What is Filipino American History Month?

Every October, Filipino Americans across the country celebrate Filipino American History Month. It’s also DIWA’s birthday month. Our first event, on October 10, 2025, brought more than 100 people through three rooms at The Hoxton in downtown Portland.

If you’re new to FAHM, welcome. Here’s what it is, why it’s in October, and how to take part.

What is Filipino American History Month?

Filipino American History Month, or FAHM, happens every October in the United States. It honors the history of Filipinos in America and the people who made it, from galleon sailors to nurses, farmworkers, and Navy stewards to the artists and organizers working today.

Why October?

There are two reasons, a date and a person.

The date is October 18, 1587. A Spanish galleon, the Nuestra Señora de Buena Esperanza, anchored at what’s now Morro Bay, California. In the landing party were “Luzones Indios,” Filipino sailors from the Manila–Acapulco galleon trade. It’s the earliest recorded landing of Filipinos on the continental United States, 33 years before the Mayflower reached Plymouth.

The person is Larry Itliong. He was the labor organizer who led Filipino farmworkers out of the vineyards in the 1965 Delano grape strike, a strike that’s usually remembered as Cesar Chavez’s. Itliong was born on October 25, 1913, and California now marks October 25 as Larry Itliong Day. If you learned about the grape strike and never heard his name, that’s exactly why this month exists.

How it became official

The Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), founded in Seattle by Dorothy and Fred Cordova, proposed the month in 1991. The first one was celebrated in October 1992. California added it to its state calendar in 2006, and in 2009 Congress recognized it nationally with House Resolution 780 and Senate Resolution 298.

The 2026 theme

Every year, FANHS picks a theme. This year’s is “Beyond the Margins: Centering Intersectional Filipino American Histories.”

When I read that, I thought: well, that’s DIWA’s whole reason for existing. Most of us are never just one thing. I’m Filipino and American and queer. I’m a third culture kid who’s called Lubao, Dededo, Copperopolis, Fort Walton Beach, Las Vegas, and now Portland home. The stories that happen in those overlaps rarely make the history books, and they’re the ones I most want to tell.

Filipinos in Oregon

Before I moved here, friends and family kept asking me the same thing: “Are there even Filipino people in Portland?”

There are, and there have been for a long time. In 1693, the Santo Cristo de Burgos, a Manila galleon with Filipino sailors among its crew, wrecked near Nehalem on the Oregon coast. And by the 1760s, Filipino sailors had built St. Malo, a fishing village of stilt homes in the Louisiana bayous.

Today, there are 4.6 million Filipino Americans nationwide, and roughly 42,000 of us call the Portland metro home. Read the full history of Filipinos in Portland and Oregon.

This year in Portland

FAHM 2026 runs October 1–31. In Portland, there’s FAHM Night at Sun Rice on October 24, DIWA’s screening of Filipiñana on October 25, and a comedy night at PAMANA on October 30. See the full FAHM 2026 Portland guide.

Ways to mark FAHM, any year

Wear your barong or Filipiniana. Wear it to work one day this month. Someone will ask about it, and then you’ll have a story to tell. (If you don’t own one yet, that’s what a gift to yourself is for.)

Ask an elder for a story. This is the one I’d push hardest. My grandmother told me stories my whole childhood, and I didn’t write enough of them down. Now my Mom’s memory is fading, and I wish I’d asked her more while she still remembered. Call someone this week. Ask how they got here, what they wore to their first job, what they miss. Record it if they’ll let you.

Learn the history. FANHS has chapters across the country and resources for FAHM. Start with the Filipino American National Historical Society.