Filipino American Library collection
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Scope and Contents
The Filipino American Library collection consists of materials owned by the Filipino American Library in Historic Filipinotown that were transferred to the University of Southern California Special Collections in 2017. The collection is currently divided into two categories: (i) digitized material and (ii) minimally processed material. The digitized material consists of lantern slides, bound volumes, photographic prints, maps, and other materials that the USC Digital Library digitized and described at the item-level beginning in 2017.
The minimally processed material consists of various formats that have not been digitized or described beyond this finding aid. Types of material grouped under the minimally processed series include published books and periodicals, spiral-bound course readings, library routing requests, newspaper clippings, photocopies of legal proceedings, unpublished manuscripts for journal articles, conference materials, brochures, pamphlets, travel guides, newsletters, teacher and student workbooks, meeting minutes, correspondence, administrative records, subject files, photograph albums, and audio and video recordings.
Items selected by affiliates of the FAL to be made digitally available include lantern slides, bound volumes, photographic prints, maps, and loose printed materials showing life in the Philippines, contributions by Filipino Americans in the World War II effort, and the acculturation and growth of the Filipino American community in Southern California. Materials are written in English, Tagalog, and Ilocano. Highlights of the Filipino American Library Collection include:
- Items commemorating Filipino veterans from World War II, including publications and a certificate of commendation from President Clinton;
- Bilingual short stories written by staff from the Asian American Bilingual Center about Asian immigrants and their journey and settlement to the United States;
- Reports, summaries, and recommendations surrounding the health, education, and welfare of Asian Americans;
- Ephemeral materials from the Philippines detailing geography, culture, religion, and life in the Philippines in the early 20th century.
Dates
- Creation: 1910 - 2015
Creator
- Filipino American Library (FAL) (Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE. Advance notice required for access.
Conditions Governing Use
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special Collections at specol@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Biographical / Historical
The Filipino American Library (FAL) was founded in a church basement in 1985 as the Pilipino American Reading Room and Library (PARRAL) in a neighborhood close to Echo Park by Helen Agcaoili Summers Brown, affectionately referred to as "Auntie Helen" in the local community. In January of 2000, PARRAL moved to a new location on Temple Street and was renamed the Filipino American Library. At the time, FAL comprised the largest collection of Filipino and Filipino American reading materials--at more than 6,000 titles--and promoted literacy and cultural engagement through many community programs and exhibits. When FAL closed its doors, its collections were dispersed among the USC Libraries and the Echo Park Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Extent
48.17 Linear Feet (49 boxes)
Language of Materials
English
Tagalog
Iloko
Abstract
The Filipino American Library collection consists of materials owned by the Filipino American Library in Historic Filipinotown that were transferred to the University of Southern California Special Collections in 2017. The collection is currently divided into two categories: (i) digitized material and (ii) minimally processed material. The digitized material consists of lantern slides, bound volumes, photographic prints, maps, and other materials that the USC Digital Library digitized and described at the item-level beginning in 2017. The minimally processed material consists of various types of material that have not been digitized or described beyond this finding aid. Types of material grouped under the minimally processed series include published books and periodicals, spiral-bound course readings, library routing requests, newspaper clippings, photocopies of legal proceedings, unpublished manuscripts for journal articles, conference materials, brochures, pamphlets, travel guides, newsletters, teacher and student workbooks, meeting minutes, correspondence, photograph albums, administrative records, subject files, and audio and video recordings.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of the Filipino American Library via Florante Ibanez and Paul Estuar, March 1, 2017.
Separated Materials
Most of the published books and periodicals that came in with the Filipino American Library acquisition were separated from the archival collection and cataloged individually. The cataloged books are available via the main USC Libraries catalog search.
Processing Information
Processing for the material described under the series titled "Digitized material" is complete. Thanks to generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the USC Libraries digitized this material for public access as part of the L.A. as Subject Community Histories Digitization Project.
Material described under the series titled "Minimally processed material" is grouped by its previous labels and/or arrangement. Each box-level record under this series is titled with an incomplete summary of the box's contents. Some of the box-level records include scope and contents notes with more detailed, but still incomplete, inventories.
In October of 2022, the USC Libraries created an exhibition of material from the Filipino American Library collection for Pilipino American History Month (PAHM). During the planning and curation of the PAHM exhibit, Alyssa Adraneda, Vanessa Gomez Brake, Rebecca Corbett, Anne-Marie Maxwell, and Melanee Vicedo created notes and partial inventories of the contents of boxes 9-28. Each box's exhibit notes have been copied to the corresponding box-level records under the series titled "Minimally processed material."
Subject
- Filipino American Library (FAL) -- Archives (Organization)
- Brown, Helen Agcaoili Summers -- Archives (Person)
Genre / Form
- Administrative records
- Books
- Compact discs
- Correspondence
- Ephemera
- Lantern slides
- Maps
- Moving images
- Newsletters
- Periodicals
- Photograph albums
- Photographs
- Reports
- Short stories
- VHS
- Workbooks
Geographic
- Philippines -- Description and travel -- Archival resources
- Philippines -- Emigration and immigration -- Archival resources
- United States -- Armed Forces -- Asian Americans -- Archival resources
Topical
- Asian Americans -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
- Asian Americans and libraries -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
- Filipino American authors -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
- Filipino Americans -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
- Filipino diaspora -- Archival resources
- Philippine periodicals -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Veterans -- Archival resources
- Title
- Finding aid for the Filipino American Library collection
- Status
- Minimally Processed
- Author
- Bo Doub authored the finding aid. Zoe Nissen authored the item-level metadata for the digitized material. Some of the collection-level notes were adapted from collection-level summaries previously published on the USC Digital Library website. In October of 2022, the USC Libraries created an exhibition of material from the Filipino American Library collection for Pilipino American History Month (PAHM). During the planning and curation of the PAHM exhibit, Alyssa Adraneda, Vanessa Gomez Brake, Rebecca Corbett, Anne-Marie Maxwell, and Melanee Vicedo created notes and partial inventories of the contents of boxes 9-28. Each box's exhibit notes have been copied to the corresponding box-level records under the series titled "Minimally processed material."
- Date
- 2021 August
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Revision Statements
- 2022 February: Finding aid updated by Bo Doub to include material added to the collection from accrual no. 2022-009 -- housed in Box no. 28.
- 2022 October: Finding aid updated by Bo Doub to include material added to the collection from accrual no. 2022-078 -- housed in Box nos. 29-49. Bo Doub also added the notes and partial inventories from the 2022 PAHM exhibit for the contents of Box nos. 9-28 at this time.
Repository Details
Part of the USC Libraries Special Collections Repository
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0189 United States
specol@usc.edu