Over the past decade, Chicago has experienced a flux of Filipino immigrants who have come to the United States to be reunited with family. While many are active political participants who vote regularly in the US and support activities in the Philippines, studies have not found high levels of participation in local activities or activities related to immigration reform. Anna Guevarra, Associate Professor of Asian American Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) is investigating this political gap in her project “Civic and Community Engagement of Filipinos in Chicago.” With a multidisciplinary team of scholars, including Mark Chiang, Associate Professor of English and Asian American Studies in LAS at UIC; Kevin Kumashiro, Professor of Asian American Studies and Education in LAS at UIC; Jerry Clarito, Executive Director of the Alliance of Filipinos for Immigrant Rights and Empowerment; and Angela Mascarenas, Executive Director of CIRCA-Pintig, Dr. Guevarra is researching what factors influence civic and community engagement among Filipinos in Chicago and how Filipinos as a group define their community issues in ways to collectively address them.

The team developed and implemented collective historicizing workshops as a means to study how Filipinos define community issues. The workshops collected stories that highlighted shared histories and emphasized collective engagement to challenge oppressive structures. While the study is still ongoing, collective historicizing has proven to be an effective method that reveals factors impacting civic and community engagement. Participants are given the opportunity to present a compelling story and, as a group, analyze the situation to “rehearse” how to intervene. Guevarra’s report presents the study’s findings thus far and illustrates salient issues that have arisen during workshops.