Kababayan joins the Fremont community
At the beginning of this school year, a group of Filipino teachers within the Fremont Union High School District (FUHSD) came together to talk about a problem they have been noticing: trends of rising absentees, academic struggles and feelings of isolation amongst the Filipino students here at Fremont High School.
After a month and a half of research and many meetings with guidance counselors and school administrators later, the Kababayan program was born to help combat these problems that many Filipino families are facing at Fremont. Kababayan, for those who do not know, is Tagalog for townsmen — people of the same neighborhood.
“Why we choose this name is because the four value terms of FHS is community, collaboration, support and respect,” English teacher Chary Salvador said. “Kababayan fits under those four FHS value terms.”
This newly formed program focuses itself on educating Filipino families about the available resources provided by the school and developing an interconnected community amongst the Filipino families, from American born Filipinos to Filipino migrants.
The Kababayan program is meant to act as further additional support to the systems already in place here for Filipino students, particularly for those who struggle with understanding the school system. It provides them with the necessary support in order to graduate high school and prepare for college.
The support team is made up of Filipino faculty members here at FHS: Jayson Huliganga, Nimia Phillips, Salvador, Laine Sazon and Paulo Sazon who speak and understand Tagalog and other Filipino dialects such as Ilocano and Cebuano.
Many Filipino students and families alike attended the Kababayan meetings. On November 6, over 25 families came to the first Kababayan meeting. There, they were introduced to what the Kababayan program is.
“We went over what topics we are planning to talk about throughout the year, one of them being financial aid and post high school options besides four year university or junior colleges such as trade schools and vocational schools,” transition specialist and paraeducator Huliganga said.
During their most recent meeting on December 4, the families that attended discussed the three different categories of financial aid, scholarships, A-G requirements, types of degrees and explained the differences between college and university. They also explained the importance of services such as School Loop and Infinite Campus to the families.
While every monthly meeting will focus on a particular topic, the FHS Filipino support team is also open to making their themes based off what parents request or what students feel that they need.
In the eyes of a newly immigrated individual, there is always an added comfort when it comes to being in your own community. Especially if one were to feel intimidated to speak out or ask for help because of difficulties surrounding the language or cultural barrier.
Kababayan was made to provide a sense of comfort to Filipino families to speak in their own dialect and to be who they are freely. It is there to additionally make new connections without any sort of prejudice or judgment from other people.
“I know from my background, being a Filipino-American also means having immigrant parents and not knowing what’s going on,” Salvador said. “There’s all different kinds of representation here because some of us [...] were born back home and immigrated here while others were born and raised here. Our ways of being here are different and we can relate to them in all levels. [...] Everybody [in the Filipino support team] provides something to connect to the community.”
For parents or guardians, online resources such as School Loop and Infinite Campus can be confusing, mainly because it is all such a new experience. At Kababayan, many faculty members were surprised by the vast number of questions that the parents had for things many of us use in our daily lives.
For the 2019-2020 school year, Filipino students make up 10 percent of the FHS student population, meaning that roughly 45 students from every grade level has a Philippine background.
Even though these Filipino students may not be seen widely throughout the school day, Filipinos at FHS gather together at the Filipino Youth Organization (FYO) club meetings. FYO’s vice president, junior Frances Mendoza believes that being a part of something that brings people together is everything.
“To see [all different kinds of Filipino] students in FYO supporting each other looks like laughter,” Mendoza said. “Joking around with everyone in the club, bonding together, yelling at each other out of love [...]. The support everyone gives each other is just so visible when I come to each meeting, and it makes me really happy.”
FYO, a student led organization, is more commonly used as a place for social gatherings rather than a high school resource that their parents or guardians can use.
Kababayan is made to serve these parents to help their students thrive in their academics.
“Whatever the need is, we will be there to help these students be successful,” registrar Laine Sazon said. “And this way, we can connect with [our Filipino students] […] so we as a staff can help them if they are struggling in school and they know who they can reach out to.”
The Kababayan support team often finds that while their students are on track for graduation, they simply are not prepared enough for college. Another difficulty surrounding some of the Filipino students at FHS is their lack of confidence. While these students do want to ask for help regarding school, they instead keep their problems to themselves for various reasons.
Many dread and contemplate the idea that they are not good enough, feeding into the fear of disappointing not only themselves, but their families as well. Coming from the same culture, Kababayan is arguably much more suitable and well equipped to reach out to struggling Filipino students. A key component of this is due to the values that the faculty share with the students that they are supporting.
No matter what, Kababayan will always be there for these students. Even if a student feels uncomfortable with the amount of English they know, they can guide students and give them access to who or what they need in order to start feeling welcomed on campus, making the transition period less intimidating.
The creation of the Kababayan program took a lot of time and work. The entire support team was anxious, especially during preparations for the very first meeting. It involved pulling numbers and percentages from different aspects of the Filipino communities, figuring out who the Filipino teachers were, having talks and surveys with guidance and wrapping it up with long discussions between the school administrators.
“We wouldn’t be here without Los Padres,” Salvador said. “They are the skeleton of this operation. Most of our things have come from them because they have been doing such a good job with the Hispanic Community.”
Los Padres is the Hispanic group Kababayan is modeled after. Los Padres started at FHS in the 1995-1996 school year, and has been dedicating themselves to helping the FHS Hispanic families since. The successes that Los Padres has produced for their Hispanic families heavily influenced Kababayan. Kababayan has used this group as their own foundation while making slight modifications to better fit the Filipino community.
“The reason why pulling it together wasn’t as hard on us is because the foundation has already been set for us,” Huliganga said. “We also have so many support systems here. We already had a model that we could follow, so we didn’t have to work on the fly of how to do things. It just so happened that we have many talented people here to put things together.”
With the creation of Kababayan, hopefully we see other minority ethnic groups be inspired to follow suit to help the many other families here at FHS. As a Filipino myself, it is amazing to see my typically overlooked culture having the chance to get the resources we need here in this high school to help us make our mark in the world.
So Maraming Salamat Po (thank you) to all those who helped make this Kababayan program a reality and to those who will continue to support it!