Covid canceled Fiesta Filipina in Overland Park last year. Now it’s back, with a twist

The Filipino Association of Greater Kansas City had to cancel one of its biggest fundraising events last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

But this Saturday, the group is going online to bring back Fiesta Filipina for its 44th run.

For decades, the event has drawn several hundred Kansas Citians for a celebration of Filipino dance, music, food and culture, marking the Philippines’ independence from Spain.

Instead of its usual venue at the Filipino Cultural Center in Overland Park, this year’s fiesta will be hosted on Facebook Live.

The two-hour program will feature historical videos of dance segments from past fiestas, guest performers as well as a pop-up food event that will make Filipino food favorites — like lumpia, chicken adobo, barbecued pork skewers, pancit and turon — available to order.

The roots of the event in Kansas City date back to the 1970s when the fiesta was a part of an ethnic festival in Crown Center Square, said Lillian Pardo, a founding member of the Filipino Association. The group used the proceeds that came from the initial fiestas to acquire its first piece of property in Overland Park. Years later they purchased the adjacent lot, eventually building their own cultural center in 2000.

Since then, the location has been a home for Filipino communities to meet, socialize, share food and attend cultural events and educational workshops. Pardo said they are one of two Filipino organizations in the United States to build their own cultural centers from the ground up.

In addition to space for events and rehearsals, the center in Overland Park houses an exhibit that contains pieces of Filipino culture. Visitors can pick up a book from a small library offering a variety of titles by Filipino authors. Beaded jewelry and headpieces, dresses made of pineapple fiber and hand-made woven baskets — mostly donated from community members — line the walls of the exhibit.

“This is our home away from home,” said Jonel Loreno, president of the Filipino Association.

Rooted in community service, the center has conducted surveys to gauge interest in community vaccination events and has partnered with organizations such as the Philippine Nurses Association to provide health services, including blood pressure tests and diabetes screenings, at its events.

Due to COVID-19 prevention measures, the Filipino Association had to cancel last year’s Fiesta Filipina and do without one of its biggest fundraising events.

To tide the group over to the next year, it needed to get creative. Pardo said it was about embodying “Bayanihan spirit,” referring to the Filipino custom of working efficiently in community with one another.

Community members cooked and sold Filipino food for curbside pick-up, sewed face masks, made calendars and launched an online fundraising campaign to stay afloat.

“Through all of this, we survived,” Pardo said.

The group managed to pay its bills with $7 to spare, according to Loreno.

When he moved to Kansas City from Florida in 2016, Loreno was searching for a sense of community. After attending one of the Filipino Association’s monthly meetings, he said the rest was history.

“It’s what I call the herd instinct,” Pardo said. “People have a tendency to want to be together, to cook our own food, to taste the familiar food that we know back home.”

Having moved to Kansas City from Manila in 1963, Pardo has witnessed the establishment of the Filipino Association and the growth of Filipino communities in the area.

She raised her three children in Kansas City, where she said they stood out as the only Asian kids at school.

But events like the Fiesta Filipina are helping youth in the community build their confidence and take pride in where they come from, Pardo said.

Many youth are also active in the Sinag-Tala dance troupe, a performing arts component of the Filipino Association that presents the history of the Philippines in its dances and costumes that showcase the regional influences in the country.

“Our primary goal from the very beginning was to promote and preserve our cultural heritage,” Pardo said. “Second- and third-generation Filipino Americans who were born here, and of course, have never been to the Philippines are being made aware of their parents’ heritage.”