Las Vegas area welcomes its first Filipino Town

After years of community efforts, commissioners in Nevada’s Clark County unanimously voted to establish the Las Vegas area’s first Filipino cultural district along Maryland Parkway, recognizing the contributions of Southern Nevada’s approximately 200,000 Filipino residents.

Rozita Lee, who moved to Las Vegas in 1979, has advocated for Filipino Town while watching the region’s population grow from 325,000 to more than 2 million, with an estimated 200,000 Filipinos by 2025. “We are the largest of the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islanders here,” Lee told KLAS.

Lee plans to open a Filipino cultural museum at Boulevard Mall, where management offered to donate space. The museum will feature artifacts collected by Edna Narrido-Luer, who began collecting as a teenager.

On April 15, Clark County Commission chambers filled with cheering supporters waving U.S. and Philippine flags after commissioners voted unanimously to establish Filipino Town. “We will continue to work together to make this Filipino Town…the best ever in this nation,” Lee said while reading the official declaration. Meanwhile, Commission Chair Tick Segerblom thanked supporters for their “patience and persistence.”

Filipino Americans are the largest Asian American group in Nevada and the second-largest nationally. The cultural corridor, which stretches from Flamingo Road to Desert Inn Road along Maryland Parkway, includes anchor businesses like Seafood City and creates a permanent space for Southern Nevada’s Filipino population.

The commission is planning inaugural celebrations, with Segerblom promising “big parties” when signage is installed. The proposed museum will display objects dating back thousands of years, including rice gods from Ifugao and religious relics, establishing what Lee calls Nevada’s “first Filipino museum.”