Filipina elected to the Alaska Legislature. It's a time to uplift achievements like those of Mina's and Buchholdt's, recognize our history as Filipino Americans, and it's a personal call for me to reclaim our shared history as Filipinos of Alaska. For most of my life, whenever I'd tell someone I am from Alaska, especially another Filipino American, they were surprised to learn that Filipinos quote, unquote, "made it all the way up there."
I immigrated from the Philippines as a child nearly 30 years ago, and in my quest for a sense of belonging, I remember looking for any mention of Filipinos and Alaska in every library book or encyclopedia I could find. When I worked in journalism, I took up every opportunity to tell Asian American or Filipino American stories. In that work, I became even more interested in Filipino American history and understanding how Alaska became a place where we settled, but in those long hours of research, I found Alaska more often depicted as an anecdote in the broader narrative of Filipino American history. Alaska was mentioned in passing as part of someone else's story instead of a story of its own.
The narrative goes something like this: Someone's grandfather or great-grandfather found their way north to Alaska, by way of Seattle, or somewhere in California. They were called the Alaskeros, and they spent their summers working the canneries. When their contracts were up, they moved back to wherever they came from on the West Coast. And it will almost always end there-Alaska seasonal work as a footnote in California or Washington's Filipino American history.
Buchholdt's book was published in 1996, and it is an illustrative look at the Filipino American community beyond seasonal work contracts. A beautiful snapshot in time, many multigenerational Filipino American families in Alaska can use the book to learn about their own ancestors. The book even has a list of some of the first Filipinos who settled in Alaska. The stories in the book, as its title notes, end in 1958. This was nearly a decade before the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, that fundamentally changed the demographics of our country, and allowed more Filipinos to immigrate to the United States, Alaska included. There are decades, generations, of history that have not been documented-yet.
There's an effort to fill these gaps in history. At the same time Rep. Mina's bill made its way through the Legislature, a group of Filipino Americans were gearing up to tell our community's stories in a museum exhibit. This group became Mana, named after the Filipino word for "inheritance," or "heritage." Mana is a media collective reclaiming the history of Filipino Americans across the state, building a community archive and fostering intergenerational storytelling. We see our stories as what we inherit and what we pass down.
We didn't know then how serendipitous the timing of our exhibit was, but we knew it was important to tell our stories. While Filipino workers remain an integral part of nearly every industry in Alaska, there is much more to tell about our communities, from the historical Diaz Cafe in Ketchikan, to the Tlingit-Filipino families of Juneau and Filipino American trailblazers whose stories went overlooked for decades. As I listen and document our stories, I've come to learn that history is more than a static collection of facts and dates. History is in motion. It's a living process, challenging our perspectives, sometimes even asking us to reshape what we think we know. What I know is this: Filipino American history in Alaska didn't end with the Alaskeros. We are still here.
Shayne Nuesca is a founder of Mana, whose mission is to reclaim Filipino American history in Alaska, centering relationships with our communities across the state. You can learn more about Filipino Americans in Alaska by visiting Mana's website at manaalaska.com, and see our exhibits at manaalaska.com/exhbits.
