Smithsonian exhibit documents Filipino American life under segregation

“How Can You Forget Me: Filipino American Stories,” running at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., documents Filipino American life during a period when migrants faced restrictive immigration laws and racial segregation.

The exhibition opened Dec. 23, 2025, and continues through Nov. 28, 2027. Using personal belongings preserved in large travel chests known as steamer trunks, the exhibition highlights Filipino farm labor, fraternal organizations and family formation in California from the 1910s through the 1970s.

The exhibition is anchored by 26 steamer trunks discovered in 2005 in Stockton, California, a city that once had the largest Filipino population outside the Philippines. Three of the trunks are displayed with more than fifty artifacts including clothing, work tools, photographs and handwritten materials that document the lives of mostly male Filipino migrants who labored in agriculture and built mutual aid societies in Stockton’s Little Manila. The personal items illustrate how migrants navigated work, discrimination and long periods of separation from families due to U.S. immigration restrictions in the early and mid-20th century.

The Commission on Filipinos Overseas is participating in the Smithsonian project by actively tracing descendants of early 20th-century Filipino migrants who are still living in the Philippines, with the goal of reconnecting families separated by migration. The initiative is part of a broader shift by the agency toward direct engagement with the Filipino diaspora under Secretary Dante “Klink” Ang II, moving beyond administrative functions to cultural and historical documentation. “Our mission is to ensure that no Filipino, no matter how long they have been away or how many generations have passed, feels disconnected from their roots,” Ang said.