Maligayang Bati, Tita Lila! A 2006 Pasadena family photo, and the Maui trip where she gave PinoyBuilt its name.
Maligayang Bati, Tita Lila! HBD — The Tita Who Named PinoyBuilt
Luz Perseveranda turns 71 today. Fifteen years ago, on a family trip to Maui, she's the reason this site is called PinoyBuilt at all.
Every family has a photo like this one. Nobody remembers arranging it — it just happened, the way it always happened on the annual Spring Break trip down to Pasadena, everybody squeezed in before somebody's stomach started growling for the drive home. Three titas in the back. Two kids up front who had no idea they'd be adults reading this one day. And a tripod, because somebody has to hold the camera and it might as well be the guy who never sits still.
Today it's Tita Lila's day. Luz Perseveranda — my dad's sister, one of three titas who built the Southern California branch of this family — turns 71. And if you've ever wondered where the word "PinoyBuilt" came from, she's the answer.
This site's name was literally her idea. On a March 2011 family trip to Maui, I went looking for "Filipino Strength" apparel and came up empty — a shop called Maui Built pointed the way. Tita Lila shortened the concept to one word: PinoyBuilt. The domain went live weeks later, on March 28, 2011.
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Kaarawan — kah-ah-RAH-wan
Birthday. Built from araw, the same root word Filipinos use for "day" and for the sun itself — a fitting word for the tita who put the name on this whole archive.
Three Titas, One SoCal Anchor
Tita Gigi, Tita Nene, and Tita Lila — my dad's three sisters — have been a fixed point for this family in Southern California for as long as I can remember. Growing up between Marikina and later finding my footing in the U.S., Pasadena was always the place you could count on: a couch to sleep on, a table that was always set for one more, and titas who treated every visit like an occasion. In the fall of 1988, I moved in with all three of Glendale, CA (before I eventually moved back to Chicago).
The Trip That Named This Site
Fast-forward to March 2011. Tess, the kids, Tita Gigi, Tita Lila and I were on a family vacation in Maui, and I was hunting for "Filipino Strength" apparel — the same pride-of-heritage idea I'd first seen on a T-shirt in Honolulu back in 1985. We couldn't find any. What we found instead was a local shop called Maui Built, and something clicked. I started talking about a "Filipino Built" concept. Tita Lila, shortened it back in our hotel: PinoyBuilt. Soon after, I registered the domain. Fifteen years, one apparel idea, and one full-blown digital archive later, her one-word edit is still the name on the masthead.
So — Maligayang Bati, Tita Lila. Happy 71st. Thank you for the couch in Pasadena, the lunches at Fu Shing, and the name.
- Celebrating Tita Nene & Tito Jun's Wedding, Pasadena
- Maligayang Bati Lualhati! (Mom Nati's Birthday)
- Maligayang Bati Missy! HBD
- PinoyBuilt domain registration record — March 28, 2011
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J.F. (Jonjo) left the Philippines at age nine, spending a lifetime bridging the gap between his Marikina roots and his Chicago/Vallejo upbringing. A proud Hogan Spartan from East Vallejo and resident of LA/SF, he founded PinoyBuilt not just as a digital archive, but as a cultural compass for his three children to navigate their heritage, language, and identity with Pinoy Pride.
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