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.

Roland Navarro de Ros, Technology Founder

Roland Navarro de Ros (Source: Tatler Asia)

Roland Ros is the founder of KumuMedia Technologies, a livestream technology company for over 10+ million GenZ and Millennial Filipinos. Like many second-generation immigrants curious about their roots, Ros took Asian American Studies at UC Santa Barbara and studied as an Executive Scholar at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. Since its launch in 2018, Kumu has reached the #1 Grossing Social App in the Philippines. It has also cracked the Top 10 in Canada, Hong Kong, Kuwait, UK and Norway, as well as Top 20 in several other markets like the United States, Saudi Arabia, Italy, and Australia. Ros also serves as an investor and advisor for several start-ups and is passionate about helping others. Prior to KumuMedia Technologies, Ros was vice president of Spark Revenue, an Inc. 500-listed performance marketing and growth acquisition platform. Kumu’s success is not a surprise; after all, it has filled a gap in the market. “Like our colonial history, global social media platforms like Facebook and Tiktok come from a distinctly Western and Chinese context, respectively,” Ros points out. “What was missing in the realm of social media [was something for a] global people like the Filipino—a platform built by and for Filipinos.” To Ros then, Kumu’s possible unicorn status is not as important as the original mission of the social media platform: to bring Filipinos together. His business is worth over $1 billion after only four years. Ros serves as a trustee for the Ros Foundation.

Renee Macalino Rutledge, Author

Renee Macalino Rutledge (Source: Amazon)

Manila-born Macalino Rutledge was raised in California from the age of four. She received her Bachelor of Arts in English from UC Berkeley and Master of Fine Arts in English and Creative Writing from Mills College. She was selected as a 35 Over 35 debut author for her novel, The Hour of Daydreams, which won an Institute for Immigration Research New American Voices Finalist award, Foreword INDIES Gold, and Powell's Top Five Staff Pick. She is also the author of the children's books One Hundred Percent Me (May 2022) and Buckley the Highland Cow & Ralphy the Goat, with The ABCs of Asian American History releasing in 2023. Her articles on arts and culture, parenting, and lifestyle have appeared in Colorlines, Haute Living Magazine, Oakland and Alameda Magazine, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The East Bay Monthly, The Children’s Advocate, Parents’ Press, Red Tricycle, The FilAm, and others. Her reporting on issues facing Filipinos was nominated for a New America Media Award and New California Media Award by the editors of the now shuttered Filipinas Magazine. Of One Hundred Percent Me she said, “I wrote this book because I recognized the confusion that children experience when asked questions like, ‘What are you?’ or ‘Where do you come from?,’ questions that I myself and my kids grew up hearing.” In an interview with Powells.com, she adds, “I hope children come away with a sense of glowing positivity, seeing themselves represented and having one more tool to remember they too can write their own stories, whether that’s on paper or in any other form they wish to project their agency in this world. I hope adults come away remembering the wisdom of the child, one in which identity can’t be placed in neat fractions and those ever-important questions, such as ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ don’t need to be answered right now, because the answer is ever-evolving.”

Dr. Albert Gaw, Psychiatrist

Born in Lucena, Philippines and a graduate of the University of the East/Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center in 1964, Gaw is fluent in English, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Tagalog, and Spanish. His started his internship at the Rochester General Hospital and then became a resident in Psychiatry at the University of Rochester, N.Y. Further studies in Harvard Medical School earned him a Specialist in Community Mental Health. He has more than 58 years of experience in the medical field. Gaw was the Medical Director at the Department of Mental Health in San Francisco, at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center and at The Asian Community Mental Health Service in Oakland until it closed in 2019, where he diagnosed and treated mental illness such as depression, anxiety, OCD, eating disorders, bipolar disorders, personality disorders, insomnia, ADD and other illness. He also taught Psychiatry at University of Rochester, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, University of Massachusetts and University of California, San Francisco. He is currently at the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco where he does research in Psychiatry. His most recent publication is “Religious Belief at the Level of the Brain: Neural Correlates and Influence of Culture” in 2019.

Doy Fernandez Charnsupharindr, Lecturer and Executive Coach

Doy Fernandez Charnsupharindr (Source: SouthBayMT.org)

Doy Charnsupharindr, whose mother is Filipino and whose father is Thai, is the CEO of the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute. He is a lecturer at UC Davis Graduate School of Management and UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School, teaching MBA-level courses focusing on developing leadership, communications, and coaching skills. He teaches High Impact Leadership courses at Berkeley Executive Education at UC Berkeley and has been a guest lecturer at the Berlin School for Creative Leadership (Germany) and Nanyang Business School (Singapore). He coaches and leads workshops for some of the largest corporations, as well as non-profit and governmental organizations worldwide. The clients he has worked with include Adobe, Caterpillar, Cisco, Facebook, Genentech, McKinsey, Moody’s, Novartis, Pixar, Salesforce, and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. Charnsupharindr has an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas Business School (2011) and a BA in Economics from Stanford University (2000). He’s a former musical director of Stanford’s Mixed Company a cappella and a winner of the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award (CARA). His love for the performing arts extended to other stages as an actor—from Shakespeare to Broadway musicals—and a dancer with Bay Area’s dance companies. Today, his goal as a coach and instructor is to be the catalyst for others to become authentic leaders, change agents, and inspirational communicators.

Rainier P. Soriano, M.D., Medical Educator

Dr. Rainer Soriano (Source: mountsinai.org)

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has appointed Rainier P. Soriano, MD, as Senior Associate Dean for Curricular Affairs in Medical Education. Addressing the problem of racism and bias will be front and center in redesigning the curriculum, says Soriano, noting that up until very recently it has been a sideline issue. Board certified in Geriatric Medicine, Soriano is a tenured professor in Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine and Medical Education at Icahn Mount Sinai. He has had a distinguished career as both an educator and a physician, twice receiving the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Institute for Medical Education (IME), in 2003 and 2009. Other distinctions include the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society and the Gold Humanism Award. Soriano came to the United States after receiving his medical degree from the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. He completed his residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine (Primary Care) at Englewood Hospital in Englewood, New Jersey. He joined The Mount Sinai Hospital for his Geriatrics fellowship, and also served as Chief Fellow. Soriano’s experience in medical education is extensive. He was the co-director of the Medicine-Geriatrics Clerkship from 1999-2006. He directed the Art & Science of Medicine Course from 2004-2014, has been co-director of the Curriculum and director of Education Technology for the last 10 years, and was promoted to associate dean of Curriculum and Clinical Competence in 2019. Soriano has directed the Medical Student Training in Aging Research Program at Icahn Mount Sinai, and recently received a five-year T35 grant from the National Institute on Aging, establishing it as one of eight National Training Centers for the program. He is the editor and co-author of the leading textbook in physical diagnosis, Bates’ Guide to Physical Examination and History Taking, and also served as the Associate Editor for Geriatrics for MedEdPORTAL: The Journal of Teaching and Learning Resources of the AAMC. “Medical school is hard. We can’t make it less hard, but we can design our curriculum to have built-in natural pauses for students to decompress, to reflect on their wellness, and to engage with faculty and other students if they need support,” says Dr. Soriano.

(Submitted by Allan Recto)

Nichi Avina, Teacher of the Year

Last May, Avina was named one of four teachers of the year by the Riverside County Board of education. She is a middle school science teacher at Cielo Vista Charter School and has had 15 years teaching experience in the Palm Springs Unified School District. She has spearheaded district-wide trauma training for students with social/emotional trauma histories, created a STEAM Lab (science, technology, engineering, art and math), established an art mentoring program, received multiple EcoRise environmental grants, and even re-developed the school’s garden. “I have been in parent meetings where I have watched her do her magic with students and parents and you really have to experience it,” said Palm Springs Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Sandra Lyon. “She is an amazing teacher, amazing educator and she is just an amazing human being.” Dr. Edwin Gomez, superintendent of schools for the county cited one example of Avina’s student-centered approach to teaching with the story of a student with multiple suspensions and behavior issues. “After discovering that this student’s mom has Stage 4 cancer with little hope of survival, Ms. Avina invested even more in the student and she had incredible success,” Gomez said. “The mom even wrote and said, ‘I thought my son had lost his smile forever until he met Ms. Avina, and now his smile is thankfully back.’” Avina moved to the United States from the Philippines when she was seven years old.

Maricel Pagulayan, Visual Effects Producer

Pagulayan was born and raised in the United States except for two years when she lived and went to high school at Maryknoll College in the Philippines. Her parents are from Tuguegarao and Laguna. She has been involved with many films, either as a visual effects producer, associate producer, producer or provider of production and technical support for films such as Godzilla: King of Monsters, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Mission: Impossible 5, The Smurfs 5, Avatar, Valkyrie, Superman Returns to name a few. She began her career in the visual effects on X2. Raja Gosnell, director of Smurfs, calls Pagulayan a “magician.” “Maricel’s job is not only to manage all the data because we have data leaving the editing room to go and be animated, data coming back and forth. And this goes over three or four different vendors. That also requires tracking how much money is being spent per shot and why is the shot delayed. So basically, she had to manage this massive budget and the immensely complicated portion of the movie when the film is winding down but certain shots aren’t done.” As a woman of color and an Asian working in a field dominated by men, Pagulayan commented in an interview, “It’s more about being acknowledged as being part of the key ‘core team,’ helping to keep all the moving parts moving in the same direction on a given project. Although admittedly most decision-makers are men, everyone has to earn the right.”

Yeek, Pop Artist

Filipino American Sebastian Carandang aka Yeek is a rapper and singer but prefers to be branded as a pop artist. He says his music lives in the world of pop, but sonically it draws inspiration from alternative music and rock. Complex said his debut album, “Love Slacker,” “washed in pastel hues and whimsical lo-fi soundscapes, Sebastian Carandang laid the foundations of his sound. Gravitating towards meandering guitars and sighing synths, each song channeled lazy summer days on Miami beach and the cool breezes of South Florida nights.” Aside from being a musician, Yeek also loves filmmaking. His directorial debut, h.a.w.a.i.i., is an “eight-minute venture into the labyrinth of his own mind: an artist’s keeper and liberator. “ When asked how he defines success, here is what he said: “I think that’s something you set for yourself. I feel like growing up, we were taught to view success in a specific way. It felt like it was defined for us, and we were supposed to tick the boxes of having a stable job, with a certain amount of income a year, and be homeowners in order to be successful. Those things might make some people feel full, but everybody’s different. It’s all about what feels right for your soul, whatever that may be. I feel like I’ve achieved a lot of the success I aspired to—and it wasn’t really much. I just wanted to be able to connect with people through my music and my art, and I feel like I’ve done that with so many people. It won’t ever stop. Being able to connect with people in the way that I connected with some of my favorite artists and continue that kind of work is such a blessing and something I’m so grateful for. That’s definitely success for me, and in that sense, I already have everything I need.”

Jerry Clarito, Community Leader and Activist

Jerry Clarito (Source: filammegascene.com)

Clarito graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business economics, majoring in accounting from Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila. He retired as the executive director of the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment (AFIRE). During his term from 2006 to 2016, he built AFIRE’s outreach, operational, and advocacy capacity to represent the interest of the Filipino American community in the struggle for social justice inside and outside of the Asian American community of Illinois. AFIRE can now organize and mobilize Filipino Americans in registering voters, leading GET OUT THE VOTE (GOTV) campaigns, winning legislation and executive orders benefitting aspiring immigrants, and engaging Filipino Americans to learn and act together in addressing the root causes of inequalities, racism, exclusion from workers’ rights, and systematic injustices. He developed AFIRE’S ability to offer concrete services and build the collective power of Filipino Americans. Clarito was the first Filipino American elected to the Skokie Park District Board Commissioner (Skokie, Illinois) in 2005 and was reelected in 2011. In 2014, he served as commissioner of the Illinois Asian American Employment Plan Advisory Council.

(Submitted by Rey de la Cruz)

Lauren Lola, Author

Lauren Lola is an author, a freelance writer, playwright, and screenwriter based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She graduated from California State University, East Bay where she earned her B.A. in Communication with a minor in Theatre. She is the author of the novels An Absolute Mind and A Moment’s Worth, as well as the upcoming graphic novel, Dasig. She has written plays that have been produced both virtually and in-person for theatre groups on the West Coast of the United States, and has penned the short films, Breath of Writing and Interview with an Aswang (which she also co-directed and produced). Her pilot Time and Time Again” was a semifinalist in Season 2 of the Your Script Produced! Worldwide Screenwriting Competition. Lola has also had writing featured in Mixed Asian Media (formerly known as Hapa Mag), The Nerds of Color, CAAMedia, PBS, YOMYOMF, and other outlets and publications. She works for the Center for Asian American Media. In an interview with Endpaper, The Paperblanks Blog, Lola says, “I think it’s important to inspire fellow writers and be part of a larger writing community. While it’s not necessarily an obligation, it feels wise to do so anyway, to provide an example for those who’re interested in pursuing the same path. How often do you come across people who have worlds inside their heads? It only seems right to stick together and share the passion.”

Source: Google and Wikipedia

The Magazine

Fil-Ams Among The Remarkable And Famous, Part 40