Festival honors legacy of former tuberculosis patient in Saranac Lake
By David Escobar
Last weekend, Saranac Lake transformed into a vibrant hub of Filipino culture to honor the legacy of one of the village’s most prominent former residents.
Visitors from across New York and Canada packed the seats of Harrietstown Town Hall in downtown Saranac Lake in anticipation. Traditional Filipino music accompanied roars of cheers and applause to set the stage for the Golden Maidens, a Montreal-based dance troupe that traveled to the Adirondacks to celebrate President Quezon History Day.
“I think going into this, we recognized that we knew very little,” said Amy Catania, executive director of Historic Saranac Lake. Catania is part of the team that for the past five years has been investigating the history of President Manuel Quezon’s ties to the village.
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Catania said her museum has always been aware of Quezon, who was the first democratically elected president of the Philippines. After falling ill in 1943, Quezon became one of the thousands of tuberculosis patients who journeyed to Saranac Lake to seek medical treatment from Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau.
However, Catania said the histories of these tuberculosis patients have been difficult to track, especially those dating to the 1940s.
“People were thinking about the war,” Catania said. “People were thinking about their sons and daughters overseas. Things that happened during that time here often weren’t well-documented.”
Tracking Quezon
Quezon was first elected president of the Philippines in 1935, but fled the country in 1942 after Japan occupied his home country during World War II. Quezon first settled in Washington D.C. to run his country in exile, a history that Philippine Consul General of New York Senen Mangalile said many Filipinos know well.
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“Everyone who is in grade school in the Philippines is taught Philippine history,” Mangalile said. “President Quezon occupies a huge chapter in that history because of what he did to prepare the country for independence.”
Catania said the first in-depth conversations about Quezon at Historic Saranac Lake started five years ago, when a local group of Filipino-Americans came to her museum to honor the 75th anniversary of Quezon’s death.
“For us, it was a learning moment where we said that we should be involved in this,” Catania said.
Since that day, Catania said she has enlisted the help of Filipino history experts, including Quezon’s grandson Manuel Quezon III and New York University Professor Luis Francia, to help the museum understand Quezon’s legacy for Filipinos.
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Mangalile said that Quezon’s presidency brought a sense of unity and national identity to the Philippines. He said that Quezon’s key accomplishments include establishing a standardized Filipino language, declaring the nation’s independence and initiating numerous social reforms across the archipelago.
A man worth celebrating
For many festival attendees, Quezon’s legacy extends far beyond his death 80 years ago. Vermont resident Priscilla Magdamo-Abraham, who immigrated to the United States from the Philippines, said she remembers hearing loud noises from a military patrol torpedo boat leaving the port in Dumaguete, her hometown.
“We didn’t know the full story,” said Magdamo-Abraham, who credits educators at Historic Saranac Lake with helping her realize she witnessed Quezon’s departure from the Philippines during World War II.
Not all attendees were familiar with President Quezon’s story. However, event organizers like Sol Kapunan, president of the nonprofit Kalayaan 1521 Council in Albany that promotes Filipino culture, said Quezon’s message of community unity was apparent throughout the day.
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“I have seen people come together, and that is the goal that I wanted to see,” Kapunan said. “And at the same time, of course, we are building friendship.”
Cross-cultural connections
On Main Street, Quezon Day attendees congregated around tents with friends and strangers for the festival’s edible offerings: sticky rice, adobo, lumpia and other traditional Filipino fare.
Grace St. Pierre traveled to the Tri-Lakes from Ticonderoga to sample a frozen milk and gelatin dessert called halo-halo, which means “mix-mix” in Tagalog.
“This is the first time that we’ve been here,” said St. Pierre, who is Filipina. “We just want to enjoy the Filipino [food].”
St. Pierre said she was elated when she first heard about President Quezon History Day. She said like many other people of color in the North Country, Filipino-Americans can often feel isolated.
Nikaio Thomashow, who performed at the festival with the New York City-based KAōS Dance Collective, related to St. Pierre’s feelings of isolation. The dancer now lives in New York City, but said they struggled growing up as a Filipino-American just a few miles north in Vermontville.
“If I didn’t adapt, I wouldn’t fit in,” Thomashow said. “So it’s so beautiful that people are coming together in my hometown around [their] community and around something so central to who I am, and of course to every other Filipino in attendance here.”
Tiffany Rea-Fisher, director of the Adirondack Diversity Initiative, said the joy of attendees at the celebration underscores broader themes across the region, especially in the Adirondacks.
“I think people don’t think there are other people here other than white Americans, and it’s just not true,” Rea-Fisher said. “There’s been a history from the jump of lots of different cultures putting their footprint and their fingerprints all over this place.”
Though the vibrant festivities dissipated by evening, Catania said she hopes Historic Saranac Lake’s work to preserve President Quezon’s legacy will foster a future of inclusivity in the village.
“It’s a hard time to be an immigrant in this country,” Catania said. “I think it hopefully means something to have a small community way up high up in the mountain open our arms and say ‘We welcome you here.’”
This reporting is a collaboration of the Adirondack Explorer and North Country Public Radio, with funding from Report for America.
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