Fred and Dorothy Cordova

Filipino Youth Association;
Filipino American National Historical Society

Fred and Dorothy Cordova have been involved in Filipino American activism since the 1950s. Dorothy Laigo grew up in the Central District of Seattle. Fred Cordova was born in California and moved to Washington in 1948 to attend Seattle University, meeting Dorothy soon after. Turning to journalism, they published Bamboo: The Filipino People in American Life while students at Seattle University.

Fred began professional career as a journalist with the Catholic Northwest Progress, later serving as information officer for the University of Washington. In 1957, the couple founded Filipino Youth Activities (FYA), which over the years brought together hundreds of young people eager to join the award winning FYA drill team.

Active in civil rights efforts throughout the 1960s, in the following decade Dorothy also served as Director for the Demonstration Project for Asian Americans (DPAA), which conducted a wide variety of studies on the problems Asian Americans faced in the 1970s. In addition, DPAA recorded an invaluable collection of oral histories that preserve memories for West Coast Asian American communities..

In 1982, the Cordovas helped organize the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), with Fred serving at the organization's first president. FANHS now has nearly two dozen chapters around the United States. In Seattle, it houses the National Pinoy Archives (NPA), which is one of the largest collections on Filipino American history anywhere. It includes materials on more than 9000 individuals and approximately 1500 organizations throughout the United States.

Fred Cordova passed away on December 23, 2013 at age 82.

Fred and Dorothy Cordova agreed to shared their memories of a lifetime of activism in two videotaped interviews, one conducted by James Gregory and Micah Ellison on January 12, 2005, the second by Donald Noble and Michael Schulze-Oechtering Castenada. To the right are streaming-video excerpts.

Fred Cordova (far left) at an FYA meeting in the early 1970s

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