"Some Filipino Americans look to St. Malo as proof of their belonging in the U.S. What happens when it disappears?"
"ST. BERNARD PARISH, Louisiana — On a cold day in November 2019, two podcasters and a historian boarded a small boat on the edge of Louisiana’s Lake Borgne and drifted into the bayou. They were bound for St. Malo, the first permanent Filipino settlement in the United States. Sailors from the Philippines, known as the Manila Men, settled there in the mid-19th century, decades before the Civil War.
Paola Mardo, a petite, fast-talking Filipina American journalist who flew in from Los Angeles with her partner Patrick Epino for the journey, wanted to gather recordings for “Long Distance,” their podcast about Filipinos abroad. Mardo, Epino and Michael Salgarolo, a lean, bookish New York University historian who studies the Manila Men, wanted to see St. Malo before it disappeared from the map. All three identify as Filipino American. (Disclosure: Salgarolo is the writer’s partner.)
“We’re all in the diaspora,” Mardo said. “These Filipinos in St. Malo were the first.”
The travelers planned to join local Filipino Americans at a grand celebration of the community’s history in Louisiana the next day. They passed through choppy waters and reedy spartina grass along the lake’s south shore, where bustling fishing villages once thrived."
