SugarBear & La Molly sit down with Domingo Belen, President of the Filipino American Community of Colorado (FACC)
SugaBear & La Molly sat down with Domingo Belen, President of the Filipino American Community of Colorado (FACC) to discuss the financial challenges facing their 100% volunteer-run nonprofit and how they can continue to serve youth, seniors, and immigrant families through free programming. Domingo shares how the upcoming Philippine Festival is not only a celebration of culture, but also their most important event of the year, that celebrates inclusivity, preserving Filipino heritage, and uplifting their community across Colorado.
To learn more about the FACC, visit https://www.colorado-filipinos.org/.
Transcript
SUGABEAR: 104.7 The Drop, Denver’s urban alternative. My name is SugaBear.
LA MOLLY: I’m La Molly.
SUGABEAR: Yes. It’s time for Community Corner. Today’s guest, Domingo Belin. He’s the president of Filipino American Community of Colorado. Thank you so much for being here and good morning.
DOMINGO: Good morning. And thank you guys for having me.
SUGABEAR: Man, you brought us some lumpia. We got to thank you right off the bat for that. Thank you.
DOMINGO: Oh, you’re welcome. Kind of like a Filipino thing. If we go to someplace new, got to bring a gift. Can’t go to any place empty-handed, especially someplace new or a new friend’s house or something. So, that’s something we just have to do.
SUGABEAR: Thank you for that. That means a lot. Okay. FACC. This is 71 years that you have been in existence. It was the oldest Asian American nonprofit in Colorado since 1954. Tell the people who, our listeners out there, a little bit about it: the history, how it came about, and you’re sustaining for 71 years.
DOMINGO: Yeah, so, correct. We’ve been around for 71 years. 1954, we’re out there in Edgewater, 1900 Harlan Street. We’ve been out there for Edgewater. And if you kind of want to think about what was happening back in 1954 on some of the segregation, some of the angst among the community. And for some reason Filipinos find each other. During that time, lot of Filipinos came through the military, so there were bases out here, and they found a way to find each other, be a community, and be a family together. It’s always familiar when you see someone you know, especially when you’re in a new country back in 1954. So that’s, somebody just came about, had the foresight to say, “Hey, let’s do this thing so we can kind of remember a little bit. Bring a little bit back of the Philippines here in Colorado.”
SUGABEAR: Love it. And I would imagine you’ve grown so much and probably changed with the time, so on and so forth, but the operative word here is community. You guys have stuck together, built so much, and done a lot for this community.
DOMINGO: Before I was part of the FACC, it was actually more exclusive to be part of the community because we didn’t look outward. We looked inward to help out each other, but the real change happened during COVID for our community, so we kind of had to pivot. We’re thinking, “Well, as Filipinos we’re a giving kind of people.” So, we’re trying to say, “Hey, how can we help out our community?” And at the time, Governor Polis gave us a call — or his handler. Not Governor Polis exactly, but his handlers gave us a call — and he said, “Hey, can we do a vaccination clinic at your community?” And then that’s kind of how we kind of pivoted from just kind of celebrating our heritage and culture to be part of a positive community aspect and trying to do what we can. So, from COVID, some of our drives — our programming is to help on unhomed, help the food insecure, help our seniors, folks who are low income and doing backpacks. So, we try to do a lot for our community, but that was a big pivot for us as we become more out there in the community and be involved in trying to do our positive impact.
LA MOLLY: And you guys are 100% volunteer run organization, right?
DOMINGO: Yes, that is correct. I can tell you I’ve never worked so hard for free in my entire life.
LA MOLLY: That’s how it goes.
DOMINGO: But it’s so worth it because the people are just such a loving and lovely people that we have as part of our community. Whether you’re brown, black, Chinese, white, we have all of these types of folks that are part of our community. So, we invite everyone to be a part of what we’re doing. We’re more than just a heritage and culture organization trying to go out there and do what we can to help out our fellow men or women.
LA MOLLY: Nice. I love that. It is so important to have that space where you’re with people that feel like home, but also to invite other people in and go out and spread just the good feeling of community.
DOMINGO: Yeah, so, that’s the only way we can grow. How do we get some of the younger people involved in our community? There’s so many things that are out there — June, geez, there’s so many events in June. I just heard you guys that was going to be at — not the La Molly House, but the Molly House, Five Points Jazz festival. That’s something great about Denver. Once June hits, it’s like a whole new season of festivals and outdoor events that everybody can enjoy.
But yeah, we’re an inviting community and part of what I tell folks, and maybe you guys know this too, one thing that we are is we’re hospitable. We are all about hospitality. It doesn’t matter if we don’t have that much. We will give you what we can. I always think about that video in the Philippines, and you might see it might’ve been flooded. People are just swimming around like, oh, the water’s up to their chest, but they’re playing basketball, and they’re just smiling. “You know what? We’re just going to fix it tomorrow when things get better.” They’re not too worried about what’s going on in terms of what they have or have not, but they know that they can rebuild. And that resiliency about our community is something that we are very, very proud of.
SUGABEAR: As you should be. And some of the services here, we have some notes of what you do, like youth leadership development, homeless outreach, advocacy against Asian hate and public leadership forums. Talk about some of these programs and how important they are to share with a lot of the people here in Colorado in our community.
DOMINGO: Something that came along with COVID, unfortunately, was a lot of the blame on the Asian communities about COVID, and they lumped all the Asians together. They didn’t say they were talking about China, but they just, if you had a Chinese sign in front of your restaurant or you go to the grocery stores and you see this lady shopping that’s maybe Asian looking. So, people were attacking those folks. Our seniors were afraid to go out. And part of the problem is when English is your second language, the police is not who you call first, unfortunately. Who you’re calling is somebody — a leadership person in your community to call rather than the police.
SUGABEAR: Important.
DOMINGO: So, part of what we’re trying to do is recognizing that this is an issue along with the Asian roundtable. We held community forums where we invite our police department and some of our local leadership to a meeting and let them know, “Hey, here’s what’s happening in our community.” And so, we get to tell them, share with them what’s going on, but also how can we help advocate for some of these folks. It’s even scarier now. I mean, I dunno, ICE and people going on now, they’re driving around looking for folks, asking for ID. So even now, if they weren’t scared before now, that’s another reason not to call the police. They just want to be somebody that’s…they get their name out there, ICE is involved automatically or something and be taken away from their families and from their loved ones.
LA MOLLY: Yeah, that’s such an incredible service that you provide being that sort of point. But I think another important thing about community is celebrating. And you guys have a big celebration coming up, right?
DOMINGO: Yeah. We’re all about celebrating. And this event on June 7, 8, we’re celebrating our heritage and culture, but also it is our largest fundraiser for the year. A lot of our events, like Easter, Christmas, or Thanksgiving, some of those events —we have Mother’s Day or Father’s Day — they’re free and open to the public. And the only way that we can do that is trying to create funding for our community. Yes, we own our own Filipino building, but there’s costs when you have an older building to take care of. But in order for us to continue for the next generation, we have to raise money. We want to pay for programs, so, our place could still be that inviting place where people can come together to be a community and have a lot of these programs free and continue to reach out to the community to do our part as the Philippine American community of Colorado.
SUGABEAR: Nice. So, the Philippine Festival is the 30th one? I mean, that’s a long time. That’s amazing.
DOMINGO: So, we’ve been out in Edgewater. Shoutout to Edgewater. What a great small little community. So lucky to be part of that city. So, we bought that building in 1988, and the way that we paid for our building, it’s through Bingo.
LA MOLLY: Oh, no way.
DOMINGO: Yeah. Having bingo games and raising funds and through bingo we were able to buy our building. But yeah, 1900 Harlan Street. So, we owned that building. So, it’s just kind of for our festival, and we’re going to have a lot of bands and music, our own cultural dances […]
SUGABEAR: And some food.
DOMINGO: And some food is one of the highlights of the event. And a lot of Filipino desserts. Oh yeah. We’re going to have a little bit of something for everyone. Also, a lot of services. We’ll have some vendors out there selling their goods and services to the community.
SUGABEAR: Very nice. So, culture and heritage for sure. Okay. So how can people get involved if they want to support you? Give them the website, if there’s a website for them to go to so they can get involved.
DOMINGO: Yeah, so it’s www.coloradofilipinos.org and the best way to support us is come to our festival, join us, see what we’re about. Hey, be a Filipino for a day. We will have a karaoke contest. What’s a Filipino event without karaoke, right? One of our biggest exports is bands and singing. But yeah, that is the best way. Come out, enjoy our food, learn about what we do, talk to our people, and you’ll find we’re just a great community to be around.