The story behind DIWA

What Does Diwa Mean? About DIWA Magazine and Our Logo

People ask me what DIWA means almost every time I hand someone a card or talk about what I’m working on. Fair question. Here’s the short answer to all three versions of it.

/di • wa/

tagalog word
light, thought, essence, spirit, soul, consciousness, life, life-giving

borrowed from the sanskirt word jiva or (जीव)
living being, life force, to breathe, to live, gift from god, power of the feminine

What does DIWA mean?

It’s one of those words English needs a few tries to translate. Filipinos say diwa ng Pasko for the spirit of Christmas. If you ask for the diwa of a story, you’re asking for its heart, the thing it’s really about.

A few words grow from the same root:

  • Kadiwa: someone who shares your spirit or way of thinking. A kindred soul.

  • Pandiwa: a verb, the word in a sentence that gives it life.

The word itself traveled a long way to reach us. It comes from the Malay jiwa, which comes from the Sanskrit jīva, meaning life.

What is DIWA Magazine?

DIWA Magazine is the cultural journal of Filipino America. We tell Filipino American stories through fashion, history, and culture, and we bring people together at events in Portland, Oregon.

DIWA started with one event: an exhibition of fashion photography and Filipino food at The Hoxton in Portland during Filipino American History Month 2025. More than 100 people came. It turned out a lot of us wanted the same thing, a place where our stories get told well and kept.

Here’s what DIWA looks like now:

  • A collectible bookazine, twice a year. Each chapter comes out in April or October and traces a part of Filipino history through today’s lens. Chapter I, Islas de los Pintados, arrives in April 2027.

  • Mini zines and events in between. Screenings, exhibitions, cookouts, and gatherings, mostly in Portland for now.

  • Read. Stories on diwamag.co about Filipino dress, history, food, and the people who make up our community.

I’m Kyle Beltran, DIWA’s founder. I grew up in Lubao, Pampanga, spent most of my career in luxury fashion, and now live in Portland with my husband and my family.

What does the DIWA logo mean?

The DIWA logo shows the mano po**, a Filipino gesture of respect where a child takes an elder’s hand and presses it to their forehead to ask for a blessing.**

Most Filipino kids learn it before they can say much else. You walk into a room, find the oldest person there, and reach for their hand. In my family in Pampanga, I’d say “siklod ku pu.”

To me, the gesture means reverence for our elders and their stories, and for where we came from. That’s why it’s on everything we make.

And the name? Diwa was my great-grandmother’s name. My grandmother used to tell me stories about her, Braulia Diwa, when I was little. I only started asking real questions about her after I moved to Portland, the farthest I’d ever lived from my family. When my Mom was diagnosed with dementia and my grandmother had late-stage Alzheimer’s, I realized how many of those stories I could lose. DIWA is my way of keeping them, and making room for yours.

Read the full story

The longer version of how DIWA started is in our founding story. Or start reading in Read.