Named the University of Virginia's number one organization on Grounds last year by Student Council, the Organization of Young Filipino Americans (OYFA) will be hosting its annual Barrio festival this Saturday.
"OYFA was founded in 1988 by a group of Filipino students who wanted an organization where they could express their values and traditions, but at the same time not be really exclusive," said Rosanne Ibanez, third-year College student and OYFA historic chair.
Now, composed of over 100 members, OYFA acts as a cultural and social arena for Filipino students on Grounds. The group's culture chairs are responsible for teaching OYFA members about Filipino culture and the language Tagalog. Another one of their responsibilities is organizing Barrio.
The event is part of the University's Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. APAHM is usually held in May, but, due to the time frame of the academic calendar, universities across the nation hold it in April. The primary purpose of APAHM is to raise awareness of Asian American communities and culture on Grounds.
"Barrio Fiesta is a celebration of Filipino heritage [through song and dance]," Ibanez said. "We try to be really encompassing in that we take different dances from different ... areas of the Philippines."
There will be six traditional dances this year including a partner's coin dance and another partner's dance that pays respect to religion, namely Catholicism.
"A lot of the dances have significance in historical times and colonial periods and religious underlyings," Ibanez said. "Tinikiling, named after the Tinik bird who flies in and out of sticks, also has ties to the colonial period in that during times of slavery they would clap wooden sticks on your feet. So that's a way of flying through the sticks ... It's one of the national dances of the Philippines, so it's one of our most important ones. It's incredibly difficult."
In addition to showcasing Filipino heritage in the form of six traditional dances, the festival will also highlight aspects of current Filipino-American culture. Members will combine hip-hop and modern dance to show the interaction between the traditional and the contemporary.
Skits are usually built in between the traditional dances and songs.
"Each year we select an issue that is relevant to Filipino-American heritage," Ibanez said. "Last year it was the WWII Veterans Act and this year it is going to be overseas workers. We build that into our skit."
This year's skit is set in the past at the University of the Philippines. The protagonist is a female university student.
"Then she's faced with economic problems, or the problems of whether or not she is going to leave for more opportunity," Ibanez said. "She leaves the Philippines to come to America where she works at a hotel."
The skit mixes romance (the tale of a woman torn between two men) and important historical issues of language barriers, stereotypes and other difficulties experienced by many Filipino immigrants. The storyline of making decisions is the basis of Barrio's theme this year: "Mga Kapasiyahan."
"There's this great thing that we're doing where the premise of it is that they're at a 50th wedding anniversary, and it keeps flashing back to the past. But the woman is now a grandmother and she is talking to her granddaughter, who says 'Tell me how you met my grandfather.' One thing that we're trying to do is actually have the audience vote ... for the guy you want and then they pick that ending."
The group's goal with Barrio is part informational and part awareness.
"In addition to wanting it to be entertaining and wanting the people who don't normally come to our event to enjoy the show, we wanted there to be an element of awareness, where we understand as an organization that there are problems that impact our culture and impact us as individuals that are present here," Ibanez said. "It is important not just for us to see that, but for other people to see it. And that's what makes it meaningful."
Barrio will be held April 14 at Burley Middle School. Food is at 5 p.m. and the show begins at 6 p.m. Rides will be provided by VSA from Tuttle.
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