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paa honors

paa honors 2000-2001

Distinguished Alumni of the Year

HELEN BROWN, the daughter of Trinidad Agcaoili of Laoag, Ilocos Norte, and George Summers of New Grand Chain, Illinois, was born in Manila, where she lived until her high school years. Soon after her graduation from Manila Central High School, her family moved to the US in 1932, and she enrolled at Pasadena Junior College. She eventually transferred to UCLA where she obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Education, then a Master’s degree in 1938.

Following in her father’s footsteps, Helen chose a career in education. She taught at the L.A. Unified School District. As she came into contact with more Filipino American schoolchildren, she remembered her own experience. Thus, she lobbied the school district to recognize and address the needs of Filipino American students. Before long, she also lobbied for Filipino American schoolteachers, seeking to increase their numbers and their promotions.

While a student at Pasadena Junior College working on a research paper about the Philippines, she discovered how little material existed in local libraries. Helen then realized the importance of the library she inherited from her father. Helen began to build on her father’s library by collecting books, pamphlets, newsletters, newspaper clippings, and even the souvenir programs distributed at the annual balls of various Filipino organizations. In her mind, nothing was too insignificant when it came to preserving the social history of Filipinos in the US.

Upon her retirement from the L.A. Unified School District, Helen brought the library to the community. Through the generosity of the Filipino Christian Church, and with the help of her good friend, Royal Morales, the library collection was moved to the church basement and was christened with the name PARRAL (Pilipino American Reading Room and Library). On October 13, 1985, PARRAL opened, with Helen as the sole librarian. Three years later, August 16, 1988, the Pamana Foundation was established, a non-profit public corporation whose assets consisted of the PARRAL collection and whose primary purpose was to support PARRAL and its projects and activities. Among the incorporators were Helen Brown, Tania Azores, Brad Bagasao, and Ming Menez.

The first Filipino American community library of its kind in the United States, PARRAL quickly gained recognition beyond Southern California. PARRAL was moved to Luzon Plaza in March, 1994, in an effort to provide better visibility and accessibility. In January 2000, PARRAL relocated to the SIPA offices and renamed as Filipino American Library. Helen Brown officially retired from the Board in 1999. To recognize Helen’s love of children and her role as the founder of the library, the children’s section of the Filipino American Library has been named in her honor.

Helen Brown’s vision is to have the library open people’s hearts and minds to the beauty, truth and honor of being Filipino or Filipino American.

JOEL F. JACINTO, a San Francisco native born of immigrant parents, arrived at UCLA in 1981 and immediately became involved with Samahang Pilipino and its cultural proponent Sayaw Ng Silangan. Together with Avecita Ramos, they both immersed themselves in various aspects of the student organization, as Joel served as a dance coordinator and school and community projects director in 1983. Student, political, and cultural activism characterized this defining period of his life. After a lengthy and activity-filled undergraduate student experience, Joel managed to receive a degree in Kinesiology in 1986.

After a two-year graduate studies stint at the University of Hawaii Manoa, where he studied Philippine dance and Hawaiian hula, Joel and Avecita were married in 1990, and later that year, co-founded Kayamanan Ng Lahi Philippine Folk Arts, a folk arts organization dedicated to the preservation, presentation and promotion of Philippine culture through dance and music, with Boy Angos and Barbara Ele. Since 1991, Joel has served as Executive Director of Search To Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA), a nonprofit, community-based organization serving Pilipino American youth and families since 1972. Over the next three years, Joel will lead SIPA's most ambitious project to date--the development

of the newly dedicated Royal Morales Pilipino American Community and

Cultural Center.

Complementing his responsibilities as administrator and cultural activist, Joel's most fulfilling and treasured role is as husband to Avecita and father to their

16 month-old son, Kaimali'okeao "the calm sea at the first light of dawn"

Jaime Jacinto.

CORNELIO PASQUIL, who the PAA of UCLA honors tonight, at a young age has already left a significant mark on our community. Born in Towsen, Maryland, Corky graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1991 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology. As a UCLA student, his activities included Samahang Pilipino, tutoring for the Pilipino Recruitment and Enrichment Program (PREP), and performing in the annual Samahang Pilipino Cultural Night. Upon graduation, Corky was instrumental in the formation of the Pilipino Alumni Association of UCLA, and was PAA's founding Chair in 1991. After completing his stint as PAA Chair in 1995, he has continued his involvement by being an active mentor of undergraduate students in the health sciences field through the PAA Mentorship Program.

Corky obtained his Masters of Physical Therapy from the University of Southern California in 1993. He moved on to a position as a Clinical Physical Therapist at the Veterans' Administration Medical Center in West Los Angeles and at Century City Hospital, specializing in orthopedics. In 1994, he wrote and produced the award-winning documentary "The Great Pinoy Boxing Era". The video documents the greatest era in sports for Filipinos and is the only documentary ever made on the era. Critically acclaimed by historians and boxing fans, the work includes oral histories of boxers and fans, footage of championship bouts of the era, and rare historical photos.

In 1999, he founded MyBarong.com, the first and only e-commerce Web site that brings custom tailored and ready-to-wear Barong Tagalog and other Philippine garments to the world. Corky states, "The anticipated arrival of our first child prompted a career transition from full time physical therapist to full time at-home dad and home based entrepreneur. We had always planned to have at least one of us be an at-home parent, and a successful home based, internet business would make it financially possible to stick to that plan." Five months after the launch of MyBarong.com, Delan Federizo Pasquil was born to Aileen and Corky. After a year of juggling both the duties of a full time physical therapist and the growing responsibilities of managing MyBarong.com, Corky put physical therapy on hold, and went full time at home with baby and business.

CASIMIRO U. TOLENTINO has been a longstanding labor and civil rights lawyer. He has been an Administrative Law Judge II for the State of California since 1992. He was Assistant Chief Counsel for the Department of Fair Employment and Housing for six years enforcing California’s civil rights laws, and was a Regional Attorney and Regional Director for the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

Casimiro spent 4 ½ years in the entertainment industry as Senior Counsel for the Writers Guild of America, West; in-house counsel for the Guild of Screenwriters and Television Writers; and Director of Legal Affairs of Embassy Television, a television production company.

He has had a long involvement with the Asian Pacific community since he was a student at the UCLA, where he graduated in 1972 with a Bachelor of Arts in Zoology and later earned a Juris Doctor from the UCLA School of Law in 1975. In 1972, he co-founded UCLA Samahang Pilipino, which still exists today as the undergraduate student advocacy group representing the UCLA Pilipino student community.

Active within the community-at-large, Casimiro is a member of the Board of Visual Communications (a community-based media production group focused on the accurate portrayal of Asian Americans and their history); Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association for the Advancement of Filipino American Arts and Culture, also known as FilAm Arts (a group dedicated to promoting and developing Filipino arts, literature and culture in Los Angeles); and, the Vice Chair of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (the leading civil rights voice of the Asian Pacific community).

As a result of Mr. Tolentino’s community involvement, he has been the recipient of many accolades. He was honored by Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA) in 1992 for his service and contributes to the development of SIPA. In 1993, The Asian American pacific Legal Center presented him with the Decade Award for his ten years of contributions as a co-founder, a volunteer attorney, and Board Chair (1984-1993).

His other accomplishments include: co-founder and Chair of the Board of Governors of the Pilipino American Bar Association; co-founder and President of the Philippine Lawyers of San Diego; member of the State Bar Committee on Ethnic Minorities and the Executive Committee of the Labor and Employment Section of the State Bar; Board Member of California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), REBUILD LA, United Way (Metropolitan Region), Asian American Drug Abuse Project, the Los Angeles City Schools Asian American Education Commission; volunteer Arbitrator for the L.A. County Bar Association Fee Dispute Center; and co-founder and member of the Board of the Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (a civil rights advocate for the Asian Pacific communities based in Washington D.C.).

He is married to Jennifer Masculino Tolentino and has two children, Casimiro M. Tolentino, 16, and Cristina M. Tolentino, 12.

ROYAL F. MORALES, affectionately known as "Uncle Roy", was a community scholar, activist, and social services leader in Los Angeles, who taught the popular "Pilipino American Experience" course at UCLA for nearly two decades and reached over two thousand students until his retirement from teaching at UCLA in 1996.

Born in Los Angeles in a Bunker Hill apartment house, he returned with his parents to their native Ilocos in the northern Philippines during the Depression. After returning to Los Angeles, he earned a degree in social work from the University of Southern California. Over the years, he kept strong contacts with the Philippines, traveling there annually to aid the high school his parents helped to establish. Morales served in the Army during the 1950s and then devoted much of his career to assisting troubled youngsters in Los Angeles. He served as program director of the Pacific Asian Alcohol Program and was director of the Asian American Community Mental Health Training Center of Los Angeles.

In his Pilipino American Experience classes, Morales told stories, played music, led discussions on historical analysis and conducted his own Saturday field trips to Los Angeles' Filipino Town. The tour typically started at the Filipino Christian Church, which his father helped establish, went on to the Pilipino American Reading Room and Library (PARRAL), and then proceeded downtown to Bunker Hill, where the local Filipino community flourished in the 1920s and '30s.

In the 1970s, Morales founded Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA) out of concern over problems among the increasing numbers of Filipino youths here. Morales was an influential community organizer and popular speaker on the Filipino American experience, Philippine-U.S. relations and history, and dealing with alcohol abuse.

A noted figure among California's Filipino Americans, he also wrote a book entitled "Makibaka: Pilipino-Americans' Struggle."

PAA of UCLA pays tribute to the legacy of Uncle Roy by establishing the annual Royal Morales Community Achievement Award. This award will be presented each year to recognize an alumnus, faculty member, staff member, or community friend who has made extraordinary contributions to the UCLA Pilipino community which exemplify the spirit and purpose of the University and of the Pilipino Alumni Association of UCLA.