“Para sa Kultura” festival brings filipino food samples, “Eskrima” demonstration, and traditional folk dances to ECC
Members of the PaaMano Eskrima group give a martial art demonstration with blades at the “Para sa Kultura” Filipino festival on the Library Lawn on Thursday, Oct, 11. (Jack Kan/Union) Photo credit: Jack Kan
As part of the Filipino/a/x American History Month, the Student Equity Advisory Council (SEAC) presented a cultural event at the ECC Library Lawn entitled “Para sa Kultura” on Thursday, Oct. 11.
Free filipino food samples were offered, such as puto, a Tagalog word, not a Spanish one, kutchinta, and ensaymada.
The steamed rice cakes known as puto, are sometimes flavored with ube, purple yam, or topped with grated cheese.
Kutchinta are steamed rice cakes made with brown sugar, lye and annatto extract which give them a distinctive orange color.
Ensaymadas are brioches baked with butter and topped with sugar and grated cheese. The original recipe probably came from the Balearic Island of Mallorca.
There was a lot of interest from the passing crowd, and many students and staffers tasted these delicacies, some for the first time.
A demonstration by PaaMano Eskrima members, literal translation “Foot-Hand-Skirmish”, was led by martial artist Roland Ferrer.
Ferrer, a 7th degree black belt U.S. National Taekwondo champion, studied under revered Filipino martial artist Dan Inosanto who taught and trained with Bruce Lee.
“Eskrima is a traditional Filipino martial art which was forbidden by the Spanish authorities when the Philippines were still a Spanish colony,” Aurora Ferrer, the creative director of PaaMano Eskrima said. “Students typically start with sticks and blades but progress on to fighting with bare hands.”
The FCS Dance Group presented several traditional Filipino folk dances .
“It’s only after I grew up and had children that I realized how important my Filipino roots and culture were to me,” member of the Filipino Cultural School Cindy Szendzial said.
The event closed with an innovative fusion of Tinikling, “the bamboo dance”, and Eskrima, a collaboration between PaaMano Eskrima and the FCS Dance Group.
The Filipino Book Club has two future events scheduled, on Thursday, Oct. 18, and on Nov. 13, 1 p.m. in the Decathlon Room.
Faculty and students will engage in a discussion of the book “America is in the Heart” by Filipino immigrant and labor organizer Carlos Bulosan.
“There will be free Filipino food like sisig (marinated pork) and early arrivals will get free copies of the book,” Student Services Specialist Chris Dela Cruz from the Student Development Office said.
In conjunction with the Scene One Film Club, a Filipino Movie Night is also scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 25, at 4 pm in the East Dining Room above the ECC Bookstore. The movie “The Debut” (2000) will be shown to promote a better understanding of Filipino culture and history in an American context.
Update: Tuesday, Oct. 16, 8:24 All mentions of “Para su Kultura” was changed to “Para sa Kultura” for accuracy. “Paamano” was changed to “PaaMano” for accuracy.
The word “by” was added for clarity.
Correction Aurora Ferrer is the creative director of PaaMano Eskrima, not Roland Ferrer. Attribution, “Aurora Ferrer, the creative director of PaaMano Eskrima said,” was added for accuracy.
