By Elijah Cabatic, October 27, 2026
October was first recognized as Filipino American History Month by the State of California in 2009 to acknowledge the culture and first landings of Filipinos in America as well as the history Filipino Americans have in California, including Cal Poly Pomona.
CPP’s Barkada, the Filipino American student association on campus, has hosted many events this month in celebration of FAHM.
Barkada held a Boodle Fight earlier this month, a traditional Filipino feast where food is laid out on banana leaves and everyone uses their hands to eat.
“Building of culture and history is very much entwined with centuries of our colonial past and also our modern resurgence,” said Corey Carmona, an electromechanical systems engineering technology student and the community logistics coordinator for Barkada.
Club President Neiah Torres, a criminology student, said the club has four pillars: academics, culture, athletics and social.
Architecture student Juliana Ragmat described the pillars of Filipino culture as family and community. Barkada in Tagalog, the primary language of the Philippines, means a group of friends. The club was founded in 1980 and provides a variety of services to Filipino American students at CPP.
The club describes their mission on the website is to educate people on Filipino American culture and allow members to engage in cultural experiences and provide access to social, academic and athletic resources.
The club participated in the 40th annual Friendship Games Oct. 17 hosted at California State University, Fullerton.
The Friendship Games claims to be the largest student-run Filipino event in the country with 27 university clubs participating from as far as the San Francisco Bay Area.
The games have been an annual tradition for the club. Torres said the club has certain special traditions like being the first to arrive and taking a group photo on a set of stairs.
“We SPUF, which stands for spirit, pride, unity, and friendship,” Torres said. “It’s just a great way to get everyone hyped and getting ready to meet each other and engage during the games as well. We usually just do little picnic games and compete against other schools.”
The club is hosting a mixer with several other Asian American affinity groups including the Nikkei Student Union and the Vietnamese Student Association Oct. 29.
“Barkada, along with some of the other (multicultural council) cultural clubs on campus, sometimes we do love to do collabs,” Torres said.
Barkada is open to all students interested in Filipino culture with general meetings every other Friday at 7 p.m. in Building 78.
