News Release
October 13, 2011 

Assemblywoman Fiona Ma
California Speaker Pro Tempore 
12th Assembly District 

California Assembly Bill 199 will help ensure that the contributions of Filipino veterans who fought side by side American troops are properly recognized and remembered by future generations.

Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco and San Mateo Counties), announces the signing of Assembly Bill 199 this Friday October 14, 2011 at Bessie Carmichael Middle School in San Francisco. Bessie Carmichael, whose school population is 50% Filipino, sits in the SOMA district of San Francisco, home to many Filipino WWII Veterans. When this bill was originally introduced in 2004, 98 Filipino WWII veterans were still alive to tell their stories. Today, there are only 17 veterans still alive. Two previous versions of this bill were vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger.

AB 199, the Filipinos in WWII Social Studies Curriculum Act, is the first step toward ensuring that social science instruction in grades 7-12 includes the significant role of Filipinos in World War II. This bill helps ensure that our children and future generations learn of the contributions and sacrifice of these brave Filipino soldiers before we lose them in history. During World War II, the Philippines was a commonwealth of the United States. Filipino soldiers in the US Armed Forces were in effect US nationals, who fought side by side with American Troops.

The 2011 – 2012 Mu Performing Arts 20th Anniversary mainstage season lineup kicks off on October 15 at Mixed Blood Theatre with the world premiere of Four Destinies, directed by Suzy Messerole. The play by local playwright Katie Hae Leo is a satirical exploration of adoption through the eyes of Destiny Jones, a single character represented from four different ethnic backgrounds, as she/he grows up in a Minnesota family. Leo, herself a Korean adoptee, presents herself as a character determined to embody the overarching adoptee experience, both in youth and adulthood. Four Destinies has been in development for the past two years through Mu’s Jerome New Performance Program, a platform for emerging Asian American theater voices to create and present edgy new work.

Mu Performing Arts Artistic director Rick Shiomi invited me to Minneapolis, providing me with an all-access pass to the production during rehearsals.

It is the opening night of performance of Katie Hae Leo’s Four Destinies, helmed by Suzy Messerole and presented by Mu Performing Arts, the second largest Asian American Theater Company in the U.S, and the lobby of Mixed Blood Theatre in Minneapolis is abuzz with excitement.

Reme Grefalda, curator of the Asian American Pacific Islander Collection located in the Asian Division of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and I flew in to photograph the cast in rehearsal for my Library of Congress collection, the Lia Chang Theater Photography Portfolio/AAPI Collection in the Asian Division at the Library of Congress, and to celebrate opening night.