24 November 2004, New York, NY -  Philippine Consul General to New York, Cecilia B. Rebong, urged members of the Filipino community on Saturday, 12 November, to visit the on-going Filipino photo exhibit at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum anytime between November 13, 2004 and January 9, 2005.   Consul General Rebong made the call as she and a group of Filipinos toured the exhibit last Saturday, which was also the opening day of the exhibit.

Titled "Through My Father's Eyes," the exhibit is a collection of old photographs showing members of the Filipino community in the West Coast as they went about their daily lives in the 1940s and 1950s.   The photographs were taken by Ricardo Alvarado who immigrated to America from the Philippines in 1918. Alvarado's photographs show Filipino farm workers, shop keepers, neighborhood dances, weddings, births, and funerals. When Alvarado passed away, his daughter, Janet Alvarado who heads the Alvarado Project and is co-curator of the Exhibit, collected the photographs and the result is a collection which offers a glimpse of the many challenges that the early Filipino community faced in the West Coast during that time.

The exhibit was made possible by The Smithsonian Exhibition (SITE) in collaboration with the Alvarado Project, the American History and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American.

The photo exhibit actually began in 2002 when it made its debut at the National Museum of American History in Washington D.C., in November of that year. In April the following year, the exhibit embarked on a national tour.  Since then the exhibit has made runs in Sunrise Civil Center - Sunrise, FL; The Lentz Center for Asian Culture - Lincoln, NE; Wing Luke Asian Museum - Seattle. W A; UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History-Los Angeles. CA and Pensacola Museum of Art - Pensacola. FL.   After New York, the exhibit will proceed to Las Vegas Art Museum in Nevada and Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum in Vallejo, California.   It has also a tentative schedule at the Free Library of Philadelphia at the latter part of 2004 and the Academy Art Center of Linekola in Honolulu early 2005.

"I urge members of our community, especially the second generation Filipino- Americans, to visit the exhibition," Consul General Cecilia B. Rebong said. "The exhibition is a rich source of information on the Filipinos who came early to this country and who, therefore, laid the foundation for a truly vibrant Filipino American community of today," she added.   Although the 2000 US Census shows the Filipinos as among the largest immigrant groups in the United States, it has been observed that the community is still the least visible ethnic group. The Consul General is enthusiastic that this exhibit will pave the way for a greater awareness of the Filipino-American community even as the  2006 celebration of the centennial of the arrival of the first wave of Filipinos in the United States of America is fast approaching.

Ellis Island was the gateway through which more than 1.2 million immigrants passed between 1892 and 1954 in their search for freedom of speech and religion, and for economic opportunity in the United States.  Because of its unique historical importance, it was declared part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965.  After a six-year, $1.62 million renovation, it reopened to the public as a museum in 1990. END