Countywide : Filipinos Sample Taste of Nostalgia

For many Filipino Americans, the two-day “Fiesta Filipiniana” celebration at Knott’s Berry Farm over the weekend was a welcome break from the frenetic pace of life.

They sampled bibingka and puto (both rice cakes) to freshen palates that during the rest of the year are dulled by too many hamburgers and hot dogs. They listened to the kundiman, the melodic Filipino love songs that never could be confused with rap.

In the evening Saturday and Sunday, a santacruzan, the religious procession that caps May festivities in most Philippine towns, took older festival-goers on a nostalgic trip back to their youth in the Pacific.

“This makes me want to go back home,” said Paz Mandap, 64, of Anaheim, after watching the procession of sagalas, or princesses, representing Filipino American organizations. “It brings back a lot of memories.”

Mandap’s sentiments were echoed by many of the 20,000 Filipino Americans who attended the weekend festivities, held as part of the celebration of the Philippines Independence Day on June 12. It is the first time the event has been celebrated on such a wide scale in Orange County.

“This festival, hopefully, will help erase our label as an invisible minority,” said Filusa Timbancaya, one of the event organizers, who said that state and local politicians have ignored Filipino Americans, although about half a million of them live in California.

But while some found political meaning in the celebration, others said they were happy simply to be part of it.

“It’s like coming home,” said Joel Dauz of Fontana. “Everywhere you look, you see a Filipino.”

One of those he met was May Bautista, a classmate at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila whom he had not seen in five years.

Over pancit malabon (noodles) and chicharon bulaklak (fried pig intestines), the two friends reminisced about their student days as they dined at one of the food booths on festival grounds.

“This is all worth it,” said Dauz, a sentiment that Bautista, a Glendale resident, readily agreed.

Al Chejini, a native of Iran who married a Filipina after completing his studies in the Philippines in the 1970s, said he has been waiting for Filipinos to hold a major celebration since moving here nine years ago. Now a Fountain Valley resident, Chejini said he hopes Filipino Americans will be more active as a community.

“Individually, they are successful,” Chejini said. “But as an ethnic group, they need to be more united and visible.”

The event was one of the biggest cultural presentations at Knott’s Berry Farm, and theme park officials said that the event was successful for the park and the participants.

“It is the type of event that brings families, generations and cultures together,” said Knott’s Berry Farm spokesman Bob Ochsner. “The celebration appeals to both Filipinos and non-Filipinos alike.”

The festival was held in four different sections of the park, and people paid the usual park entry fee of $19 and another $7 to attend the festival.

Several festival-goers said the event could have been better organized if venues were not spread throughout the park and events did not overlap in time.

Organizers said that there were some glitches, but promised better organization next year.

Kuh Ledesma, a popular Manila singer now based in Los Angeles, told an audience at her concerts on Saturday and Sunday never to forget their native land.

“Keep that in your hearts, and tell your American friends how beautiful is our country and the smiles of our people,” she said.