For some, it was all about the food. For others, it was the products direct from overseas. Still others came to see their favorite stars from the other side of the globe. There was something for everyone at the 17th Fiesta in America event, held Aug. 15 and 16 at the Meadowlands Expo Center.
“We try to mix both business and pleasure,” said Press Agent Dennis Clemente about the annual Filipino festival. With this year’s theme of “Filipinos Mean Business,” the event was designed as a combination trade show and entertainment expo, featuring dozens of vendors promoting everything from imported Filipino crafts and international money transfers to skin care and new cars.
Also featured were seminars on marketing for businesses, building a website, changing careers, buying real estate in the Philippines, and more. “We want to inspire Filipinos to have their own businesses,” said Clemente.
Among the goals of the event was to provide a showcase for Filipino products and services, as well as offering American companies an opportunity to market to a Filipino audience.
“It is a conscious effort to portray the Filipino-American market as an important source of high-income consumers for mainstream businesses that have significant stakes in ethnic marketing,” said Len Manansala, vice president for marketing.
And, of course, it was an opportunity to have fun. Three high-profile Filipino television stars were among the performers at the evening concerts, beginning after the booths shut down each day at 5 p.m.
“We try to mix both business and pleasure.” – Dennis Clemente
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Attendees queued up in long lines for a chance to meet the stars. Sam Adanos was one of those standing in line for hours on Saturday afternoon. Was he a big fan of the performers?
Pointing to his wife Vera and three kids he said, “They are,” with a smile. “They watch a lot of TV.”
So which performer was Vera’s favorite? “All of them,” she said, waiting patiently to have her picture taken with the stars.
Saving lives
Halo Halo is a new company founded in May to bring Filipino performers to the U.S.
“Halo-halo means ‘mix mix,’ ” explained company co-founder Genalin Matala. “It’s our national dessert. It’s shaved ice and beans and jelly and stuff like that. And that’s what our company is. We’re going to bring in different acts, different generations. Jakob will inherit the company if it’s profitable,” she said, indicating her son. “Otherwise his college tuition is gone.”
They were at the event to promote the first concert, the mostly female (with one male) band Aegis, coming to New York in October. “Aegis is a Greek shield for a Greek goddess,” said Genalin.
“No way!” remarked her husband, Victorino. “I’ve been promoting it and I thought it was one of the ladies’ names.”
Marie Ungco-Zamboanga was at the fiesta to promote Port Jersey Shipping International, the company founded by her parents 33 years ago. They offer shipping services to the Philippines for packages of all sizes.
“My customers started by sending gifts to their relatives,” she said. “But now they’re going home. They’re sending back all the contents of their house. They’re retiring. Their pensions will go a long way in the Philippines. And they all have ancestral homes there. And they’re so tired of the four seasons here.”
Jersey City police and fire departments were represented by recruiters promoting diversity. “We have 11 Filipino police officers in the department,” said William Barrera, a patrol officer in the north district.
Numerous companies promoted health awareness at the event, including longtime sponsor Hackensack University Medical Center and the Philippine Nurses Association of New Jersey, who provided free blood pressure checks and blood and glucose screenings in conjunction with the Robert Wood Johnson Hospital.
Helen Castillo stood at a table signing up attendees in the national bone marrow registry. Her son, Lawrence Bongon, 25, an elementary school teacher in Plainfield, was diagnosed in March with leukemia. He needs a life-saving bone marrow transplant, but there were no matches in the national registry.
Castillo, in partnership with the organization Delete Blood Cancer (DKMS), has organized numerous drives over the summer to seek a match for Lawrence. A simple cheek swab will determine whether or not a donor is a match. But even those who are not matches for Lawrence are added to the register and may help save the life of another patient.
“Eight times out of 10 it’s a blood draw,” said Mark Segreto of DKMS, describing the donation process. “They draw blood out of the right arm and pass it through a centrifuge that pulls stems cells out of the blood. The other 20 percent of the time, it’s the actual bone marrow, which used to be very painful. Not anymore. Now it’s done under anesthesia. One needle in the pelvic bone. You’ll feel like you went ice skating and got bumped.”
For more information, visit deletebloodcancer.org.
‘Fantastic’ food
Fiesta in America was founded by the husband and wife team of Fernando and Nina Mendez. Nina passed away about three years ago but the event still sticks to the traditions she began, like holding mass on Sunday morning.
New Jersey is home to the largest Filipino-American population outside of California, and the event is the largest of its kind in the Northeast, drawing up to 25,000 attendees in the 1990s, when it was held in the Javits Center in New York. For more than 12 years it has taken place in the Meadowlands Expo Center, averaging about 10,000 visitors annually.
This year the goal was to expand the focus to include more Asian countries. “We realized a few years back that growth will mostly come from re-positioning Fiesta in America as a multicultural consumer and trade exposition,” said Manansala prior to the event.
Ultimately, however, the focus remained firmly on Filipino products and services. “We wanted it to be much, much bigger in terms of making it pan-Asian,” said Clemente. “But there have been so many issues in Asia: China, the Philippines, and Japan, the islands. It’s been difficult to mobilize Asians together for this event. We do have some attendees and exhibitors from other Asian segments but it’s about 80 percent Filipino.”
Except the food court, which is 100 percent Filipino, to the delight of many.
“I miss the food,” said Nestor San Gabriel, who was born in the Philippines and has lived in New York for the past 25 years. “That’s what I miss the most. The fruits, oh my God.” San Gabriel traveled from Queens to attend the event.
“This is the 17th year with the same cooks, Esther Isip and Connie Cavili,” said Food Supervisor Evelyn Herrera. “We started Monday buying food and prepared all week. We’re not making much money with the food but we want to serve them.”
“We have the famous pork adobo,” she continued. “And we have shish kabob, barbecued chicken and pork. We have pancit noodles. We have the famous dinuguan, that is pork, and we have sweet and sour fish. We have vegetables, we call it pakbet, that’s all the Filipino vegetables together with a little sauce. For dessert we have rice cake. You heat it and put coconut on it. We have leche flan and cassava cake.”
And then there’s halo-halo, loaded with sweet beans and other goodies. “‘Mix mix,’” gestured the cashier with a smile. “You mix the fruit. Shake it. It’s like our version of a smoothie.”
“It love it. It’s fantastic,” said San Gabriel as he sat at a table savoring his traditional meal.
Art Schwartz may be reached at arts@hudsonreporter.com.