PinoyBuilt — Stories of Filipino America

Vallejo, California • March 2026. Mel Orpilla: Historian, Martial Artist, and Keeper of Vallejo's Filipino Memory. mel orpilla, vallejo filipino history, filipinos in vallejo, balintawak arnis, island warrior fighting sticks, manong generation, mare island naval shipyard, fil-am history, ifugao, ilocano heritage, pamana, filipino american history month. Vallejo, CA • Filipino American History Month 2026 Marks of the Ancestors: Mel Orpilla and the Filipino Story of Vallejo Historian, martial artist, and cultural keeper Mel Orpilla has spent decades ensuring that the Filipino presence in Vallejo—one of the oldest in Northern California—is documented, honored, and passed on. Mel Orpilla — historian, Balintawak Arnis master, and keeper of Vallejo's Filipino memory. 📍 Vallejo, California In the city of Vallejo, history lives in unexpected places. It lives in faded photographs tucked into family albums, in stor...

Los Angeles, California • 1991. MAHARLIKA: GENESIS Chapter 1: What Is My Truth?. Filipino American fiction, poker, identity, decolonization, post-Marcos diaspora, Vermont Avenue Los Angeles. FICTION • MAHARLIKA: GENESIS • CHAPTER 1 What Is My Truth? Los Angeles, 1991. He can read every man at the table — the surgeon, the dealer, the kid with the gold chain. The one face he can't read is his own. MAHARLIKA: GENESIS — a Fil-Am who can read every man at a 1991 LA poker table except himself. MAHARLIKA: GENESIS is the novel I've been carrying for years — a mystery about a man who can read everyone except himself, set in the Filipino diaspora of 1991 Los Angeles, in the shadow of a dictatorship we were still learning how to talk about. I'm serializing it here, chapter by chapter, the same way I've tried to write down everything else that matters on this site: for my kids, and for anyone else still asking the same question Miguel is...

Wanting to Reconnect with your Culture? This Innovative Filipino Martial Arts Program Can Fill the Void. Written by Joseph Bautista: Did you grow up as a second or third generation Filipino-American in the United States? If so, have you experienced being embarrassed for not knowing how to speak Filipino or not being familiar with Filipino culture or history? You are not alone. In the San Francisco Bay Area , a new program is coming to Daly City to help you overcome that.  Eskabo Daan Filipino Martial Arts  has developed a program to help fellow Filipino-Americans learn about Filipino culture and have fun while doing so. Classes will teach participants how to translate: Weapons fighting to empty hand fighting English to Tagalog Tagalog to Baybayin The program is designed to expose all participants to self-defense techniques, fitness, history, culture, language, writing and more through Filipino Martial Arts . Filipino Martial Arts, more popularly known...