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For the past 21 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
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CHICAGO – The Filipina nurse and retired US Air Force Reserve staff sergeant who was allegedly called a “mail-order bride" by a salesman in a Chicago retail shop is determined to get justice in a settlement conference next month.
Frannie L. Richards said she was shopping at the Swedish retail giant H&M (Hennes & Mauritz) last October when a male employee in his “20’s to early 30’s" raised his right hand and said, “Mail-order bride in the house" and ran toward a fellow employee before they started laughing.
Since there was no other shopper “within three or four racks of me," Ms. Richards, said she was “shocked and disgusted" these white employees implied “I was a whore and could not understand why he would say anything so derogatory."
“I felt like crying but refused to give him the satisfaction. I had a red bag and was wearing black pants and a long denim coat. I am an Asian American woman," she said.
Because she wanted to get the names of the two employees, Ms. Richards approached them and asked if she could try clothes on. The man rudely pointed to the fitting rooms and said, “Can’t you read that sign, it says ‘fitting room.’"
As she walked away, the man started muttering under his breath and making a mocking noise like “ching, ching, chong." Richards said she felt degraded and upset.
Because of her frustration, she asked to talk to a department manager named Tom who could not even provide her the name of the offending employee.
Because she felt helpless, she left. But her friends convinced her to go back and get the name of the “harasser." When she came back, she was accompanied by a friend as a witness.
She looked for another manager. This time, Greg, could only tell her that his harassing subordinate would first “get a verbal warning, and if it happens again, then, it would be written down."
She said she was told the employee’s name is “Joseph H." whose position is called “visual merchandiser."
April Lewton, Richards’ lawyer, said she is “pleased to hear of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations’ findings of substantial evidence of a violation in the case of Frannie Richards v. H & M, and we look forward to justice being served at the settlement conference in mid-September."
Ms. Lewton, an Asian- American Institute community organizer, said, “(the) finding of substantial evidence means that there is enough evidence for the case to proceed to an administrative hearing."
She added, “The settlement conference is an opportunity for the two parties to reach an agreement prior to the administrative hearing."
Because she wanted Joseph H fired, Ms. Richards filed a discrimination complaint against him for violating “Chapter 2-160 of the Chicago Municipal Code."
The said law guards against discrimination, including anti-Asian and sex-based discrimination, when discriminatory incident takes place in Chicago and involves employment, housing, public accommodations, credit or bonding.
She was initially assisted by lawyer Myron Dean Quon, Asian American Institute legal director. Mr. Quon commented then, “Anti-Asian, xenophobic and misogynist verbal attacks still happen on a daily basis. Asian American women, like Ms. Richards, should never have to deal with this type of harassment, in Chicago no less."
“I knew that I had to enforce my civil rights for myself and other Asian American women. Because H & M refused to discipline this employee, I immediately thought of my own female relatives and friends. The workplace usage of disparaging anti-Asian slurs should require the termination of that H & M employee," Ms. Richards insisted.
She earlier said that if the case is not settled before Chicago Commission on Human Relations, she is ready to elevate the matter up to the Cook County Circuit Court, where she will seek damages for emotional distress, injunctive relief, attorney’s fees, costs.
When news of the incident broke out, Filipino and other human rights activists picketed the front of the H & M, which even hired a Filipino- American lawyer to help the retail giant's legal defense.
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CHICAGO - For the first time in three years, Filipinos in New York will be commemorating the holy life of Lorenzo Ruiz next month with only the feet of the saint’s life-size image.
The fiber glass statue of the first Filipino saint, which was built in Quezon City, Philippines for $3,000, was chopped off from its ankles and stolen last May 5 at the San Lorenzo Ruiz Scalabrini Center in Jamaica Hills Queens in New York.
While the event in honor of San Lorenzo Ruiz draws near, the trail on the theft case grows cold, prompting sympathizers to finance the replacement of the statue in time for the September 28 event in Jamaica Hills.
But the offer was declined by Nick Libramonte, national director of San Lorenzo Association of America in Jamaica Hills, and the icon’s curator.
Libramonte believes San Lorenzo Ruiz himself will lead seekers to the missing statue.
“We are really overwhelmed by the generosity of the public. But we cannot accept the offer unless we see a miracle on what to do," he said.
“The remaining feet will be preserved. We will make a decision later whether to replace it or not. It is not the money but the spirit. There’s a message that remind us that we should no longer complain. San Lorenzo was tortured to death upside down and had been used to suffering," he added.
The saint, who was born Lorenzo Santos lived in Binondo, Manila, and worked there as a church clerk. He had a peaceful life with his wife and three children until he was falsely accused of killing a Spaniard in 1636.
On the same year, Ruiz left the Philippines, taking refuge with three Dominican priests on board a boat that landed in Okinawa, Japan, where he and his companions were arrested and persecuted for being faithful to the Christian religion.
Ruiz endured the hellish pain of torture and unlike others did not renounce his religion.
“If we let you live will you renounce your faith?," Ruiz’s tormentor asked him.
"That I shall never do, because I am a Christian and I shall die for God, and for Him I will give many thousands of lives if I had them. And so do with me as you will please," Ruiz replied.
In Nagasaki, he was hung by his feet and submerged in water until he could no longer breathe.
He was also brought to a place called “Mountain of Martyrs" where he was again hung upside down into a pit known as horca y hoya.
The torture, said to be the most painful at the time, involved the use of rocks to add to the person’s weight for him to suffocate faster. Ruiz died two days after bearing too much pain from bleeding and suffocation caused by the torture.
On February 18, 1981, Pope John Paul II beatified Ruiz in Manila. He became a saint after his canonization on October 18, 1987 in Vatican City.
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