#fahm

🇵🇭📚 Knowledge is power. Learning about who we are and seeing books representing us, brings empowerment.

Happy Filipino-American History Month!! ✨️🎉 In honor of FAHM, here are some book recommendations for folks wanting to learn more about our history, culture, and folklore, as well as fictional books written by Filipino authors, from young adult novels to children's books.

There are so many books that I haven't covered here. As an avid book reader and hoarder of books, I love it when people ask me for book recs.

✨️ Do you have any book recommendations to share with folks?

In California and Hawaii, where many Filipino Americans reside, Filipino American History Month is widely celebrated. Many Filipino American organizations in these states often initiate their own independent celebrations. 2006 was a pivotal year as it marked the centennial celebration of Filipino migration to the United States.

While some used the term Filipino American Heritage Month interchangeably with Filipino American History Month, FANHS cites that the month should be properly focused on "history" instead of "heritage." Whereas history includes the events, experiences, and lives of people and their impact on society, "heritage" is solely about cultural traditions handed down from the past.

Happy Filipino American History Month 🇵🇭

this past October, for Filipino American History Month (FAHM), i had my very first solo art show entitled “HALIMAW” (Tagalog for “monster”). it is with Mata Art Gallery, and it is still free to view online. if you’re into creepy horror art, and Filipino mythology, you might like my work hehe.

Mickey and friends celebrate Filipino American History Month and share a chicken adobo recipe

Holy manananggal, Batman! Since #FilipinoAmericanHistoryMonth coincides with both #Batober and #Halloween, I thought it'd be fun to re-imagine Batman and Batwoman as Fil-Ams. 🦇 🇵🇭

Bruce Waynaldo wasn't born to extremely wealthy parents who were killed by a petty thief. Instead, his parents were struggling immigrants, who spent years laboring in inhumane working conditions in U.S. factories and were ultimately killed by the corporate thieves running them.

He dons the Batsuit to steal from corrupt elites to not only give back to Fil-Ams and other communities of color, but also finance his campaign of vengeance against his powerful enemies. He's aided by his tito Alfred, who gathers intel on the rich as a housekeeper for hire.

Kate Kanalan enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps to make her military family proud, only to later realize she was just a pawn for the U.S. empire and its colonization of Asia and the Pacific. She retires and becomes Batwoman instead, protecting civilians from police brutality.

Openly gay, she uses her media visibility as Batwoman to campaign for equal rights and better legislative protections—striking fear in homophobes and awe in the ladies. Inspired by Bruce Waynaldo's example, she donates her pension to homeless veterans and LGBTQ youth organizations.

While re-imagining white superheroes as people of color isn't a perfect panacea, it's one way to improve a lack of Fil-Am representation in comics and other media. So if DC wants a Fil-Am creator to write a Fil-Am Bat family, they know where to point those Bat-Signal lips. 😉

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent