PinoyBuilt — Stories of Filipino America

Jolo, Sulu, Philippines • August 1899. The Bates Agreement: How the U.S. Bought Moro Neutrality to Crush a Republic. bates agreement, kiram-bates treaty, sultanate of sulu, philippine-american war, moro history, decolonization, bangsamoro autonomy, jamalul kiram ii, general john bates. Philippine-American War • August 1899 The Bates Agreement: How the U.S. Bought Moro Neutrality to Crush a Republic On August 20, 1899, an American general and the Sultan of Sulu signed a treaty that kept the Moro south out of the war in the north — and set the terms for a century of broken promises. PinoyBuilt illustration — not an archival photograph. I grew up in Marikina reading about Rizal and Bonifacio before I ever left the Philippines. The Katipunan's story was the first anti-colonial history I ever knew, and it stayed with me through Chicago, through Vallejo, through everything since. What nobody handed me — not in Marikina, no...

Vallejo, CA • August 2026. The Cable Was Cut: What Manila Didn't Know on August 16, 1898. 8/16 1898, peace protocol manila, mock battle of manila, emilio aguinaldo locked out, wesley merritt, george dewey, fermin jaudenes, spanish american war philippines, philippine-american war origins, american annexation philippines, treaty of paris 1898, rizal act ra 1425, claro m recto, board of national education, filipino american history, decolonization, 8/16 Manila • August 1898 The Cable Was Cut: What Manila Didn't Know on August 16, 1898 Four days after the empires made peace in Washington, the news finally reached a city that had already changed hands — in a battle arranged in advance to keep Filipino soldiers outside the walls. The locked gate, August 1898. PinoyBuilt illustration over period documents — for four days, the men on both sides of that wall fought a war that had already ended. There is a particular kind of cruelty in be...

Filipino-American Diaspora • August 2026. Colonial Mentality Has a Score: The Filipino-American Scholars Who Turned Our Shame Into Evidence. colonial mentality, colonial mentality scale, EJR David, Leny Mendoza Strobel, Kevin Nadal, Yen Le Espiritu, Patricia Espiritu Halagao, Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, decolonization, Filipino American psychology, kapwa, loob, ethnic studies, AB 101, heritage language loss, Pinayism, Pinoy Teach, Filipino American identity. Decolonization • August 2026 Colonial Mentality Has a Score: The Filipino-American Scholars Who Turned Our Shame Into Evidence Six researchers built the field that explains why a Fil-Am kid stops speaking Tagalog, why the skin-whitening aisle keeps growing, and why a bookcase in Marikina may have been the best decolonizing curriculum I ever had. Filipino-American decolonization has an academic literature — and most of us were never handed the syllabus. (Illustration: PinoyBuilt) In S...

Marikina, Philippines • July 2026. Thou Shalt Not Kill — Part I: The Question I Asked at Six. Isabella Gonzales Jordan, martial law Philippines 1972, Battle of Jolo 1974, Marist School Marikina, chosen people Deuteronomy, 1 Peter 2:9, Alhambra Decree 1492, Filipino Catholicism, decolonization, Moro conflict, Fil-Am identity. Thou Shalt Not Kill • Part I The Question I Asked at Six A 19-year-old private died in Jordan last week, and the reason she died changes depending on who is talking. Fifty-two years ago I sat in front of a black-and-white television in Marikina and learned that this is how it always works. Part I of an open-ended series  •  18 min read A Marikina living room, 1974. The television told one story. The bookcase down the street told another. Isabella Gonzales was nineteen years old. She was from Carrollton, Texas. She graduated from Hebron High School in the spring of 2025, and ...