Filipino Community Cultural Work (Freelance/Volunteer)

Kinding Sindaw (Culture Bearer in Training/Dancer/Organizer)

Our mission is to assert, reclaim, preserve, and re-create the legends, epics, myths and unwritten history of the Philippines. The backbone of the organization is based on Indigenous issues, led by Indigenous Filipinos in diaspora.

1) Filipino-American History Month Celebration at Governor’s Island (2025) - I organized a community gathering at Governor’s Island. The event convened Filipino indigenous peoples from southern, northern and central Philippines, fine artists, historians and community members, to reflect on and learn about our people’s resilience and resistance, while grounding and performing Indigenous Filipino rituals.

With Kinding Sindaw, we performed Maranao epics and Tboli harvesting, farming and hunting rituals.

Photos by Geve Penn.

2) Southeast Asian-Palestinian Solidarity (2025) - I was on the organizing team and brought in Kinding Sindaw for a teach-in performance about decolonization, indigenous issues, Southeast Asian history of imperialism, and Palestinian solidarity via a performance of Tboli rituals, a people who are being erased through the same apparatuses.

3) Pacifika Fest 2025 - Performing water -related rituals and living traditions, we joined Pacific Island cultural bearers from Hawai’i and Tuvalu to highlight our cultural and indigenous environmental stewardship.

Beginner Tagalog and Filipino Heritage Lessons (Instructor and Educator)

Mil Mundos is a Latinx community resource and activist libreria in Bushwick.

Through their Mil Mundos’ platform, I teach beginner Tagalog. Beyond the language, I create space for Filipino-Americans to learn about Filipino history and heritage that have been gatekept from us, and for our community to confront themes of imperialism, migration, extractivism and contemporary issues back home. The MM platform is also a show of solidarity and coalition-building with the Latinx community, as we have historical and cultural resonance with their people and experience similar struggles.