Filipino students at McMaster leading event today to remember victims of Lapu-Lapu Day attack
Filipinos are the fourth largest visible minority in Hamilton, according to the 2021 census
A gathering led by Filipino groups at McMaster University is aiming to honour the 11 people killed in Vancouver during the Lapu-Lapu Day event last month.
The groups began organizing after realizing there was a need in Hamilton for "a space for us to connect and check in with how people are, because no one's checking in [on us]," said Anabelle Ragsag, a PhD candidate at McMaster's School of Social Work.
The gathering takes place Saturday from 3 to 6 p.m. within McMaster's Office of Community Engagement at 8 Mayfair Crescent.
It's being held exactly two weeks after 11 people were killed and dozens were injured on April 26, when an SUV was driven into a crowded Lapu-Lapu Day festival.
Ragsag said she felt "selfish" at first for feeling grief over the attack.
"I was feeling that I'm mourning and I am angry and I feel just in a way scared for my daughter, even if [she wasn't in immediate danger]," she told CBC Hamilton.
She said when someone called this feeling "secondary grief," her feelings started to click.
Five-year-old Katie Le was the youngest victim of the attack along with her parents, Richard Le, 47, and Linh Hoang, 30.
Glitza Daniela Samper, her mother Glitza Maria Caicedo, and her father, Daniel Samper — a family from Colombia — were also among those killed.
Fundraisers have been set up for all the victims, which also include Maria Victoria Bjarnason, a mother visiting from the Philippines, Jendhel May Sico, Rizza Pagkanlungan, a "loving wife," and "devoted sister," Jenifer Darbellay, a Vancouver mother of two, and Kira Salim, a school counsellor from Brazil.
The accused attacker, Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder.
A place to 'check in with one another'
Saturday's gathering, organized by Filipino McMaster social work students and faculty, the McMaster Filipino Network, and the Filipino McMaster Student Association, is called Tuloy po kayo — meaning "come in," in the Tagalog language.
The event will be the second in the city where residents came together to mourn since April 26. A community vigil, or Luksang Bayan, was held at Bayfront Park last Sunday.
Ragsag said this weekend's gathering aims for people to be able to "check in with one another" and while it is open for everyone, it will be student-centred.
"We really wanted to create a space that was centred for students and for youth in general," said Jasmine Fox, a social work student at McMaster and the former co-president of the university's Filipino student association.
She said they wanted to make space for students from Mohawk College as well as high schools, in an accessible place that also felt safe.
Melissa Cortez, who's a Master of Social Work student at McMaster, said Filipino people in Canada are "very underrepresented."
"This gathering is a way for us to acknowledge the pains that we are collectively feeling within spaces that have been designed to minimize our visibility or minimize our voices," she said.
She said she feels "a lot of sadness" around the Lapu-Lapu Day attack. She feels conflicted, seeing how the tragedy has brought the community together, but also that there has been a "lack of care" from organizations and institutions.
There are around 11,730 Filipino people in Hamilton as per the 2021 census, making them the fourth largest visible minority in the city.
Fox said the weight of the attack's aftermath was put on the community that's trying to mourn.
"Filipinos are always described as resilient … everyone's just like, 'oh, we'll bounce back, it'll be okay,' but we're not taking the time to actually feel out our emotions," she said.
WATCH | More victims killed in Lapu-Lapu festival attack identified
What Lapu-Lapu Day was supposed to be
Cortez said festivals like Lapu-Lapu Day in Vancouver are a chance for second-generation Filipinos like her to reconnect with their culture.
"I have very little family in Canada. I have very little direct connection to the Philippines," she said. "These spaces have been for reconnecting and learning and just building communities."
Fox said Lapu-Lapu was an Indigenous historical figure of anti-colonization, a day to commemorate him, on April 27, was proclaimed in B.C. in 2023.
"This event was meant to celebrate him and what he represents in the bigger Filipino context of resilience, of fighting for our rights, fighting for our culture, fighting Filipino indigeneity," she said.
To have the attack happen on that day feels like "our entire history has been tainted," said Fox.
"[The event] was fun, it was loud, it was on a beautiful day. And now, rather than knowing its context for what it was supposed to be for … people now are going to associate it with this horrific tragedy."
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