For Immediate Release:
Media Contact: Tony DelaRosa
Email: info@fylpro.org
June 2, 2020
Filipino Young Leaders Program stands in solidarity with our Black communities
In response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, FYLPRO President Joshua Ang Price and the Board of Directors issue the following statement:
We in the Filipinx/a/o community are grieving and stand in solidarity with the Black community for the countless who have lost their lives due to anti-Black violence, including: George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor, as well as Tony McDade, Eric Garner, Botham Jean, Charleena Lyles, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, and many more. This also does not account for the innumerable and unnamed Black lives lost due to broader systemic racism in our education, healthcare, criminal justice, and political systems.
During COVID-19, we acknowledge that the current pandemic exacerbates the collective trauma the Black community has experienced. We urge our Filipinx/a/o American community, and other communities of color, to honor Isang Bagsak. Isang Bagsak in Tagalog means “one fall”, and was a unity-building ritual used by Larry Itliong and the United Farm Workers during the 1965 Delano Grape Strike to honor the cross-coalitional work between Filipino and Mexican American farm workers.
We need this same solidarity today; it requires us to see the Black community as pamilya (family). They have stood up for us before and during the anti-Asian violence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and we must stand up with them now. With history’s eyes on our community, we must lean into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of “we’re not free, unless we’re all free.”
Abbreviated list of ways to put Isang Bagsak into action in support of the Black community:
- Visit the Black Lives Matter website at blacklivesmatter.com for resources and ways to take action.
- Read the “Unmasking Yellow Peril” zine by 18 Million Rising and University of Connecticut (Link: 18millionrising.org/2020/04/unmasking_yp.html)
- Facilitate a training for your community or organization utilizing the Asian American Justice Tool Kit (Link: www.asianamtoolkit.org/)
- Host a virtual “Protest Safety” training for your community, facilitated by Kalaya’an Mendoza from Across Frontlines (Link: https://acrossfrontlines.org/contact)
- Register and VOTE in November to elect leaders who will be advocates for racial equality (Link: vote.gov or www.apiavote.org/how-vote)
About Filipino Young Leaders Program (FYLPRO)
The Filipino Young Leaders Program (FYLPRO) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization of high-performing, next-generation leaders that have a passion for advancing the Philippines and the Filipino people.
For more information visit http://www.fylpro.org