Eala Mania graces NYT front page—And It’s the Asian American joy we desperately need

The New York Times front page of Sept. 3, 2026.

Look who made the front page of the New York Times! It is not often Little Manila gets front-page exposure in the country's foremost newspaper.

What makes the Sept. 3 article unique is that the news story doesn't involve violence, corruption or sexual misconduct. It's about a tennis player -- Alex Eala, the Philippine sensation that is bringing attention not only to her play in the US Open, but to the Filipino Americans in New York City.

When mainstream media points its cameras toward the Asian diaspora or our homelands, we know the drill. We brace ourselves for the usual rotation of grim headlines: typhoons, geopolitical standoffs, rising hate crimes, or a localized tragedy. It’s a relentless news cycle that feeds on mayhem and treats our communities as places of perpetual struggle.

But today, The New York Times flipped the script.

Splashed across the front page is a massive, triumphant image of Alex Eala, the 21-year-old tennis phenom from the Philippines smashing her way through the U.S. Open. If you’ve been following the AAPI sports landscape, you already know the kid is electric. But the article—penned by Hilary Howard with stunning photography by Hiroko Masuike—isn't just a sports recap.

Titled "In Little Manila, This U.S. Open Redefines Love," the piece focuses squarely on Little Manila in Woodside, Queens. It dives into how a single city block, thick with the scent of charcoal-grilled barbecue and brewing kapeng barako, has completely transformed into an epicenter of pure, unfiltered diaspora joy.

Pinoy pride

Here is why this front-page real estate matters so much to us, and why it shatters the usual media blueprint:

• Centering Love Over Mayhem: The mainstream press loves to analyze FilAm neighborhoods through lenses of hardship or marginalization. Instead, the Times chose to anchor its most valuable page in an exploration of community love and collective pride. That's an intentional, radical editorial choice.

• The "Invisible" Immigrant as the Hero: The real stars of this feature aren't the celebrity athlete—they are the ordinary people taking up space. It’s the community organizer printing bright yellow tennis posters in a Queens church basement. It’s the local business owners and occupational therapists. It honors the working-class immigrants who built this enclave, declaring that their joy is front-page news.

• Building a Global Home Stadium: Eala has spoken before about the isolation of not having a true "home tournament" or a massive home-court stadium back in Manila. The piece beautifully illustrates how the global Filipino diaspora refuses to let her play alone. Whether she is in Manhattan, Melbourne, or Queens, her kababayans show up in droves, armed with blue, red, and yellow flags, building a stadium out of thin air just for her.

This isn't a story about winning or losing a match. It’s about what happens when an ethnic enclave refuses to be relegated to the sidelines of American life. It’s a beautiful reminder that our communities are defined by our resilience, our deep culture, and the vibrant spaces we build together.

New York City's Filipino Americans celebrate the creation of "Little Manila Avenue."

The Big Apple's 'Little Manila'

To truly understand why "Eala Mania" is setting The New York Times front page ablaze, you have to understand the concrete, the history, and the people of Little Manila in Woodside, Queens. This isn’t just a destination where people grab a bite to eat on the way to the U.S. Open. It is the spiritual and cultural hearth for the roughly 86,000 Filipinos who call New York City home.

The story begins in the 1970s, triggered by the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. Facing a catastrophic nursing shortage, New York City hospitals cast a wide net across the Pacific, recruiting thousands of brilliant, highly trained medical professionals from the Philippines. 

Throngs of these pioneering nurses took positions down the road at Elmhurst Hospital. They looked for a place to raise families, build community, and anchor their dreams, settling heavily right under the shadow of the 7 Train in Woodside. Today, over 50,000 Filipinos live in Queens alone, making up the vibrant tapestry of the "world's borough."

If you take a stroll down Roosevelt Avenue between 58th and 74th Streets, you are stepping directly into a living monument of diaspora resilience. This commercial corridor functions as the community's lifeline. You see it in Filipino American businesses and restaurants that have anchored these blocks for generations, such as Phil-Am Food Mart,  Ihawan, Renee's Kitchenette & Grill and Tito Rad's Grill .

But Little Manila is far more than just a culinary hotspot; it is a sanctuary. When the COVID-19 pandemic devastated New York, these very blocks were the epicenter of the crisis. The neighborhood's frontline healthcare heroes bore the brunt of the trauma, yet the community rallied, feeding its own and comforting the city. 

That deep history of collective labor and care is exactly why grassroots organizers fought so hard for public visibility, culminating in the official street co-naming of "Little Manila Avenue" at 70th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in June 2022.

So when you see Alex Eala's face splashed across the front page of the Times, remember the community backing her. This neighborhood isn't just watching a tennis tournament. They are asserting their place in American history, turning a stretch of Queens into a global home court, and showing the world exactly what love and diaspora power look like.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. If you find this perspective interesting, please repost.

Smithsonian exhibit explores Stockton’s Little Manila

Feeling homesick, my momd once told my dad that she missed the Philippines. My father, a WWII veteran still serving in the US Army and assigned to San Francisco's Presideo, took her to Stockton’s Little Manila.

It was the early 1950s and there were still plenty of Filipinos picking crops in California’s fertile Central Valley. Little did the farm workers and their families that formed the early Filipino American communities know that one day they would be the subject of an exhibit at the Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC) will open its next exhibition, “How Can You Forget Me: Filipino American Stories,” Nov. 28* at the Nicholas F. and Eugenia Taubman Gallery in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

*FYI: Because of the government shutdown, the opening date may be delayed. For updated  information, visit its website and follow it on Instagram and Facebook.

This marks APAC’s first exhibition at the museum and is its signature program for the Smithsonian’s celebration of the nation’s semiquincentennial, “Our Shared Future: 250.” The exhibition explores the history of Filipino American migration, labor and community-building in Stockton, California—once home to the largest Filipino community outside the Philippines—from the 1910s to the 1970s.

“How Can You Forget Me” is anchored by more than 50 artifacts recovered from a trove of steamer trunks discovered in 2005 in the basement of the Daguhoy fraternal lodge in Stockton’s Little Manila neighborhood.

The trunks and their contents were preserved by the Legionarios del Trabajo, a fraternal organization that stored the personal effects of deceased members to be sent home or collected by loved ones. This marks APAC’s first exhibition at the museum and is its signature program for the Smithsonian’s celebration of the nation’s semiquincentennial, “Our Shared Future: 250.” The exhibition explores the history of Filipino American migration, labor and community-building in Stockton, California—once home to the largest Filipino community outside the Philippines—from the 1910s to the 1970s.

“How Can You Forget Me” is anchored by more than 50 artifacts recovered from a trove of steamer trunks discovered in 2005 in the basement of the Daguhoy fraternal lodge in Stockton’s Little Manila neighborhood.

The trunks and their contents were preserved by the Legionarios del Trabajo, a fraternal organization that stored the personal effects of deceased members to be sent home or collected by loved ones. 

“These steamer trunks do not just tell the story of one Filipino American community in California,” said Sam Vong, the exhibition’s curator. “They tell an American story of immigrants fighting to preserve their history, of families struggling not to forget and not to be forgotten. That’s why these stories are so powerful: they’re about everyday people and about experiences we have all shared.” 

The exhibition features three of these trunks as both literal containers and symbolic vessels, revealing valuable insights into how Filipino migrants lived, worked, loved and built community. One of the three trunks was donated to the museum in 2022 by the Stockton-based nonprofit Little Manila Rising, which works to preserve the city’s Filipino American heritage and legacy.

Each trunk serves as a time capsule, offering a distinct story and inviting visitors to unpack the intimate and collective experiences that shaped the journey of Filipino Americans in Stockton. From three-piece suits and ceremonial regalia to agricultural tools, family photographs, diaries and everyday objects, these belongings—long stored and forgotten—shed light on the lives of manongs, who forged deep bonds within their communities. The term manong—meaning “older brother” in Ilocano, a Filipino language—is used affectionately to describe these early Filipino labor migrants, many of whom were single men.

The exhibition’s title, “How Can You Forget Me,” is drawn from an embroidered pillowcase found in the trunk donated to the Smithsonian. The phrase expresses both personal longing and broader themes of memory and remembrance—sentiments that echo throughout the exhibition. A dedicated interactive section of the gallery offers visitors a chance to reflect on the objects and stories and to explore how early Filipino migrants navigated identity and belonging across the Filipino diaspora.

The four-block area known as Little Manila was largely destroyed by urban redevelopment and the construction of the Crosstown Freeway in the 1960s. In recent years, Little Manila rising led efforts to preserve the remnants of the neighborhood.

Vong, a curator of Asian Pacific American history at the National Museum of American History, was supported by curatorial assistant Ethan P. Johanson. The exhibition is designed by the award-winning firm TSKP x IKD and will be on view for two years. A companion website featuring educational materials and a virtual gallery will launch alongside the exhibition.

The opening of the exhibition will be accompanied by a screening of the documentary Delano Manongs: Forgotten Heroes of the United Farm Workers, Nov. 20 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. in the museum’s Warner Bros. Theater. Co-presented by APAC and the museum’s History Film Forum, the event will include a post-screening discussion with director Maríssa Aroy, Dillon Delvo of Little Manila Rising and others. Additional public and educational programs—including panels, workshops and film screenings—will be offered throughout the exhibition’s run.

“How Can You Forget Me” invites in-person and virtual visitors to engage with a deeply place-based history of Filipino America—and by extension, of the United States—leading up to and throughout the nation’s 250th anniversary.

“As we approach the nation’s semiquincentennial, the exhibition deepens our understanding of the American experience by highlighting stories of resilience, resourcefulness and community,” said Yao-Fen You, APAC’s acting director.

“How Can You Forget Me” is supported by grants from the Henry Luce Foundation, the Surdna Foundation and the Coby Foundation. The exhibition has also received federal funding from the Asian Pacific American Initiatives Pool, administered by APAC, and the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the National Museum of the American Latino.

APAC provides new avenues to document, celebrate and share the rich and diverse history, art and culture of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities. APAC’s exhibitions, “How Can You Forget Me” and “Sightlines: Chinatown and Beyond” (on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through November 30, 2025) will pave the way for a dedicated APAC gallery on the National Mall.

My parents made many trips to Stockton's Little Manila whenever they felt homesick for the Philippines. There was a close affinity between the military veterans of the Second Wave of Filipino migration and the agricultural workers of the First Wave. They attended social events, formed relationships and years later would return to deliver groceries bought at the Alameda Army Base PX to the friends, families and members of the United Farmworks during the 1965 Grape Strike.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news, views and chismis from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X, BlueSky or at the blog Views From the Edge. 

Asian immigrants seek a place in America: Streets in Queens, NYC reflecting their Asian neighborhoods

South Asians celebrated the renaming of streets in Little Punjab. in Queens, NYC.

As Japantowns and Chinatowns struggle to maintain their existence because of gentrification, rising rates and the coronavirus, new immigrants seek a place to call their own; as if to proclaim their existence in America.

Honoring the contributions of the South Asian American community, the borough of Queens, New York has named two streets Punjab Avenue and Gurdwara Street.

The area has carried the nickname "Little Punjab" for years because of the number of businesses run by Punjabis and the home of two active gurudwaras, Sikh houses of worship. About 150,000 Indian Americans live in Queens, one of the most diverse boroughs in one of the most diverse cities in the U.S.

Punjab is a region split into a province of eastern Pakistan and the northwestern state of Punjab in India.

Punjab Ave. and Gurdwara Street are segments of 101st Ave. and 97th Ave. respectively. The street sign desgnating Punjab Ave. were installed in October and the following month, Gurdwara Street was made official.

According to a CBS New York report, the initiative was a joint effort by several South Asian groups and City Councilmember Adrienne Adams.

“This community has been underserved, not really recognized,” Adams told the news website.

“Invisible, which is a travesty, knowing everything that all of our community brings to this wonderful district.”

The success of the South Asian community in identifying their neighborhoods with streets has given new hope for efforts to rename a portion of 97th Avenue "Little Manila," an effort launched last summer.

A petition asking for the street name change to Little Manila was established here.

This is what the Little Manila street name would look in the Woodside neighborhood of Queens.

The Little Manila neighborhood has been growing since the 1965 Immigration Reform Act and the need for nurses to staff New York Hospitals.

In the 1970s, New York hospitals faced nursing shortages and recruited from the Philippines, bringing many Filipino nurses and their families to Queens. Those who worked at Elmhurst Hospital settled in the surrounding neighborhoods, including Woodside, where the Filipino community has since thrived. By the 1990s, 72% of Philippine immigrants in New York were registered nurses.

During the COVID-19 crisis, the Filipino community was severely impacted—not only were many working in the health care system, but Little Manila was physically situated on the front line of the city’s epicenter.

Presently, 54% of New York Filipinos live in Queens. In 2009, 13,000 of the 85,000 residents of Woodside are of Filipino descent, thus making up 15% of the neighborhood’s population. An estimated 86,000 Filipinos and Filipino Americans reside in NYC, making them the third-largest Asian group in New York today.

Unlike the racist zoning and redlining that helped form America's J-towns and Chinatowns, today's desire for street renamings is a physical symbol asserting the  presence of South Asians and Filipino Americans and their contributions to the United States.

Noted Filipina American historian passes away

DAWN BOHULANO MABALON, 1972-2018

ONE OF FOREMOST HISTORIANS and advocates for Filipino Americans died Friday (Aug. 10) while vacationing in Kauai.

Dr. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon passed away while vacationing in Hawaii with her family. She would have celebrated her 46th birthday on Aug. 17.

“Dawn had represented the best of Stockton and she will be missed very much,” said Lange Luntao said Filipino American community leader to the Stockton Record. “Her research on the Filipino/a neighborhoods and community members in Stockton inspired scholars from around the world and put on the map in a positive way. There’s a lot of work to do to continue her legacy and highlight Stockton’s rich and diverse history.”

Dr. Mabalon was a professor at San Francisco State University where she taught history and U.S.-Philippines relations.  She received an M.A. in Asian American Studies from UCLA and a Ph.D. in history from Stanford University. Her research focuses on Filipina/o American history, historic and cultural preservation, and the Filipina/o American food traditions. 

In 2013, she wrote the book, "Little Manila Is in the Heart: The Making of the Filipina/o American Community in Stockton, California," which was awarded an honorable mention for the Frederick Jackson Turner Award (best first book) by the Organization of American Historians. 

Her research for the book led to a movement to preserve and restore parts of what was the Little Manila neighborhood in her native Stockton, which once was the largest Filipino American community in the U.S.

For her work and advocacy, she was named to the list of the Filipina Women’s Network's 100 Most Influential Filipinas in the World in 2013.

“We connected as academics, activists, family centered, food loving women, and most significantly; dedicated believers of Stockton,” said Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman on Facebook post. “She lived her life with purpose and richness. Her impact will be felt for generation to come.”

Details of any services or celebrations of life are pending.

A GoFundMe account has been made can be found online to plan and pay for celebrations of her life in San Francisco, Los Angeles and her hometown of Stockton.

______________________________________________________________________________

Vandalism hits Little Manila Center in Stockton

THE LITTLE MANILA CENTER in Stockton was vandalized Monday (Oct. 10) sending an ugly reminder the bigotry the Filipino American community has had to endure.

Even though police have not labeled the incident hasn't been a hate crime, the fact it happened during Filipino American History Month only served to emphasize that the fight against ignorance and prejudice is still ongoing and may be growing in the Donald Trump era.

“At one point, Stockton was home to the largest Filipino population outside of the Philippines. However, attacks on immigrant communities isn’t anything new,” said Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs in a statement to KQED.

An incoherent racist message was scrawled onto the front windows of the center and banners were torn down. Damage estimate is around $800. The content of the graffiti is unclear, with some news sources reporting that it reads, “White property, you’re a brainwashed bigot.” Recordnet.com states that the graffiti reads, “You the prop whittie (sic) your (sic) a brain washed (sic) bigot (sic).”

The vandalism was done sometime before the center opened Monday. It was discovered by young students arriving for a dance rehearsal.

The Little Manila Board of Directors issued the following statement:

If you’ve ever been to our Little Manila Center in Downtown Stockton, you’d know that we have beautiful recreations of our historic banners surrounding the Little Manila Historic Site on our windows.

It is with a heavy heart to tell you that on Monday, someone defaced our windows and ripped our historic photographs that bore the words: Community, Culture, Empowerment, Arts, History, and Heritage. The first people to find our center in the condition it was in were our youth dance students who stood heartbroken in front of our center.

As we celebrate Filipino American History Month this October, we know that discrimination against Filipino Americans is nothing new. The street our Little Manila Center is on is Main St. in downtown Stockton which was the dividing line for people of color in this city in the 1920s and 1930s. People of color were not welcomed north of Main St. and signs saying “Positively no Filipinos allowed” were displayed openly. It was illegal for Filipino men to marry White women in California. Later on, state and local officials would decide to destroy the Little Manila and Chinatown neighborhood by the building of the Crosstown Freeway.

This event has reminded us about the importance of the work we do. Through the Little Manila After School Program and Us History program we teach ethnic studies to high schoolers. Our advocacy helped Stockton Unified School District to adopt Ethnic Studies at our high schools just this year. Our Little Manila Dance Collective and Kulintang Academy teaches the art and culture of the Philippines to new generations of young people seeking identity and a sense of belonging to our roots.

Little Manila was destroyed in the 1960s and 1970s by misguided policies. Our advocacy for the preservation of the Little Manila Historic Site is a result of the worst case scenarios of racist federal, state, and local public policies that prioritized freeway construction, urban redevelopment, and suburbanization over our communities.

Little Manila Foundation and our Little Manila Center will continue to be a space for understanding and love, bringing together diverse communities. This incident only strengthens our resolve and reaffirms the work that we are already doing.

If you would like to help us recover and continue the educational, arts, cultural, and community strengthening work we are doing, please support us by clicking here.

LITTLE MANILA CENTER

Filipino/American children learn about their culture in classes at the Little Manila Center.

Stockton's Little Manila used to be a bustling historic and cultural center for the Filipino American community throughout California. Most of it was torn down when Stockton built a freeway through the neighborhood.

Eventually, only three original buildings remain of what used to be a six-block district.

In the last ten years, an effort led by Dawn Mabalon, San Francisco State University professor, has brought new life to the area including the Little Manila Center.

_______________________________________________________________________________