The Summer of 2005: PTSP Bayanihan in the Community and Dreams of a Future

When I first got the position of Bayanihan Director in June '05, I was all about getting us out into the community of Los Angeles. I wanted us to build community resources unlike any other organization at UCLA.

I started with the largest, most visible symbol of Filipinos in Los Angeles - SIPA or Search to Involve Pilipino Americans. We were going to volunteer with them!

Starting with their community event, SIPA Summer!



From the left to the right (and notice whose at the very left) Pens, B-Saturday, Gelatinous Jel, YT (yours truly), Dom

I honestly expected a lot more people to show up since it was a Historic Filipinotown party and they did go to the trouble of cordoning off a block.

However, I didn't want to admit to the people with me that it was a waste of time. I really hated admitting any kind of failure back then especially in the incubator ages of Bayanihan, so I guarded against that by turning this into an opportunity to survey people about community college and education.

I figured that this was the opportunity to ask local community people about their perceptions of community college. This was when and where I began to think that we could've made a part of PTSP Bayanihan into some kind of research group.

A research group staffed full of students that PTSP would recruit into our intern program, who rather than having SPEAR and SPACE methodologies spat back at them, were engaging in the process of active student-driven knowledge creation. I thought that's where the real student power would emerge: when we began to be the ones defining knowledge. Creating it. Using it...to influence current thinking and most importantly action amongst administrators, professors, and other forms of media.