Filipinos make up the largest Asian ethnic group in the state of Hawaiʻi, yet when Marissa Halagao took a required Asian history course at her Hawaiʻi High School, Philippine history was excluded. This prompted her to create the Filipino Curriculum Project, and now, a Filipino social studies course is approved for all high schools in Hawaiʻi. This is the first high school social studies course dedicated to Filipino Studies in the United States to be approved statewide.
The Filipino Curriculum Project
The Filipino Curriculum Project (FCP) is a student-led organization with the goal of implementing a Filipino social studies course in Hawaiʻi high schools. The organization was founded by Marissa Halagao after she noticed a lack of Filipino representation in her school’s curriculum. In 2021, Halagao was taking an Asian history course in high school and was excited to learn more about Asia and the Philippines. Much to her surprise, the course focused primarily on Chinese and Japanese history. “That was something that communicated to me, as a Filipino American, that my history and culture wasn’t worthy to be represented,” Halagao said.
This moment stuck with her as she began a class dedicated to developing a passion project, where she decided to address this gap. She began working directly with teachers to develop a curriculum and reaching out to other schools to find student collaborators. “When I got in touch with all these students, the Filipino Curriculum Project was born. We started having Zoom meetings every week, and I was really finding my passion here,” Halagao said. As these meetings went on, FCP created a compressive course that reflected Filipino history, the unique culture of the Philippines, and Filipino-American identity.
Filipinos in Hawaiʻi
Filipinos make up the largest Asian and non-white ethnic group in Hawaiʻi, with approximately one out of four Hawaiʻi residents having Filipino ancestry. Much of this population stems from the large-scale sugar plantation boom in Hawaiʻi in the 1830’s. With sugar being a labor-intensive crop, plantation owners began recruiting foreign workers, many being from the Philippines. From 1906-1946, the Hawaiʻian Sugar Planners Association recruited over 100,000 Filipino men to work on the sugar plantations.
Many of these laborers stayed in Hawaiʻi, and the Filipino population is now almost 400,000 people. The Filipino languages of Tagalog and Ilocano are the most common non-English languages spoken at home in Hawaiʻi. "Even though we’re so represented in terms of population, when it comes to the actual systems that we exist in, the actual curriculum that we learn, we’re so invisible.” Halagao remembered. The relationship and history between Filipinos and Hawaiʻi are one of the many subjects covered in the course.
Filipino History Culture
The course titled, Filipino History Culture (CHR 2300) was created in collaboration with various teachers and curriculum experts. It includes six units: Identity, Historical Interactions and Developments, Culture and Connections, Filipinos in Hawaiʻi and in the US, the Philippines in an Interconnected World, and Community Engagement and Civic Action. Each unit is broken up into further sections such as decolonial food, US imperialism in Hawaiʻi and in the US, and resistance and power struggle. With these curriculum experts, a professional development series was created to organize the curriculum into a framework guided by questions, or inquiry design models (IDMs). These IDMS were then taught to teachers to prepare for the course to be taught.
When prioritizing what to include in the curriculum, FCP found it important to highlight the history and culture of Filipinos in the Philippines and in the United States. FCP knew that many of the students taking this course would be Filipino-American, and felt identity needed to be explored throughout the course “You shouldn’t have to separate who you are from the content that you’re learning” Halagao added.
Implementation
As lesson plans were being designed, the FCP collaborated with the Hawaiʻi House of Representatives Filipino Caucus to write HCR 56- a resolution requesting the Hawaiʻi Department of Education (HIDOE) to implement a Filipino social studies course. The Filipino Caucus introduced this resolution and FPC testified in support of it. This resolution officially passed in April 2022.
In January 2023, the finished course was officially proposed to HIDOE. For the course to be approved, FCP had to ensure that it met HIDOE subject matter standards. In July 2023, FCP learned that the HIDOE approved the course for the entire state.
For their efforts, FCP has gained support from the Filipino Caucus of the Hawaiʻi House of Representatives, the Philippine Consulate General of Hawaiʻi , the HIDOE Superintendent, US Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, and various community members.
Looking Forward
Filipino History Culture is currently available for registration in four high schools – Waipahu, Farrington, Maryknoll, and Ewa Beach Dreamhouse. The first classes will be taught this August with over 300 students enrolled. Almost 30 teachers attended the professional development series in preparation for the course. In 2021, the FCP team had 5 student collaborators, and now the team is just short of 30 with plans of adding 20 more. The organization hopes to continue to grow its team to more schools and other islands, as its main presence is in Oahu. With this growth, it hopes to continue to implement the course into all Hawaiʻi high schools.
The author would like to thank Marissa Halagao, founder of the Filipino Curriculum Project, for giving her time and valuable insights for this article.
Nissa Dotson is a Summer 2024 Young Professional at the East-West Center in Washington DC and an undergraduate student at the University of Georgia studying Political Science and International Affairs.