Tony Robles, The People’s Poet, award-winning author and social justice activist, reads his book Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel coordinated in part with The APIA Biography Project.  Lakas fights for housing rights as his friends and family are forced out of their homes in a celebration of young people’s role in the fight for social justice in San Francisco. Illustrator Carl Angel shares his inspiration for his illustration of Manilatown and portrayal of Filipino Americans. For kids and their families.    

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Tony Robles is the author of Cool Don’t Live Here No More: A Letter to San Francisco, Lakas and the Manilatown Fish and contributor to Beyond Lumpia, Pansit and Seven Manangs Wild: Stories From the Heart of Filipino Americans. 

Connect with Anthony Robles - Website | Facebook

Carl Angel is a Filipino American artist who illustrated many children’s books, Xochitl and the Flowers, Willie Wins, The Girl Who Saved Yesterday, Sky High: The True Story of Maggie Gee, Mga Kuwentong Bayan and Lakas and the Manilatown Fish.

Connect with Carl Angel - Website 

The APIA Biography Project started as a collaboration between the Asian American Studies Department at San Francisco State University (SFSU), The Association of Chinese Teachers, and the San Francisco Public Library in 2012. Students from SFSU develop Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) biographies, resources, and activities in a community service learning class called “Asian American Children's/Adolescent Literature.”  Students showcase their work during APIA Heritage Month. Resources and curricular activities are then archived in a resource website for K-12 educators to repurpose and adopt into their lesson plans. 

This year’s theme centers on the fight for legal justice, highlighting court cases and individuals who advocated for social justice in the APIA community.