Shaping City Sense: Makati | Iloilo | Zamboanga
June 26, 2021
Three historians reflect on the changing urban forms of three cities: Makati, Iloilo, and Zamboanga. Paulo Alcazaren, Meloy Mabunay, and Noelle Rodriguez connect those changes to Philippine democracy’s evolution before and after World War II.
Co-presented with the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines, the webinar examines how the shaping of citizens occurs alongside cultivating their city sense. Showing this link are the expansions, improvements, and uses of streets, plazas, and other public spaces.
City sense names the sense of community that helps city dwellers consolidate who they are. Their identification with processes in, and the shapes of, their cities strengthen civic feeling, the care for these places and for the nation as a whole.
Alcazaren, Mabunay, and Rodriguez use primary sources to recall the histories unique to the cities respectively in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. They feature maps, letters, travelogues, postcards, and photos from their personal archives and FHL’s Roderick Hall Collection.
Dreams of Cake & Ice Cream: Coping with Hunger in World War II
November 7, 2020
Free webinar by Filipinas Heritage Library tells the story of how private kitchens in a time of crisis became a source of public strength.
The talk, moderated by Desiree Benipayo, is the second of a webinar series forming part of Liberation: War and Hope. This project is in partnership with the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of the war. Manila Bulletin is the media partner.
Designed for the general audience, the webinar features the esteemed cultural historian Felice Prudente Sta. Maria, revisiting the transformations of Philippine food culture in the years leading up to the war and in the struggles of war-torn Manila.
Specifically, Sta. Maria tracks how Commonwealth educational systems and security policy shaped food-making during wartime. As war preparations linked food to public health, women with culinary know-how rose to prominence in the public sphere. They came to play key roles in the war itself, mitigating hunger as well as boosting public morale.
Sta. Maria grounds her historical account on a tale of two sisters. She reconstructs the lives of baking women, the Yulo sisters, to illuminate how home economics transformed traditional Filipino food. As a result, women’s knowledge softened the impact of scarcity on a whole range of people—from ordinary citizens and guerillas, to war prisoners as well as the Japanese military. Private kitchens in a time of crisis became a source of public strength.
Liberation Talks: The Aftermath of World War II (1945-1946)
August 15, 2020
A webinar on how Filipinos took up the challenges of living on in the face of ruin right after World War II.
Ayala Foundation, Inc., Filipinas Heritage Library, the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines, and the National Historical Commission of the Philippines present James Scott, Rico Jose, and Cecilia Gaerlan in “Liberation Talks: The Aftermath of World War II (1945-1946),” with a Q&A moderated by Desiree Benipayo.
War and Children in Books: E- Storytelling and Creators Q&A
June 19, 2020