JFPerseveranda
J.F.R. Perseveranda
The Road to the 707
My journey mirrors the diaspora's path through California’s most iconic enclaves. My perspective was shaped across area codes—from the 312 (Chicago) to the 818 (Glendale), the 415 (San Francisco), and the 510 (Fremont)—before returning to the heart of the 707 (Vallejo).
PinoyBuilt was initially conceived as a "Filipino Strength" apparel brand, inspired by the rugged, community-first ethos of Maui Built. While the platform pivoted from merchandise to a digital archive, that core mission remains: documenting the grit and identity of a people built to last.
Professional Leadership
Before founding PinoyBuilt, I spent over 17 years at Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), advancing from System Administration to SCCM Product Manager. Managing enterprise infrastructure for one of the nation's largest utilities taught me that "system integrity" is just as vital to cultural archives as it is to the energy grid.
- Enterprise Operations: Led massive SCCM deployments and IT infrastructure strategy.
- Systems Engineering: Architected high-availability environments for critical utility services.
- Leadership: Managed cross-functional teams to ensure 24/7 reliability in enterprise IT.
The Foundation: Marikina
Before the 707, before Chicago, before anything — I was a kid in SSS Village, Marikina, playing chess at five and reading José Rizal, Andrés Bonifacio, and the Katipunan by 2nd grade. I wasn't consuming them as homework. I was copying them into notebooks, arguing with them in my head, idolizing them the way other kids idolized PBA players. By the time my family boarded a plane for Chicago in 1976, I was already fully Filipino — and already, without yet having the word for it, anti-authoritarian. Marcos was in power. The Katipunan's moral imagination was my counterweight. That compass has never moved.
Cultural Heritage: From Vallejo to Davis
A proud Hogan Senior High School graduate, Class of 1985. My Fil-Am community was rooted in Vallejo long before I knew what "Fil-Am" meant as a category — it was simply my people. Springstowne Junior High, then Hogan — classrooms and hallways full of kababayan, sons and daughters of U.S. Navy men stationed at Mare Island. Close brothers like Tony Palisoc and Vincent Putong (my future brother-in-law). We gathered at the Teen Club of St. Catherine of Siena, and that Vallejo circle was the foundation for everything that came after.
I was accepted early to UC Davis on December 20, 1984 — chose Davis over Berkeley because Davis offered Aeronautical Engineering. I did not finish my degree; my academic path detoured through Glendale, Chicago, and back to the 707. What Davis gave me wasn't a diploma — it was Mga Kapatid, the Filipino student organization, where the same Vallejo circle regrouped on Aggie territory. We danced Bangko. We held each other up. The community I'd had since Springstowne simply found a new room to gather in.
During the years of transition that followed, my deepest storytelling foundation came from my father. Missing my mother island, I absorbed every story he shared — and I have been carrying that tradition forward ever since, now as a father myself. Today I use the Sony a7III system to document the "quiet magic" of Filipino-American life — the handaan tables, the reunion hugs, the Sunday faces. Photography is how I continue my family's narrative legacy in the language of images.
Why I Built PinoyBuilt
I bought the pinoybuilt.com domain in 2011, in Maui, after a conversation about Filipino apparel that was really a conversation about the absence of a platform that centered us. Fifteen years later, PinoyBuilt is a digital archive of the Filipino American experience — and, for me personally, something more.
I have three U.S.-born children: Veronica, Francesca, and JianCarlo. They did not grow up taking the train from Marikina to Bicol to visit their grandparents. They did not live under Marcos. Much of what I know about being Filipino — the history, the language, the kapwa, the anti-authoritarian conviction, the reasons we endure — they will only inherit if someone writes it down. PinoyBuilt is me writing it down.
When I am long gone, I want my kids and their kids to open this site and learn two things: what is right — dignity for the workers who hold both countries up, kapwa over transaction, the Katipunan's moral imagination held against the abuses of our time — and who I was. A father's archive. A grandfather's archive, someday.
— José Rizal
Let's Build Together
Whether you're 1st, 1.5, or 2nd generation—your story is part of the archive.
