A Philly-pino Weekend

What makes us smile? Acts of kindness, heartwarming stories, lost loves found, music and food and the sweet memories that they bring forth, old photographs, family gatherings, heroes in our midst, remembrances of pets and experiences, etc. etc. Each of us have our own smile triggers. What's yours?

Send us a story that makes you smile, be it a vignette or an anecdote, a picture with an extended caption, even a screenshot.

The mural is located on a wall at 8426 Bustleton Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19152.

Philadelphia is a city of murals. I remember coming here as a post baccalaureate, seeing friends in Los Angeles visit the “Gintong Kasaysayan, Gintong Pamana (Filipino Americans: A Glorious History, A Golden Legacy) mural and wondering if there was an equivalent here.

The mural features some nice touches, including portraits of Carlos Bulosan and Larry Itliong; references to anti-Filipinx American racism; our exhibition at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair; a door adorned with the legend of Malakas at Maganda.

I rejoiced when I found the “Alab ng Puso (My Heart's Sole Burning Fire (100 Years of Filipinos in Greater Philadelphia)” mural online, but I wasn’t sure if it was still around — the press has died down since its inauguration. Three years after discovering its existence, and now that I have a car for rotations, I finally made the journey to check the piece out. What a beauty.

Around the corner is a Filipino handicraft store that was closed when we visited, but my heart was warmed knowing this block of Philadelphia exists.

Reposted with permission from the author’s blog, https://www.philmed.xyz/blog/a-philly-pino-weekend

All photos by the author.


Phil Delrosario is a storyteller and 1st year resident physician in Emergency Medicine at UC San Francisco. His passions lie in social emergency medicine, narrative medicine, and storytelling in all its forms.