A group of students in Hawaii is working to fill a lack of Filipino representation in the state’s school curriculum.

The group is composed of high school students and some recent graduates, and they named their group the Filipino Curriculum Project, committing themselves to creating a semester-long course that will offer Hawaii students the opportunity to learn more about Filipino history, culture and identity.

“Filipinos are actually the largest Asian ethnic group here in the state,” said senior Marissa Halagao, one of the FCP’s founding members. “But when Filipino students realize that they’re not represented in the curriculum, it kind of sends a message to us that our identities and our histories aren’t worthy to be studied.”

Halagao was a sophomore in high school when she noticed that the Asian curriculum in her school mostly pertained to East Asian cultures and histories. It was a difficult realization that she said prompted her to reach out to a group of teachers who were already creating a new Asian studies course.

“I asked them if I could help them create the course and be in charge of writing a Filipino unit,” she said in a video on the FCP’s website. “They were completely on board.”

Halagao began reaching out to students from other schools to inform them of her mission. Four students joined the cause, and together they established the FCP in the spring of 2021.

Now the FCP includes 11 active members, Halagao told the Honolulu Star­-Advertiser.

Their goal today is to create an elective social studies class that will be offered to grades 9 through 12. In creating the course, the students divided themselves into three groups representing each unit that the course would cover: historical context, culture and connections, and Filipinos in Hawaii. Among their groups, the students focused on creating the various lesson plans that would cover those topics, Halagao said.

So far, they have already created lesson plans, piloted their course and tweaked their lessons so that they can be taught virtually when necessary.

Throughout the process, the students have had guidance from a 14-person educator design team, as well as Halagao’s mother, Patricia Halagao, who is the chair and professor of curriculum studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

The students and their mentors regularly check in with the Department of Education’s social studies educational specialist, Rosanna Fukuda, who has helped to ensure that the course will meet the proper standards and requirements.

“It’s really been a collaborative effort … listening to the students and providing feedback either directly with them or with Patricia,” Fukuda said. “At the end, when we actually get that final course proposal, it should be, as much as possible, ready to go with a final review.”

Fukuda expects that the official review process will begin soon. However, even after the course receives all of its approvals, it can take a year for it to appear in classrooms, she said

Throughout her years in her position, Fukuda said that she can’t remember ever being so excited about a new course.

“Finding the need in their schools, in their communities, in their nation and world,” she said. “For young people to take it upon themselves to explore and forge their own path on how to do this, that’s amazing.”

For the students in the FCP, creating the course has shown them that their work will not only increase representation in school curriculum, it also has been an empowering experience.

“I never really saw my history being able to be put in a DOE school, and that’s just because I’ve never really realized that my history can be put in,” said junior Jesselle Ann Morales. “Now that we are the makers of it … we hold that pride and we hold that drive to accomplish our goal.”

Morales added that she has learned more about her history in working on the course with the FCP than she ever thought she would in her lifetime.

For Raymart Billote, who graduated from high school in 2021, working in the FCP has helped him befriend students from other schools whom he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet otherwise.

“We have our single passion, which is to create this curriculum,” Billote said. “But when we started hanging out, we bonded with each other and created this strong bond that we never expected. … It felt like we knew each other for years.”

Once the course is complete, the FCP plans to continue working together to periodically update the course. This summer, six of the FCP students are scheduled to graduate, and they hope younger generations of students will join the FCP to continue the work they’ve started.

“Even though we live in a very diverse society, that doesn’t mean that it’s always inclusive, and that doesn’t mean that we have enough representation for all perspectives,” Halagao said. “We hope that this project in the long run will continue to inspire people and students to fight for change and to increase representation.”

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Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.