PinoyBuilt — Stories of Filipino America

Bay Area, California • October 2026. Ruby Ibarra: From Tacloban to Tiny Desk to Forgotten Island. ruby ibarra, filipino american rapper, salbahe ako, carl angelo, forgotten island soundtrack, tiny desk contest winner, bakunawa, waray rap, tagalog hip-hop, circa91, apache sample, filipino american history month, fahm 2026, 10/9. PROFILE • FAHM 2026 • OCTOBER 2026 Ruby Ibarra: From Tacloban to Tiny Desk to Forgotten Island Ruby Ibarra raps in English, Tagalog, and Waray, won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest with a song about a mythic serpent, and now shares “Salbahe Ako” with Carl Angelo on the Forgotten Island soundtrack. Here is the record, and why it matters this October. A PinoyBuilt illustration of the cassette that started it: Francis Magalona’s 1990 album Yo! , the one piece of music Ruby Ibarra’s family carried from Tacloban to California and the first album she grew to love, unspooling...

Vallejo, CA • October 2021. Imagine: Happy Birthday, John Lennon — and the Stranger at Kaiser Who Couldn't Tell What I Was. john lennon birthday, imagine, filipino american, kaiser vallejo, mistaken ethnicity, bruce lee, fil-am racism story, facebook memory, october 9. VALLEJO, CA • OCTOBER 2021 Imagine: Happy Birthday, John Lennon — and the Stranger at Kaiser Who Couldn't Tell What I Was John Lennon's birthday brings back a 2015 Kaiser lobby, a stranger who could not guess my ethnicity, and the Bruce Lee card I played to end the conversation. PinoyBuilt illustration: two phones, one outlet, and a chair that emptied fast. John Lennon has always been my favorite Beatle, ever since my childhood days in Chicago watching reruns of the Beatles cartoons after school. I've always told my kids that The Beatles are the best band in music history. I still remember washing dishes at home in Vallejo , our ra...