Filipinos have been in the United States since the 16th century, yet many of their stories remain untold. For the past year, 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.

Pablo S. Torre, Sportswriter and ESPN Host

Torre is a sportswriter and began hosting ESPN Daily in 2020. His father is a urologist and his mother is a dermatologist. Torre graduated from Harvard College magna cum laude with highest honors in sociology in 2007 and was inducted to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. There, he wrote a 114-page thesis entitled Sympathy for the Devil? Child Homicide, Victim Characteristics, and the Sentencing Preferences of the American Conscience, which won the Albert M. Fulton Prize for best thesis in the field of sociology. He contributed to the college newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and became an executive editor. Upon graduating from Harvard, Torre joined Sports Illustrated as a staff writer, where his beats included sports investigations, boxing, and basketball. His 2009 award-winning article, "How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke," along with two follow-up reports, spurred an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of the investment firm Triton Financial for defrauding investors in a multimillion-dollar scam. A federal jury would later find Triton's CEO Kurt Barton guilty of criminal charges. Broke, an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, prominently featured Torre, and was based on his research. On October 10, 2012, Torre joined ESPN as a senior writer for both its website and magazine. In 2016, Torre produced his first 30 for 30 entitled Friedman's Shoes, which was directed by Danny Lee. In 2020, Torre began hosting the ESPN Daily podcast.

R'Bonney Gabriel, Beauty Queen

Miss USA R’Bonney Gabriel (Source: EOnline! Photo by Finesse Levine)

Filipino American Gabriel was crowned Miss USA 2022 on October 4 besting 49 other candidates. In July, she became the first Filipino American to win the title, Miss Texas USA. The 28-year-old is from Houston, Texas. She is also a model and owns her own fashion label R’Bonney Nola. In an interview with ABC News, she said, “I’m a very proud Filipina Texan.” She would like to share her multicultural background as an inspiration for others to be confident in their identities. "Oh my God, it's an honor," Gabriel told Houston Life following her win. "I'm getting messages on Instagram and just social media of Filipina girls and women telling me they're so excited, they're so happy….They're crying tears of joy because they are inspired to go after pageantry or something," she added. "Like I'm paving the way for them to just go after whatever they want no matter what it is. So it's an honor."

Richard Lee Buangan, U.S. Ambassador

Ambassador Richard Buangan (Source: Wikipedia)

Last August, Buangan, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service was confirmed by the Senate as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Mongolia. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Saint Edward’s University, Austin, Texas. He is the recipient of multiple performance awards from the State Department. He speaks Mandarin Chinese, French, and Spanish. Buangan previously served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Global Public Affairs at the State Department. Prior to that, Buangan served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and as the Executive Assistant to the Secretary of State. Earlier in his career, Buangan was assigned as Managing Director for International Media in the Bureau of Public Affairs, as the Public Affairs Officer of the then-U.S. Consulate General, Jerusalem, and as Deputy Press Attaché and then as Embassy Spokesperson of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China. Ambassador Buangan also served as a staff officer in the Executive Secretariat of the Department of State, and held overseas assignments in Paris, France and Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. He was born and raised in a Filipino American family in San Diego.

Justine Wong-Orantes, Volleyball Gold Medalist

JusTine Wong-Orantes (Source: Nebraska Athletics)

Wong-Orantes is a gold medalist at both the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the Volleyball Nations League in Rimini. She is of Filipino Chinese descent on her mother's side and of Mexican descent on her father's side. Both of her parents, Winnie Wong and Robert Orantes, were volleyball players. Her father also coached the Mizuno Long Beach volleyball club. At 12 years old, she was already on the cover of Volleyball magazine after winning a tournament. Due to her being considered undersized at 5'6", she was not heavily recruited coming out of high school by top volleyball schools. It wasn't until she was attending a high school club tournament, when the head coach got tired of so many balls dropping easily and asked her to put on a libero jersey. Nebraska head coach John Cook happened to be at the tournament and watched her play in her first-ever match as libero. He saw potential in her, invited her for a visit to campus, where she eventually committed to play and won several accolades including AVCA First Team All-American in 2016, Third Team All-American in 2015. She was a two time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year in 2015 and 2016, and finished her career as Nebraska's all-time career digs leader with 1,890. She helped her team win the 2015 NCAA national championship. She played for the United States national team since 2017, winning the Pan American gold medal, and the bronze medal at the 2017 FIVB Volleyball World Grand Prix. In May 2021, she was named to the 18-player roster for the FIVB Volleyball Nations League tournament that was played in Rimini, Italy. It was the only major international competition before the Tokyo Olympics in July. She was named the best libero of the tournament after helping Team USA win its third straight gold medal. On June 7, 2021, US National Team head coach Karch Kiraly announced she would be part of the 12-player Olympic roster for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. In her Olympic debut, Wong-Orantes led the Olympics in serve reception percentage, on the way to helping the USA capture its first-ever gold medal. For her efforts, she was named the best Libero of the Olympics.

Dr. Katherine M. Napalinga, President, Philippine Psychiatrists in America

Dr. Katherine M. Napalinga (Source: Youtube)

Napalinga practices child and adolescent psychiatry in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She received her medical degree from the University of the Philippines and has been in practice for more than 20 years in dealing with autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and mood disorders. She currently works at the Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia. From 2006-2008, she was a fellow at the Drexel University College of Medicine and Hahnemann University. She also had teaching appointments at the Einstein Medical Center, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and the Sidney Kimmel Medical College. Napalinga is the current president of the Philippine Psychiatrists in America. Her most recent publication is “Correlates of Periodic Limb Movements of Sleep in the Pediatric Population.”

Anthony Huxley, Ballet Dancer

Anthony Huxley (Source: *New York Times)*

Huxley was born in Walnut Creek, California, and trained at San Francisco Ballet School and the Contra Costa Ballet School before attending SAB’s five-week Summer Courses in 2002 and 2003. He enrolled as a full-time student in the fall of 2003 and was awarded SAB’s Mae L. Wien Award for Outstanding Promise in June 2006. He performed the virtuoso principal male role in George Balanchine’s Square Dance as part of the school’s 2006 annual Workshop Performances and later that year he was asked to become an apprentice with New York City Ballet. He joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in July 2007, was promoted to the rank of soloist in July 2011, and was named a principal dancer in June 2015. He served as a SAB Teaching Fellow for the 2016-17 Winter Term and was a regular guest teacher at SAB for the 2017-18 winter and summer training programs. He joined the school’s permanent faculty in September 2018 while continuing his performing career with New York City Ballet. Some of his repertoire numbers include principal roles in Balanchine’s Ballo della Regina, Coppélia, Divertimento from ‘Le Baiser de la Fée’, Duo Concertant, Jewels (“Emeralds” and “Rubies”), The Four Temperaments, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Prodigal Son, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Peter Martins’s Romeo + Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and Fearful Symmetries. In an interview with Dance magazine, Huxley shares a classic Filipino dessert recipe, Food for the Gods, that originally came from Huxley’s grandmother and namesake, Antoinette Osmeña and has been a staple in his family gatherings. “My uncle made it once and forgot to add the flour. It was a disaster, but Food for the Gods is so good, we still ended up enjoying it….This recipe substitutes half of the sugar with molasses, which gives it a deeper flavor,” says Huxley. “Connecting over Food for the Gods, and really any Filipino food, brings our whole family closer together,” he added.

Benjamin Pimentel, Journalist and Author

Pimentel is a senior reporter at Protocol, which covers enterprise technology and Silicon Valley. He has also worked as a senior technology reporter at Business Insider, head of content and communications at BlueVine, and a writer at NerdWallet. Pimentel has also worked as a senior content strategist and user experience lead at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and as a public relations manager and writer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He began his career as a technology reporter at MarketWatch and the Wall Street Journal Digital Network. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He covers the major players in enterprise tech and the data center and cloud computing markets, including Oracle, Intel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Cisco and Nvidia. He has authored UG, An Underground Tale: The Journey of Edgar Jopson and the First Quarter Storm Generation, Rebolusyon: A Generation of Struggle in the Philippines and How My Sons Lost Their Tagalog. Pimentel has a master's in Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. He has a BA in Political Science from the University of the Philippines. He attended high school at Ateneo de Manila University. He also has a certification in GDPR from LinkedIn Learning.

Ben Gaetos, Ultramarathon Runner

Ben Gaetos (Photo courtesy of Ben Gaetos)

Based in Los Angeles, he is a B.S. Architecture graduate of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. He retired as an architect-project manager for the City of Los Angeles - Department of Recreation and Parks. Growing up in Santa Ana, Manila, he dreamed of being a runner, and imagined running around the Santa Ana Hippodrome. However, his interest in running vanished as basketball has always been the Philippines’ primary sport. When he immigrated to the U.S. in 1984, his passion for running was rejuvenated. And he went above and beyond the finish line—he became an ultramarathon runner. An ultramarathon is any footrace longer than the traditional marathon distance of 42.195 kilometers (26.2 miles). Gaetos participated in the Bataan Death March 160 km Ultramarathon, which is the Philippines’ premier road ultramarathon. It traces the historic route where the Filipino and American soldiers marched during World War II from Mariveles, Bataan, to Capas, Tarlac. Also, he hurdled the Badwater 135 Miles Ultramarathon. Known to many as the world’s toughest footrace, it is held at the hottest time of the year with the temperature ranging from 120F to 134F. It starts at the lowest point of the U.S. in the town of Badwater in Death Valley, California, which is 282 feet below sea level. The race finishes at Mt. Whitney Portal, which is 8,360 feet above sea level. Whitney Portal is the gateway to Mt. Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous U.S. at 14, 506 feet above sea level. Gaetos was one of the 100 extreme-endurance athletes worldwide who were invited in 2013. He was the first representative from the Philippines since the inception of the race in 1977. He finished the race in 44 hours, 8 minutes, and 7 seconds. Gaetos has written the following books: I Dreamed, I Ran, I Conquered: A Filipino Ultrarunner vs. Badwater 135 Miles and Dream: Great Things Are Coming Again. (Submitted by Rey de la Cruz)

Rembrandt Flores, Hollywood PR

Rembrandt Flores (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Flores is the co-founder of Entertainment Fusion Group (EFG), a full-service entertainment marketing and communications agency. He grew up in Almaden Valley and Los Gatos, California with his Filipino parents. He often acts as ambassador between Hollywood and Manila, helping people and businesses thrive. His career started as part of the Abrams Artist Agency and later on he joined E! Entertainment Television. He has also become an adviser and investor to start-up direct-to-consumer brands. EFG’s clients include Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, LG, Tanqueray, Johnny Walker to name a few and celebrities from Prince to Zendaya, Penelope Cruz and Channing Tatum. Despite all the glitz, Flores says he is most proud of work he has done for charity like the Unlikely Heroes and The Art of Elysium. His advice to fellow Filipinos trying to break into a western dominated culture: “No matter what anyone tells you, don’t listen to the naysayers; if you have that God-given talent and you have that drive, then you WILL make it. If I can make it, trust me, you can too.”

Carina Evangelista, Artist and Curator

Originally from the Philippines, Evangelista is Oklahoma Contemporary’s recent director of curatorial affairs who “drives the intellectual aspects of contemporary art using her experiences at MoMA, the Sol Lewitt Estate, and Chuck Close to frame, preserve and disrupt what we know about art.” She immigrated to New York in 1993 right out of college at the University of the Philippines where she majored in humanities, and returned to the Philippines in 2004 as an Asian Cultural Council fellow to research Philippine contemporary art. She earned her graduate studies in art history with focus on contemporary art at CUNY. She has written on contemporary Filipino artists and curated numerous exhibitions and catalogues at the Museum of Modern Art. Evangelista was formerly editor at Artifex Press. Her creative passions include writing the libretto for the musical, Manhid, exhibiting as a visual artist in 2017 in Process/Meaning, and participating as artist and writer in Walang Kikilos! at the National Commission for Culture and Art in 2017.

Elton Lugay, Independent Journalist

Lugay is a Filipino American journalist and the founder of TOFA (The Outstanding Filipino Americans) project that started in 2011 in New York. Every year, outstanding Filipino Americans are recognized for their importance and their work. The awards honor Filipino Americans that have championed a better future in America’s culture, politics, entertainment, education, and media. “I wanted to give outstanding Filipino Americans a platform to showcase their achievements and celebrate their success stories in America. Not only would it help raise the profile of Filipinos in America, the youth could also have good reference points for success in any field,” Lugay said in an interview with AsAmNews.com. Lugay also founded the Miss Gorg beauty pageant to recognize the accomplishment of people who face discrimination for identifying as the opposite of their assigned gender at birth. “That is their truth,” he said. “We should not have a problem respecting them for being who they are.”

Source: Google and Wikipedia

The Magazine

Fil-Ams Among The Remarkable And Famous, Part 39