Filipinos have been in the United States since the 16th century, yet many of their stories remain untold. For the past months, Positively Filipino has been running a series on notable Filipino Americans who have made their marks in this country. There are hundreds, or maybe even thousands more, that need to be added to this story, and we need your help. If you know of a Filipino American who deserves to be included in this line-up, please send us their names and any supporting documents you may have to pfpublisher@yahoo.com. For now, we are including only those who are currently active and visible in the media and the community, regardless of their religious, sexual or political orientation. Thank you.

Dr. Nathalie Quion, Pediatrician

Dr. Quion is currently the Medical Director of Children’s Health Center at Adams Morgan and Shaw in Washington, D.C. She specializes in asthma, pediatric tuberculosis, and attention deficit and hyperactivity. She is a faculty member of the Division of General and Community Pediatrics. She provides technical support and advocacy to the Community Based Children’s Tuberculosis Program in the Philippines and provides technical advice and support to the Philippine Ambulatory Pediatric Association. She is able to arrange for resident rotations at the teaching hospital of the University of Philippines-Philippine General Hospital in Manila. Dr. Quion is co-Chair of the DC AAP Immigrant Child Health Committee. She's also the current President of the Philippine Medical Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. She got her undergraduate degree, B.S. Zoology at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. She completed her medical degree at the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center, finished her pediatric residency training at University of Texas, and completed her master’s in Public Health at the University of Massachusetts.

Eugene Cordero, Actor and Comedian

Filipino American Cordero grew up in the northern suburbs of Detroit, and later moved to New York City to attend Marymount Manhattan College. In comedy, he has appeared in such televisions shows as Drunk History, the Kroll Show, Silicon Valley, The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Bajillion Dollar Propertie$, Veep, The Good Place, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Cordero has appeared in films such as Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Kong: Skull Island, The Kings of Summer, and Ghostbusters. In 2019, Cordero began a starring role on Tacoma FD and made an appearance on The Mandalorian. He also landed a voice role as Ensign Sam Rutherford on Star Trek: Lower Decks, which premiered in 2020. He is married to comedy writer Tricia McAlpin.

Conrado Gempesaw, Academic Administrator

Gempesaw served as president of St. John’s University in New York City, the first lay person to hold the position since the university’s establishment in 1870, as all 16 prior presidents were Vincentian priests. He is the second Filipino American to serve as a college president of a doctoral research university in the United States. His previous work experiences include being Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and dean and tenured professor at the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics at The University of Delaware. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1980 from the Philippines. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Ateneo de Davao University, his Master of Science in Agricultural Economics degree from West Virginia University, and his Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Pennsylvania State University. On June 10, 2020, Gempesaw announced his retirement from academia and stepped down as President of the University in early 2021. “For an immigrant who came to this country 40 years ago, serving as the first lay and 17th president of St. John’s has been a singular honor and the privilege of a lifetime for which I will always be grateful,” he wrote in his farewell letter.

Ella Jay Basco, Actor

Basco hails from a long line of successful Filipino American actors. Her uncle is Dante Basco, who has been inducted into the unofficial Fanboy Hall of Fame for voicing Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Ella seems to be following in her uncle’s and father’s footsteps as she takes on the never-before-depicted role of Cassandra Cain, or Batgirl, in the upcoming film Birds of Prey. Batgirl will be one of the few DC heroines to be portrayed by an Asian actress in the DC film universe. Basco plays opposite Hollywood megastars Margot Robbie and Ewan McGregor in this upcoming film.

Craig Abaya, Multimedia Artist

Born and raised in San Francisco, Abaya became obsessed with music, film, recording, photography, art, and writing at a young age. Self-taught in these disciplines, Abaya began making his own movies and music at nine years old, while still enrolled in grammar school. While still an undergrad, he was invited to teach at San Francisco State University’s (SFSU) graduate Cinema program. This is where he developed a love for teaching. He went on to teach multimedia in Silicon Valley and elsewhere and was eventually offered a directorship at SFSU where he ran the Multimedia Studies and Music/Recording Industry Programs and also created the Digital Video Intensive and Web Design Intensive. He would partner with companies such as Apple, Adobe and Avid to bring real world experiences and job opportunities to his students. In 2013, San Francisco’s Macworld/World Expo made Abaya their featured artist with a gallery of his concert films and photography entitled Craig Abaya: The Art of Rock’N’Roll from Analog to Digital. In 2020, he released his single, Behind Blue Eyes, with him on the guitar and vocals. He has won ten Billboard songwriting awards. Also in 2020, he served as producer/director on the 10-part series “Stern Grove Festival – Best of the Fest” and the three-part webinar titled “Cortical Visual Impairment.”

Ninotchka Rosca, Author and Activist

Ninotchka Rosca (Source: ESLKevin.wordpress.com)

Rosca graduated from the University of the Philippines and now lives in New York City. She is the author of the best-selling English language novels, State of War and Twice Blessed. The latter won her the 1993 American Book Award for excellence in literature. Rosca was a political prisoner under the reign of Ferdinand Marcos and she was forced into exile to Hawaii when threatened with a second arrest for her human rights activism. She was designated as one of the 12 Asian American Women of Hope by the Bread and Roses Cultural Project. She has worked with Amnesty International and the PEN American Center. Her latest book published in 2019, Stories of a Bitter Country, is a collection of her stories published from 1970 to 2016. She is active in GABRIELA Network USA and AF3IRM. She often speaks about women’s oppression, violence against women and the labor component of globalization under imperialism.

Patrick Starrr, Freelance Make-up Artist

Filipino American Patrick Simondac, aka Patrick Starrr online, is a professional freelance makeup artist. He got into photography straight out of high school, and this led to his passion for makeup. “At 12 years old, I knew I was gay, but I didn't know how to convey what I was going through. I felt like I was drowning in school and there wasn't really anything to express myself with... I wanted to transform, too. That's when I really began experimenting with makeup: I started dealing with my feelings in front of the mirror in my mother's bathroom,” Starr says in an interview with CNN. “But on top of that, coming from a Filipino immigrant background and being the eldest of three boys, I had certain pressures from my parents to be their idea of ‘successful.’ They wanted me to finish college and start a career as a nurse.” He has attracted more than 4.4 million YouTube subscribers and over 4.4 million Instagram followers. He won the award for Beauty at the 2017 Streamy Awards. He founded the vegan makeup brand, ONE/SIZE. “The public will see a bald Filipino man in L'Oréal, Covergirl, MAC and Benefit cosmetic campaigns -- and to think that's me! The beauty industry hasn't always been inclusive. People of different complexions and sizes were missing in casting and campaigns. But with the power of social media, that's changed.”

Nicole Ponseca, Restaurateur and Filipino Food Advocate

A former advertising account executive, Ponseca started Jeepney and the recently closed Maharlika restaurants in New York’s East Village, upset by the underrepresentation of Filipino cuisine in the city. In an interview with Huffpost, Ponseca says, “I’m an Indiana Jones for Filipino cuisine. Going back to the Philippines, I’ve hitchhiked, I’ve motorcycled, I’ve donned a hijab and gone to the autonomous region of Muslim Philippines.” In 2018, she launched the cookbook, I Am a Filipino: And This is How We Cook, with chef Miguel Trinidad. The book earned her a 2019 James Beard nomination. In an interview with Rachel Ray, Ponseca said, “My mission was to get rid of my shame in certain traditions and give them a public spotlight. I was ashamed of kamayan growing up so I was like, ‘We’re going to do kamayan. We’re going to put a banana leaf, make it look like a luau.’ We do mounds of rice. I just put it on social media and then, just like Maharlika, by the third week it became a three-month wait for a reservation.” She adds, “Filipino food is like music. We eat symphonically. We don’t eat one dish; we eat in pairs. Each dish represents the strings, the horns, the percussion. When we eat it in unison, the music is so rich.”

Tobit Raphael Lorenzo Guevara Capati, Actor and Filmmaker

Tobit Raphael Lorenzo Guevara Capati is the son of two Filipino immigrants from Pampanga. Capati attended UCLA’s School of Theater, Film, & Television before joining the cast of The Internship where he was mentored in improv comedy by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. The young actor also starred alongside fellow Filipino actor Lou Diamond Phillips in Quest: The Truth Always Rises.

Lorna G. Schofield, District Judge, New York

Lorna G. Schofield (Source: indiana.edu)

Schofield grew up in New Haven, Indiana and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University. She received her Juris Doctor from the New York University School of Law. From 1981 to 1984, she was an associate at the law firm of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. From 1984 to 1988, she served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, prosecuting domestic terrorism, smuggling and tax fraud. She became an associate at the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York City in 1988 and was promoted to partner in 1991. She specialized in complex civil litigation and white collar criminal defense. In addition, she has been heavily involved with the American Bar Association, holding a number of leadership positions, including Chair of the Section on Litigation. In 2012, President Obama nominated Schofield to serve as a United States district judge for the Southern District of New York. She is the first Filipino American in the history of the United States to serve as an Article III federal judge.

Kalaya’an Mendoza, Human Rights Defender and Activist

Kalaya’an Mendoza has been a life-long activist whose work has centered around nonviolent direct action, community organizing and grassroots mobilization. As a Queer Filipin@ with a disability, he firmly believes that in order to make true sustainable social change we must listen closely and work intentionally with oppressed communities to build power from the ground up. He is based in NYC and most recently served as Amnesty International USA’s Field Director. His background in activism is rooted in strategic nonviolent direct action organizing. In an Inquirer.net interview, Mendoza said, “Growing up Brown in this country meant that you had to resist or assimilate. I tried the latter for the longest time and found that no matter how hard I tried to be an American, I would always be seen as the perpetual foreigner. No matter how much I bleached my hair or wore blue contacts or rubbed my skin with Eskinol, I would never be what people think of as an ‘American.’” He is currently the Director of U.S. Nonviolent Peaceforce where he shares skills and tools utilized by human rights defenders around the world to keep their communities safe from violence through the “We Keep Us Safe: A Mutual Protection and Community Safety Workshop and Situational Awareness Training.”

Giselle Töngi-Walters, Actor and Executive Director of FilAm Arts

Töngi was recently named Executive Director of the Association for the Advancement of Filipino American Arts and Culture, or “FilAm Arts,” an organization that brings people and communities together through arts and culture, partnerships and collaborations, for presentation, representation and education. Active in the entertainment industry for more than two decades, Töngi is recognized for her acting, writing, and producing skills. Past work includes Pinoy Grease, Pinoy Tango and The Balikbayan Project: With the Bascos, a 13-part travel series about a second generation Fil-Am family’s experience in the Philippines. She was also the host and producer of Kababayan Today, a daily talk show aired in Los Angeles. A graduate of University of California, Los Angeles, she completed her master’s degree in Nonprofit Management from Antioch University.

The Magazine

Fil-Ams Among The Remarkable And Famous, Part 20