LIHUE — “Sari Sari Store is kind of like a variety store,” said Marynel Valenzuela of Ink Spot Printing. “It’s like a little bit of everything.”
LIHUE — “Sari Sari Store is kind of like a variety store,” said Marynel Valenzuela of Ink Spot Printing. “It’s like a little bit of everything.”
The Sari Sari Store was part of the two-day celebration of the Kauai Filipino American History Month that opened Friday on the grounds of the Kauai Philippine Cultural Center and included representation from the many Filipino community groups umbrella-ed under the Kauai Filipino Community Council.
The store operated by Ink Spot Printing people offered a wide variety of Filipino goods that gave a glimpse of the Filipino culture in Hawaii, and more specifically, Kauai. The variety was expanded by the offerings of the Philippine Island Hawaii Islands bicycle club that offered a wide variety of goods from the Philippines.
“The theme is ‘Pagkakaisan,’” said Nancy Apalla, the president of the Kauai Filipino Community Council. “It means unity with aloha — how everyone works together for success.”
The Kauai Filipino American History Month offers attendees a mixture of historical exhibits, cultural demonstrations, cultural dance presentations, special performances by Miss Kauai Filipina Aleah Yano and a host of craft vendors, including a booth by HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union that sponsored the Las Vegas trip giveaway.
The historical exhibit curated by Akasha Rabut covers the arrival of the early Filipino who came to Hawaii to labor in the plantations. It draws a lot of artifacts from Larry Manuel’s collection of plantation days artifacts. For those people tracing their genealogy roots, there were replicas of original passenger manifests and documents that triggered the movement to Hawaii.
The Kauai Filipino American History Month continues on Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. at the Kauai Philippine Cultural Center.