Associate professor of Asian American and U.S. History, Dr. Bernard James Remollino, commemorated the release of his biographical book “Pancho Villa: World Champion 1923” with the support of Empowering Positive Initiatives for Change through an event at Danner Hall, consisting of a book talk and a boxing workshop, on Oct. 28. The date fell on Filipino American History Month, also taking place a century after boxer Francisco “Pancho Villa” Villaruel Guilledo’s passing in 1925.
“It’s incredible that we get to more deeply understand the story, a hundred years later. Our history really connects to what’s going on now because the early 1900s, the height in politics, racism, the xenophobia that we were experiencing then — we’re still experiencing now and we don’t move on from it until we change patterns, our behaviors, until we change culture. And we only do that when we learn history and what’s at stake for our people,” said Jean “JT” Teodoro, coach and founder of Bayanihan Boxing, a Bay Area-based program for accessible and socially inclusive boxing classes.
The book, written by Remollino with the help of Joe Aquilizan, founder of Oakland-based Filipino art collective Bayani Art, was published in May. Remollino’s book follows his 2022 dissertation analyzing the representation of Filipino Americans in pop culture from 1920 to 1942, which included a chapter on Filipino-American boxers…