Lola Scholarship

$3,000
3 winners, $1,000 each
Open
Application Deadline
Apr 17, 2024
Winners Announced
May 17, 2024
Education Level
Undergraduate
Recent Bold.org scholarship winners
Eligibility Requirements
State:
California
Race/Ethnicity:
Filipino American
Education Level:
Undergraduate and graduate students
State:
Race/Ethnicity:
Education Level:
California
Filipino American
Undergraduate and graduate students

Lola Verang and Lola Remi were beloved grandmothers who worked tirelessly to provide better lives for their families.

Lola Verang was a high school teacher in the Philippines and a single mother who raised nine children. Lola Remi was never able to finish high school but worked hard as a tailor and farmer to put her seven children through college. Both Lolas were kind-hearted, ambitious, and strong advocates of higher education.

This scholarship aims to support Filipino Americans so they can persevere through the challenges they face and complete their college degrees.

Any Filipino American undergraduate or graduate student in California may apply for this scholarship. 

To apply, tell us about your identity and how it has helped you get to this point in your life.

Selection Criteria:
Ambition, Need, Boldest Bold.org Profile
Published January 17, 2024
$3,000
3 winners, $1,000 each
Open
Application Deadline
Apr 17, 2024
Winners Announced
May 17, 2024
Education Level
Undergraduate
Recent Bold.org scholarship winners
Essay Topic

Whether you were born in the Philippines or in America, the duality in identity has always been an ever-changing struggle for Filipino Americans. Even how we call ourselves is expressed in multitudes: Pinoy, Pinay, Filipino, Filipina, Pilipinx, etc. Write a short story about your identity as a P/Filipino/a/x American and how that has helped you get where you are today.

800–1200 words

Winning Application

Mikhail Roshan Tupaz
Stanford UniversityLos Angeles, CA
Philippine hero Dr. José Rizal once said, “Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit sa hayop at malansang isda.” (One who does not love one’s own language is worse than an animal and a rotten fish.) Speaking Tagalog has always been a great part of my Filipino-American identity. Although I was born in the United States, my parents made the conscious decision to raise me speaking in their native tongue. As a child, I remember them making a point of only speaking in Tagalog when at home; if I tried to speak English with them, they would pretend to not understand so that I would switch to Tagalog. They taught me how to sing “Lupang Hinirang,” how to sing children’s songs like “Bahay Kubo,” read books like “Juan Tamad,” and recite prayers in Tagalog like “Ama Namin.” I spoke in Tagalog to my titas and titos, my lolas and lolos, and other Filipinos in our church community. Tagalog became a source of warmth and comfort for me; speaking it felt like home. I was proud to speak it. However, one day, when I was seven years old, I went to a church meeting with my parents and was bewildered. I observed that despite every person in the room being Filipino, the meeting was conducted entirely in English, with everyone refusing to utter a single word in Tagalog. When they did use Tagalog, it was usually used to convey a joke or an afterthought. Confused, I whispered to my mom in Tagalog, “Why aren’t they speaking Tagalog? Everyone’s Filipino.” This realization was the first of many realizations from my childhood to my teenage years about the position of Tagalog, not just in my own life and identity, but in society as a whole. Whether it was in church, in weddings, in family gatherings, in Facebook posts, or in debuts, I kept asking myself, “why are they speaking English instead of Tagalog?” I understood that we were in America, but even in situations where everyone was Filipino and could understand Tagalog, people elected to speak English. When I visited the Philippines for the first time, the signs, museums, historical sites, and advertisements were in English. In the National Bookstore, I could not find a single novel in Tagalog; all were in English. Sooner or later, I began noticing a pattern. English was used when people wanted to sound ‘sophisticated.’ It was the language of the affluent, the popular, and the educated. It was the language of politics, academia, and commerce. English was the language that many Filipinos prided themselves in speaking, not Tagalog. What Tagalog meant to me—a language of beauty, comfort, national identity, and pride—was not what Tagalog meant to other Filipinos. But why? When I researched the history of the Philippines, I learned that the reason behind all this was American colonization and linguistic imperialism. English was imposed on Filipinos to ‘civilize,’ to ‘educate,’ and to subjugate them. As a result, the idea that English meant wealth and education was ingrained in Filipinos. If one spoke English, one would become rich, powerful, and revered. One could climb out of poverty and achieve success in life. These attitudes continue to pervade Philippine consciousness to this day, and if left unchecked, the complete Anglicization of the Philippines would not only marginalize Tagalog and other Philippine languages, but could cause them to become extinct. These languages whose traditions, literatures, and speakers once thrived could find themselves becoming languages that are forgotten, archaic, and obsolete. Learning this not only disheartened me, but made my blood boil. “Why can’t Filipinos love their own native language,” I desperately asked my parents in tears, “Why do we still worship the language of our colonizers?! Bakit, bakit, bakit?!” All my parents could muster was, “Wala tayong magagawa, anak. We can’t do anything about it.” I had never felt so alone, so betrayed, so lost, and so hopeless. However, I refused to give up without a fight. I knew that I could do something about it, even if it’s something small. In high school, I began translating popular English songs into singable versions in Tagalog, I began advocating in my church to read Scripture in Tagalog for masses that celebrated Filipino saints, I learned how to sing harana, kundiman, and other old Filipino songs, I wrote my own original songs and poems in Tagalog and posted them on social media, and I started learning and using ‘archaic’ Tagalog words. This passion to fight for Tagalog and Filipino identity continues on in my college years as well. As a freshman last year, I joined the Pilipino American Student Union and the Filipino cultural arts and dance group, Kayumanggi. I formed a new Filipino acapella group that sings both new and old Tagalog songs, and performed these songs at our Pilipino Culture Night event. My most proud accomplishment, however, was writing my own academic paper about linguistic imperialism in the Philippines entitled “Wikang Imperyalismo, Wikang Mapagsamantala: A Critique of English Linguistic Imperialism in the Philippines.” Now as a sophomore, I have decided to major in International Relations and minor in Linguistics so that through academic papers and research, I can continue to passionately fight against linguistic imperialism for not only Tagalog, but other Philippine languages as well. For me, my Filipino identity and Tagalog language are inseparable. I earnestly and sincerely believe that one of the reasons why I am here on this Earth is to fight for my cherished and beloved native language, no matter the cost. This passion is what keeps me going during times of hardship, pain, and suffering. It is what drives me to study well, to try my best at whatever I do, and to live to fight. Dahil kung hindi ako ang magmamahal sa sariling wika, sino? (Because if I don’t love my own language, who will?)
Mellanie Kristelle De Guzman
University of San FranciscoSan Jose, CA
Resilient: an adjective used to describe individuals who have endured difficult life events but have recovered. Through my lens, the word resilience has evolved into a pop-psychology term and has become overused and misused within the field of psychology. Specifically, this term has been used to conceal the systemic oppression leading individuals from historically marginalized populations to repeatedly overcome obstacles of racism, sexism, capitalism, ageism, ableism, imperialism, and colonialism. Similarly, “matapang” is a Tagalog adjective that was commonly used throughout my childhood as a way to describe individuals for being strong or brave when facing various obstacles in life. Now as a clinical psychology doctoral student at the University of San Francisco, my social-justice-oriented education has challenged me to reflect upon my narrative as a heterosexual, cis-gender, second-generation Filipina American. As a result, I have come to view the terms resilient or matapang as unhelpful ways of describing individuals who face adversity. In my perspective, using these terms within and outside of clinical settings does not equip individuals with the proper preventative tools to effectively develop and implement coping strategies when facing future obstacles. Born of two Filipino immigrants and raised in a multigenerational household, I watched my parents, aunts, and grandmother endure various obstacles while simultaneously holding space for moments of individual and collective joy. Although each member demonstrated their ability to experience and share joy, they also experienced countless moments in which hardship made it difficult to embrace peace and contentment as a person and family unit. For instance, my family members were often made to feel inferior by their employers, colleagues, or landlords for not articulating themselves proficiently in the English language. In response, my family persisted quietly and obediently in hopes of achieving the American dream. However, experiences of discrimination further contributed to the housing instability and financial insecurity that became our reality. Moving a total of 14 times across the Bay Area throughout my childhood made it more difficult for my family and I to experience joy as well as a sense of stability. Furthermore, due to the fear of negative consequences for speaking up against discrimination, I witnessed my family members turn to unhealthy patterns of behavior as an attempt to cope. Years later as a first-generation undergraduate student at the University of California, Davis, I learned about the impacts of acculturation on immigrant families like my own including substance use, depression, and anxiety. Additionally, I learned that silence made it easier for my family to navigate new systems without scrutiny. Moreover, I became cognizant of how individuals who continuously experience oppression may also gain skills in resourcefulness. For instance, my parents used different “home” addresses for my younger brother and I to access and attend public school education within an affluent community. Witnessing and experiencing inequitable access to resources and resulting trauma responses firsthand shaped my interest in pursuing a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. Now as a developing Filipina-American clinician and board-certified neuropsychologist, my clinical work and community-based research have been informed by my family’s collective experiences. More specifically, my family’s collective experiences of embracing joy while also being mislabeled as resilient and misusing the term matapang for enduring oppression. The stress my family faced while navigating unfamiliar cultural, sociopolitical, legal, and healthcare systems has also paralleled many of the stressors my patients and their families have faced. From indicating English as a primary language in order to receive an earlier autism evaluation for their Spanish-speaking child to learning how to access various mental and behavioral health services for the first time, navigating unfamiliar systems can be overwhelming and frightening. As a provider-in-training, my identity as a Filipina American has enabled me to deeply empathize and comprehend the challenges my patients and their families face daily. Moreover, it has helped me view my work as a form of individual and collective advocacy that emphasizes collaboration. By collaborating with my patients, various health-service providers, and local community organizations in Santa Clara County as well as other Bay Area counties, historically underserved populations gain equitable access to quality, comprehensive services regardless of their intersecting identities, background, and socioeconomic status. Lastly, my identity as the only Filipina American in various academic and clinical settings has motivated me to express the importance of reframing resilience amongst my white-identifying colleagues and supervisors by acknowledging the role systemic oppression plays in a patient’s emotional, behavioral, and interpersonal distress. Through my privilege of higher education as a first-generation college graduate and doctoral student, I have learned that silence does not equate to survival; rather, it can result in tarnishing joy and lead to distress. Moreover, when an individual or collective unit does experience joy, it does not diminish the harsh realities of ongoing oppression. My identity and experiences as a Filipina American have been pivotal to my growth as a social justice-oriented clinician. Engaging with my communities as an anak, tita, Pinayista scholar, mentorship co-coordinator, Students of Color board member, and peer supervisor has helped me develop a voice that is not afraid to challenge barriers to equitable mental and behavioral health care. As such, in my newly earned position of power and privilege as a future licensed clinician, I aspire to empower individuals and families by providing them with the tools and resources they need to navigate systemic oppression in adaptive and helpful ways. Overall, I aspire to uplift those labeled as resilient or matapang by facilitating systemic change to buffer the need for resilience within our society.
Allyson Infante
Ohlone CollegeFremont, CA
I cut my mother tongue right out of my mouth. I stitched a new one in with shaky, inexperienced hands, thread and needle stolen from my grandmother’s bedside table. Later, I would come to recognize this as my first act of betrayal. If I roll my tongue along the ridges of my teeth, my canines snag on the syllables of old stitches, catching onto parts of a self-inflicted wound that never set properly. You see, my first language was Tagalog. My grandma, my Nanay, had been my first, and my favorite, conversationalist; she helped me shape my mouth around the soft letters and hard endings of Tagalog. My first language was warm in this way, the way that we begin each morning with tsaa and kape, a comforting familiarity. When I began to attend public school in America, I learned the coldness of English. Kindergarten was just early enough for other children to notice how differently my tongue fit around certain words. After one too many fumbles, I went home one day and I never spoke Tagalog again. I grew to hear, to understand, but my muscle had split with disuse. My words were clunky where they should have been graceful, harsh where they should have been gentle. I often say I lost a part of myself when I came home that day, and I continued to shed the warmth given to me by my grandmother until I had dug a chasm between us, one where words lost themselves in translation. My relationship with my heritage as a Filipino-American has been complicated, rough, and bruising… but after my nanay’s death in 2019, I attempted to bridge over what I had so vehemently buried. Though I feel I lost myself for so long, my journey to reconnect with my family and my culture has given me the opportunity to gain even more than I could have imagined. In February of 2019, my grandmother was hospitalized for a severe asthma attack, but I was sure she would be coming home at the end of the week. When her stay spanned through the weekend, I still stayed. Come Monday morning, we received a call from the hospital informing us that my grandmother had passed away in her sleep that night. I felt like the world had slipped from my hands and cracked open, the core blinding me and stripping me raw. When the funeral came and I was asked to give a eulogy, I could only mutter shaky apologies and a quiet Salamat, Nay, the only word in Tagalog I could muster in the moment. I felt my grief mix with shame. How could I give up what my nanay had so lovingly taught me, what we used to spend our days giving each other? On the mother’s day following her death, I wrote her a letter written in broken Tagalog. It was my attempt at rekindling what used to tie us so closely together. After the pain subsided into an awful ache, I began to mold my mouth around the words I forced myself to forget. Relearning Tagalog was like suturing a cut in my throat, but this time, the scar had healed over, milky white and beautiful. It was a dedication to my love for my family, a marker of my passion and devotion. Speaking Tagalog again opened a whole new world of doors to me. I could communicate with my elders and relatives in the Philippines, speak to my mom in her native tongue, and I was able to find comfort in my community. After suppressing my heritage for so long, I opened my arms to loving the people who were part of it. I’m grateful that I grew up in a town that had a large Filipino community, one where I could attend church with my Ates and Kuyas and Adings, and go to a school that has a Fil-Am club and performances of traditional Filipino dances. In my high school years, I did three years of tinikling and I formed some of my greatest friendships there. In Tagalog, there is a word I love that I feel encompasses Filipino culture. Bayanihan. It exemplifies the Filipino spirit of loving and helping your community. I feel this deeply. After being around my Filipino family, I found a purpose in service and humanities. After seeing the welcoming love that greeted me, I knew I wanted to give myself and my care to people who need it. At the moment, I am a dedicated teacher and an advocate for equal-opportunity education. In my senior year, I dedicated my birthday to raising money for foster children, a tradition I carry until now. In my heritage, I found compassion, and my love for people, animals, and the environment. My care defines me and it is born from being Filipino. Trying to reconnect with my culture has been a struggle, but one that I have been so happy to push through. Through the trips and falls of trying to love the Filipino aspects of myself, I gained incredible confidence and love for myself as a whole. There is a stereotype around Filipinos and being loud, taking up space, and at times being “dramatic.” I am now proud to say that I do not escape the stereotype, but for a long time, I tried to. I spoke quietly, kept myself small, and I never made a fuss. When I was younger, I was embarrassed to have a family that was always the loudest in the restaurant, I didn’t like when my mom danced in the middle of the store, and I always kept the karaoke mic at bay. But in my attempt at hiding this part of myself, I drowned any semblance of individuality, passion, and shameless joy. I have been learning that to be Filipino is to take pride in loving things boldly and openly, and that love can be expressed in laughing too loudly across the table, singing in supermarket aisles, and serenading your family with Whitney Houston. We love in strange ways, but it is love none-the-less, and it is a love that we are satisfied with. I am tenderly in love with everything, and I am obsessed with saying it and showing it whenever I can. This is being Filipino to me. My culture and heritage has shaped me into someone who cares graciously for her friends, family, and little inanimate objects, someone who takes pride in herself and her loud voice and uses it for good, and someone who my Nanay would be proud of.

FAQ

When is the scholarship application deadline?

The application deadline is Apr 17, 2024. Winners will be announced on May 17, 2024.