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This year, about 3 million Filipino Americans and Filipino residents and workers celebrate a hundred years of struggles and triumphs in this country. The Smithsonian has been commemorating this Centennial with forums, documentary screening, the recent photo exhibit and other public programs. Now comes Juanita Tamayo-Lott’s Common Destiny: Filipino American Generations, a compelling story of four generations of her clan.

Tamayo-Lott explores the complex, vibrant Filipino American community using her own observations of the Lucas-Tamayo clan from her second-generation viewpoint. The book is the result of her research through personal interviews of pioneer and second generation Fil-Ams, and also from scholarly and popular press. She describes the role Filipinos have played in American democracy and explains why active civic participation is crucial to the well-being of any emerging ethnic group.

What is the main thesis of your book? All Americans must continue to aspire to and nourish a common destiny even if much of US history has been in terms of unequal or Manifest Destiny and the future will continue to hold such tensions. Filipino Americans are active participants in the American democracy and continually work towards a common destiny. Our challenge is that 21st century will not be defined by color but by a more basic human relationship–the adult/child connection –because no society can survive without sustained commitment and shared sacrifice by adult men and women for the welfare of future generations.

What compelled you to write this book?As a futurist and social scientist, I felt that there was no comprehensive or systematic record of the Filipino American pioneer generations, their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As the US more and more becomes a microcosm of the world’s population, the Filipino American experience in civic participation, inclusiveness, and renowned skills in caring and hospitality can provide an example of what a 21st century multi-cultural and multi-generational US might be. I also wanted to provide a book that would attract a wide audience, so it is written as both personal and social narrative.

How did you gather your data and how long did it take? I have thought about this book off and on for 20 years. When my mother became a great grandmother in 2000, I knew it was time to start telling the story of four generations of Filipino Americans using the Lucas Tamayo extended family. Incorporation of relevant research from scholarly and popular press is an ongoing task. I also drew on my participant observations as a second generation member. In 2002, I designed interview schedules which were used in obtaining the stories of pioneer and second generation Filipino Americans in 2002-2004. This was followed by analysis, writing, review and editing in 2004-2005 with final production and release by April 2006. This was a team effort of interviewees and researchers based on the West Coast, cheerleaders, and my publisher who are listed in the acknowledgments.

Why should Filipino Americans read this book? This book portrays the collective sacrifices, hopes, aspirations, and achievements against the odds of US nationals--Filipino youth who came to adulthood in the US in the early 1900s. It also shows how they consciously chose to be American citizens with Filipino ancestry. With their US-born and raised children, they contributed to making this country a world class leader. Today their grandchildren and great-grandchildren can use their substantive skills to play and work with other Americans of Generation X, the Miillennial Generation, and the Digital Generation to lead this country in the 21st century. As a Filipino saying goes, “One cannot know where one is going without knowing where one came from.”

About the author: Tamayo Lott has been a policy analyst/demographer with the National Center for Education Statistics, US Commission on Civil Rights, National Academy of Sciences, and, since 2001, the US Census Bureau. Her previous books include Asian Americans: From Racial Category to Multiple Identities and Spotlight on Heterogeneity: The Federal Standards for Racial and Ethnic Classification. She’s a founding co-chair of the first Pilipino Studies Program in the US, an officer of the American Statistical Association and a member of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program’s Commemoration of the Filipino American Centennial. A daughter of the pioneer generation of Filipino Americans, she graduated from the University of Chicago.

Common Destiny. Published by Rowan & Littlefield, ISBN 0742546519. To order copies, visit www.rowmanlittlefield.com or area bookstores.