On Saturday, Aug. 10, the Philippine-American Association of Madison and Neighboring Areas (PAMANA) held its annual summer picnic, drawing attendance from over 100 Filipino and Filipino American community members from across the state.
Hosted at Lake Farm County Park on Lake Waubesa, the picnic has been taking place for over 40 years, with this year’s featuring a wide range of traditional dishes, live music and dance, volleyball and bingo games, a board oath-taking ceremony, a scholarship awarding, and more.
“PAMANA is trying to build a community of Filipino Americans,” board member and picnic organizer Chris Shultz explained. “Especially people who come here [and are] first generation and don’t have a good community [and whose] family is not here. We support them.”
Born and raised in Madison, Schultz is a newly-sworn in PAMANA board member. As a biracial Filipino American, Schultz wasn’t entirely familiar with his Filipino heritage growing up.
“I didn’t know this even existed,” he said of PAMANA. “When my dad came over [from the Philippines], he wasn’t allowed to speak Tagalog so I never learned. I didn’t know any other Filipinos, maybe one or two from school, and then after that I just never really had any roots to the Philippines.”
But last year, while working as a sales associate for US Cellular, he met former PAMANA president Janette Jordee, who invited him to one of the organization’s dinners.
“When I met Jordee and I realized this was a thing, I was very shocked at how many Filipinos are in Madison,” he said.
For Shultz, being part of PAMANA has enabled him to be more connected with his paternal roots. “There [were] some things that my dad would carry on,” he explained. “I knew my grandma and she kind of did the same things that they do here [at PAMANA] on a very small scale. Seeing a whole community is completely different. I wouldn’t say it’s a culture shock, but it’s more like, okay, you get to actually live it for once.”
Hannah Keziah Agustin, who immigrated to Wisconsin with her family in 2019, similarly expressed gratitude for the opportunities that PAMANA creates for Filipino Wisconsinites to come together.
“I am always surprised that there are this many Filipinos in Madison because I am rarely ever surrounded by this many people who share, embrace, and celebrate my culture,” she said.
Agustin’s family moved from Metro Manila to Whitewater when her mother got a job working as a nurse there. “We [sought] out other Filipino families in Whitewater to find community and places of belonging,” Agustin explained. “Whitewater was not diverse and it was important for us to find people we could call our own.”
In 2022, her family relocated to Madison, and they’ve continued to grow their Wisconsin network. “I love that PAMANA brings together Filipino people in the community through events like the picnic,” Agustin said.
In between announcements and lunch, the all-women’s La Crosse Dance Troupe—whose members are from La Crosse, Baraboo, Winona, Minn., and beyond—performed two traditional Filipino dance numbers, including the pagapir, which is typically performed before important events by ladies of the royal court.
Solo singer and acoustic guitarist Bernard Quipot and the high school band Jomari and Friends entertained the crowd with their respective musical performances, including a cover of the expat-favorite “Manila” by Hotdog, and a cover of the Gen Z-revived hit “Linger” by The Cranberries.
Two Madison East High School seniors, Edwin ‘TJ’ Tjares and Doreen Ayne Abejero also received this year’s PAMANA scholarships, which provide financial support to Filipino American high school students as they embark on their college journies.
This year, picnic attendees also took a moment to celebrate the memory of dedicated PAMANA member Alvin Gutierrez, who passed away unexpectedly earlier this year. Gutierrez’s aunt was a founding member of PAMANA, and he served the organization for 30 years.
Whether folks have been with PAMANA for decades or have newly joined, Schultz hopes that everyone left the picnic with the same feeling of togetherness: “Hopefully they take away the same thing that I felt when I went to my first event,” he said. “There is an extended family outside of your own […] and you have another support group.”
