Episode 201 – Lost LA: Historic Filipinotown

This Filipino American Life

Last year, some of us on the TFAL crew had the opportunity to participate in the creation of a special episode of the PBS Socal/KCET show, Lost LA, which focused on the Filipino American community of Southern California. The episode premiered this week and is available on the PBS website or on YouTube. In this TFAL episode, you can listen to our entire discussion with the Lost LA host, Nathan Masters, about Historic Filipinotown in Los Angeles and its history. Listen as we discuss what the Lost LA episode is about, how Kat, Joe, and Producer Mike became involved with the Filipino American community, and why we started TFAL in the first place. While this episode does focus on the local community in LA, we’re sure you will find its spatial politics are very much relevant to Filipino communities throughout the diaspora, e.g. SoMa Pilipinas, Filipinotown in Seattle, Little Manila in Queens, NY.

It was quite the honor to be a part of this episode that features of our local Filipino American community leaders. Big shout out to Nathan Masters and the entire PBS SoCal/KCET team for producing the show.

About the Lost LA episode:

Filipino Americans work to make their heritage more visible in Los Angeles. In this episode, host Nathan Masters will explore the yo-yo’s surprising origin story, tour L.A.’s Historic Filipinotown neighborhood (a.k.a. “HiFi”) in a Jeepney, and taste classic Filipino street food. Featured interviews will include activist/librarian Florante Ibanez and the hosts of “This Filipino American Life” podcast.