New Exhibit Honors Filipino American Resistance and Resilience in SoMa

At Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the flame-bladed sword piercing the sun, the baybayin script on the wall and the bundles of sampaguita blossoms hanging from triangular banderitas across the ceiling are not merely festive decor, but markers of culture, memory and collective resistance.

MAKIBAKA: A Living Legacy, co-curated by SOMA Pilipinas and Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, features artwork by over 20 Bay Area Filipino American artists. The exhibition, Goldberg writes, “honors the generations who held their ground and made the city theirs — through protest, through art, through unrelenting care. … Filipino presence in San Francisco is not symbolic — it is structural, embodied, and alive.”

In English, the word makibaka translates to “to fight.” In the 1970s and ’80s, amid president Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship in the Philippines, protestors chanted in the streets of Manila: “Makibaka, huwag matakot!” Fight, don’t be afraid.

That phrase was a call to courage, action and collective power. Today, it echoes again, across oceans and generations. At YBCA, resistance to oppression and displacement appears in paint, prints, fabric, clay and archival memory.

Walking through MAKIBAKA, installed in the second-floor galleries, feels like flipping a breathing scrapbook; the show is intimate, reflective and fiercely political. Works speak to individual experiences while grounding themselves in shared struggles.

Erina Alejo’s contribution to the show occupies that middle ground. In The Older I Get, The More I Remember, the walls of a gallery corner are wrapped in dark chalk, layered with scrawled writing and neatly hung archival photographs by Alejo’s former middle school students.

“My vision for [the piece] is my compulsion to ground our present and futures in community archives, kind of like equipping ourselves with a care toolkit,” Alejo wrote to KQED. “So we know how and where to look back to remember and for whom we are fighting for, especially when things get tough.”

The installation is a bit like looking at the open windows of an apartment building, a peek into other people’s lives. Many of the images feature youth in SoMa. These aren’t just snapshots of the past, they are affirmations of continued presence: We are still here.

Established in 2016 as San Francisco’s Filipino Cultural Heritage District, SOMA Pilipinas was created to celebrate and preserve Filipino culture in the neighborhood. Yerba Buena Gardens, a massive redevelopment project that began in the 1960s, displaced nearly 4,000 people, many of them Filipino.

With this history as a backdrop, MAKIBAKA pays homage to the creative ecosystems that have long sustained Filipino American communities in San Francisco. Bindlestiff Studio, KulArts, Manilatown Heritage Foundation and other institutions appear along the exhibition’s timeline as living extensions of the makibaka spirit. These art spaces are community anchors where organizing, storytelling and healing continue to thrive.

Other pieces in the show draw on symbolism and materiality to showcase stories of movement and ancestry. Weston Teruya’s sculptural work Splintered on the Black River is an ode to Kānāwai Māmalahoe, or the Hawaiian Law of the Splintered Paddle. The piece, a paddle constructed from tar paper, charred wood and salvaged materials, feels ceremonial. It is delicate yet resilient, held together by quiet intention.

At the top of the lobby’s stairs, Cherisse Alcantara’s paintings bring the focus back to place. Her paintings of parks and community spaces are eclectic and vibrant, depicting environments that shape daily life in SoMa. Alcantara honors the mundane and makes it beautiful, alive with bright color.

The show also takes viewers to the center of the movement. A standout installation by the South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN) features decades of protest signs, flyers and photographs from local organizing efforts. The messages remain startlingly urgent: “Stop Deportations,” “Housing is a Human Right,” “Keep Families Together.” These aren’t just artifacts of past struggle. They are reflections of battles still being fought today, just outside of YBCA’s walls.

Around the corner from this collection, in a striking blend of historical memory and pop aesthetics, Johanna Poethig used movie-poster-style graphics to depict a manghihilot (healer) as a superhero, and displacement as worthy of Hollywood attention. Next to these images, Kimberly Acebo Arteche’s work honors the I-Hotel, spotlighting community elders and Manilatown’s legacy.

One of the most grounding works, a piece that offers a quiet yet powerful meditation on legacy, comes from Cristine Blanco. In Embedded Bricks III, she molds handmade bricks from clay, each one inscribed with words like “mother tongue,” “trust” and “future generations.” They feel sacred, like building the foundation of a home, brick by brick.

This is what MAKIBAKA does so well: it shows us that art is not separate from struggle. Art can document resistance, but it can also be resistance. The experience of creating art can heal wounds and connect generations.

MAKIBAKA isn’t just about looking back. It’s about standing tall in the present, locking arms with those who came before and those who will come after. It’s about the power of showing up again and again. Through protest. Through art. Through community.

Because to exist — fully, loudly and unapologetically — is already an act of defiance. The movement continues. Brick by brick. Shoulder to shoulder. One step at a time. Makibaka, huwag matakot.

‘MAKIBAKA: A Living Legacy’ is on view at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts through Jan. 4, 2026. As part of the 32nd annual Pistahan Parade and Festival, YBCA will offer free admission on Aug. 9 and 10.