APAA (Asian/Pacific Islander/American Association of Greater Rochester)

10/11/2026

10/10/2026

10/10/2026

NAPCA mourns the passing of former U.S. Representative Patricia “Pat” Saiki, who served on NAPCA’s Board of Directors from 2005 to 2015 and as Board Chair from 2011 to 2015. Through Saiki's tremendous political career spanning the halls of the Hawai’i State House, Congress, and the Small Business Administration under President George H.W. Bush, the impact of her leadership is undeniable.

NAPCA is grateful for her years of leadership as a Board member and her dedication to the elders and communities we serve. We pay tribute and honor her legacy.

10/07/2026

TERRAFLY, by K.S. Radhakrishnan, a gift from Dogra Art Foundation. Please join us for the unveiling in Pittsford NY on Oct 10th, 2026. - https://mailchi.mp/dograartfoundation.com/terrafly-13913613

10/06/2026

10/05/2026

Beautiful event!

10/02/2026

October 1 marks the start of Filipino American History Month.

The month was chosen to honor a much older date: October 18, 1587, when Filipino sailors, recorded by the Spanish as “Luzones Indios,” came ashore from the galleon Nuestra Señora de Esperanza at what is now Morro Bay, California. It’s the first documented arrival of Filipinos in the continental United States, more than 30 years before the Mayflower reached Plymouth.

Generations later, some of those sailors’ descendants put down permanent roots. Possibly as early as the 1760s, Filipino sailors who escaped the Manila galleon trade settled in the Louisiana bayou, founding Saint Malo, likely the first permanent Filipino settlement, and possibly the first Asian American settlement of any kind, in the United States. A larger community, Manila Village, grew nearby in Barataria Bay, becoming the center of Louisiana’s Filipino shrimp-drying industry until a hurricane destroyed it in 1965. Saint Malo itself was lost to a hurricane fifty years earlier, in 1915.

That early story is just the beginning. Filipino farmworkers helped lead the labor movement that became the United Farm Workers. Filipino nurses and healthcare workers have long made up one of the largest immigrant workforces in American hospitals. Filipino veterans served and sacrificed in WWII, often without the recognition or benefits promised to them. And generations of community leaders have built organizations, like the Filipino American National Historical Society itself, to make sure this history doesn’t disappear.

FANHS chose October to honor the 1587 landing when it proclaimed the first Filipino American History Month in 1991. Congress made it official nationwide in 2009.

Filipino Americans are now the third-largest Asian American group in the country, trailing Chinese and Asian Indian Americans. Their story in America is nearly 300 years older than the country itself.

10/01/2026