GABRIELA NETWORK SAN DIEGO PREPARES FOR PHILIPPINE INDEPENDENCE DAY

San Diego, California. This evening over 60 community members gathered in South San Diego at the Bonita Library for a film screening of ?Memories of a Forgotten War? hosted by GABRIELA Network, San Diego chapter (GABNet SD). The chapter, which is participating in this year?s San Diego Philippine Independence Day celebrations made it a point to show this film as it is one of the few documentaries that chronicles the Philippine American war from the viewpoint of Filipinos. GABNet SD, Co-coordinator, Charisma De Los Reyes said, ?This is the first time an event like this is being held in the Southbay and we planned it that way- for us to do be able to talk about Filipino concerns in the heart of the Filipino community in San Diego.? The film is also a first in what GABNet SD plans to be an ongoing film series.

The audience was filled with families, high school students, college students from UCSD, and professionals in the community. ?I?m so glad this is happening,? stated one of the audience members, ?There is a huge Filipino community here and we need more events like this that tell the truth about Filipino history.? Several local high school Pilipino language classes even offered extra credit as an incentive to have their students attend. One teacher commented, ?It?s important for students to go beyond the classroom and see how this affects their own families, learn where they come from.? This film evoked images of the Philippine American War and the American propaganda machine used to fuel the war, as well as several major events that are missing in school textbooks. This war is rarely mentioned, and if anything is a literal footnote in the American history books.

National Organizing Director of GABNet US, Jollene Levid, was on hand to answer questions and to discuss the critical role that women played and continue to play in the relations between the United States and the Philippines. ?Women?s sovereignty is tied to national sovereignty and so this film is crucial to understanding how Filipina women have been impacted this history and the United States. Filipino women?s labor is the biggest export of the country and it?s no coincidence that one of the main areas of migration is the United States.?

Nationwide, GABRIELA Network (GABNet), a Philippine-US women?s solidarity mass organization, this year commemorates the Philippines? independence from Spain (1898) with a resolution to support Filipinas around the world in forging a true and sustainable sense of nationhood, condemning those who exploit a people?s struggle for national identity, and imploring all women in the US, Filipinas and non-Filipinas alike, to be cognizant of and to find and enact their critical role in this struggle. For more information please contact GABNet San Diego at: sandiego@gabnet.org