50 years of Barrio Fiesta, Stockton's Filipino celebration returns after COVID-19 hiatus

The Filipino Center Plaza is celebrating its 50th annual Barrio Fiesta.

The celebration will kick off at 11 a.m. until 8 p.m., Aug. 12, at the Filipino Center Plaza on 6 West Main Street in Stockton.

“It's to commemorate the building itself for being here for 50 years. Its history goes back to the Philippines where different barrios or different towns, they're called barrios, celebrate their towns or their saint, their patron saints..." said Doris Unsod, president of the Associated Filipino Organizations of San Joaquin County, Inc. “It's a chance for us to celebrate and show that we're still in business and we're still providing what our mission statement had originally planned to do, and that's to provide housing, affordable housing.”

The event is free and open to the community. It returns after a COVID-19 hiatus, with its last event in 2019, Unsod said.

"It's difficult to try to stand up on your own two feet again. But we're strong, the board is a strong group, and they really wanted to bring it back to the community," Unsod said. "It took a lot of effort on everyone's part to provide it," Unsod said.

This year's celebration will be "a reunion for many people of all ages as (a) celebration of each other, that we're still alive another year," Unsod said.

“It makes me very proud to celebrate 50 years, I've seen all 50 years actually, and it just makes me, it makes me really happy, and it makes me very sentimental. And it brings back a lot of happy memories. I have mixed emotions, but most of them are happy," she said.

The 10-story building was completed in 1972.

Some know it as the "Filipino Plaza," the "Filipino Center Plaza," or the "Filipino Plaza Center."

It's a low-income apartment community with 128 units as part of Section 8 assisted living units.

There is an adjacent building known as the "Commercial Center" with commercial properties, restaurants, office spaces, rental event spaces for entertaining, and even a preschool area available for rent that has been vacant for years.

A social hall is currently used as a cooling center during hot weather days. They just purchased an ice machine for it, Unsod said.

The building was a result of families being driven out of their neighborhood with the construction of the Crosstown Freeway, Jose Bernardo of Stockton told The Record in 2016. Bernardo was one of the people responsible for the creation of the plaza.

He arrived in Stockton from the Philippines in 1946.

Filipino, Japanese, and Chinese stores and homes were located in the streets that now surround the Crosstown Freeway, he said then. The buildings were torn down with the redevelopment of the area and construction of the freeway in the early 1960s, and officials didn’t think of where the people from the neighborhood would go, he added.

Unsod said the building was originally made to house Filipinos only.

Due to HUD guidelines (United States Department of Housing and Urban Development) and EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity), the complex now serves other ethnicities, Unsod said.

"We have a nice mix of people. We even have a couple of refugees from Afghanistan and we have people from all over the world. And it's a beautiful, a beautiful composition of people,” Unsod said.

Bernardo, through the Filipino Catholic Association, was connected with a Chinese attorney who wanted to organize and build housing for low-income families who had been displaced. The men had no money, but the young attorney had guts, Bernardo told The Record in the past.

“For Filipinos at the time, it was the first time that Filipinos had gotten together on a single mission to work together to get this building completed,” Unsod said. “Jose Bernardo, the founder was able to approach HUD and request funding. And there were many non-believers within (the) Filipino community who were opposed to it. They said it couldn't be done. But Jose proved them wrong.”

It continues to provide hundreds of people with low-income housing in downtown Stockton.

This year the celebration will feature a fashion show, exhibits, dance performances, shaved ice, and more. The Associated Filipino Organizations will have a food booth, which will be the only one. This is after one of their food vendors backed out last minute, Unsod said.

“I want everyone to know, especially those who thought it couldn't be done. That we're still here. We're still standing. And we're still strong,” Unsod said. “I look forward to seeing that building still providing housing in the future, for many years to come. I want people to come celebrate with us. It's a very unique, I think situation, and I want them to come, share and come see the accomplishment. I think it's a real accomplishment, and I want them to share it with us.”

For more information on Barrio Fiesta visit visitstockton.org/events/stockton-barrio-fiesta/.

Record reporter Angelaydet Rocha covers community news in Stockton and San Joaquin County. She can be reached at arocha@recordnet.com or on Twitter @AngelaydetRocha. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.

This article originally appeared on The Record: 50th annual Barrio Fiesta celebration returns