Pinoy Pod 41

Part Two - Buffalo Soldiers returned to Bay Area with Filipino wives, customs

Vangie Canonizado Buell's memoir, "25 Chickens and a Pig for a Bride," tackled a little known chapter in the histories of the United States and the Philippines: The thousands of African Americans, known as Buffalo Soldiers, who served in the war between the two countries.

Buell's grandfather, Ernest Stokes, came to identify with the Filipinos so much that he decided to stay in the Philippines where he started a family.

In Part 2 of our interview with Vangie Buell, she talks about how Ernest Stokes returned to the United States, where he started a new life with his Filipino wife in West Oakland.

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Pinoy Pod 40

Buffalo Soldier came to the Philippines to fight, instead found new way of life

Pinoy Pod joins the commemoration of Black History Month with a special podcast on a little known chapter in the histories of the Philippines and the United States.

When Filipino revolutionaries resisted the U.S. occupation of the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century during the Philippine-American War, thousands of African Americans were recruited to crush the rebellion.

It was not an easy mission for the black soldiers, most whom were mistreated by their Caucasian officers and came to identify with the plight of the Filipinos. Some of them found it hard to shoot at the brown-skinned rebels fighting for independence. A few of the African Americans defected to the Filipino side.

Evangeline Canonizado Buell is the granddaughter of Ernest Stokes, one of the so-called Buffalo Soldiers who fought and later started a new life in the Philippines.

Buell, who lives in Oakland, recalls her grandfather's experiences in the Philippines in her book "25 Chickens and a Pig for a Bride."

In Part 1 of our interview, Vangie Buell shares her memories of her grandfather and the unusual path that led him to the Philippine islands.

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Pinoy Pod 39

FACES pushes for environmental cleanup in the Philippines

This week on Pinoy Pod, Michelle Louie interviews Galatea King of the Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, or FACES, which is waging campaigns to call attention to ecological problems in the Philippines.

King talks about two of the Berkeley group's main causes - getting the United States government to take more responsibility for the cleanup of the former military bases and to get Chevron Corp. of San Ramon to take responsibility for the health problems of residents who live next to an oil depot in Pandacan.

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Pinoy Pod 38

The legacy of Nick Joaquin

This week on Pinoy Pod, we talk to Bay Area writer Tony Joaquin, who is writing a biography about his uncle, Nick Joaquin, one of the Philippines' most revered literary figures.

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Nick Joaquin wrote novels, poems, plays, essays and biographies, exploring many facets of Philippine history in the 20th century from the American colonial period to the Marcos regime.

Joaquin, who died in 2004, was named National Artist of the Philippines in the 1970s.
In an interview, Tony Joaquin recalls his uncle's passion for literature, his kindness and courage, and his impressive literary legacy.

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