Letter from Phil-Am in New Orleans...

        "Estrada, JoJo" <Estrada_JK@wlf.state.la.us>
 Subject:         Phil-Am Bahay Kubo website
    Date:         Thu, 24 Feb 2000 14:21:04 -0600

I would like to express my appreciation for the work that you have put
into a very informative website on the Filipino-American experience.

I read with interest the articles that you have put in regarding the
old Filipino community in Louisiana. Those were very good and insightful
articles. As you can see from the signature below. I am from the same
area.

I just wanted to share with you some of my thoughts on the old
Filipino-Louisiana community. While it's true that the old community
has assimilated into the mainstream communities in and around New Orleans,
one distinct feature of the old community remains, their home construction
style. It is ironic that the only remains of the shrimp drying
platforms in the Barataria Bay-Jefferson  Parish (Lafitte, Bassa Bassa, Manila
Village, Grand Isle) are pilings, the architectural style of the Manila Men
houses is still alive and well in the coastal marshlands of South Louisiana.

In my job, I have made numerous trips to areas such as Grand Isle,
Chauvin and Cocodrie (Terrebonne Parish), and Golden Meadow and Leeville
(Lafourche Parish), where the houses are built on stilts and pilings. On my
initial trips to these towns, I've told my colleagues that these homes remind
me of the old wooden and bamboo houses in Central Luzon and Sulu. Upon
reading the article by Lafcadio Hearn that you posted on your website and from the
Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program website  <http://www.leeric.lsu.edu/le/cover/lead095.htm>   I was surprised
to find out that these home construction styles, ranging from fishing
camps to mansions, were patterned after the Filipino camps in Barataria Bay from
a century ago.

Another surprising tidbit of information was a passage that I read in a
book entitled "The Cajuns." As the title suggests, it is a book on the
French Acadian culture of south Louisiana. A surprising passage in the book
was made in the introduction as to "Who is a Cajun?" Devon Reed, the
publisher of a newspaper in the heart of Cajun Country (South Central Louisiana),
said that Cajuns range the ethnic spectrum from French to German, Irish and
Italians to Native Americans, and even Yugoslavs and Filipinos. John
Larroquette, an actor famous for his role as a lawyer in the old sitcom
"Night Court," once made a reference to a Filipino-Cajun restaurant on
the show.

While we Filipino-Americans cannot lay claim to having national
political figures or top-billing Hollywood stars, life down here in the bayou may
not be the same if the Manilamen did not settle in Louisiana.

Kudos to you and your website.

JOJO ESTRADA
Economist, Socioeconomics Section
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries
(225) 765-2868
Estrada_JK@wlf.state.la.us <mailto:Estrada_JK@wlf.state.la.us>

---

Who is Jojo? Update

Jose Klicatchko Estrada

: 24 Ateneo graduate selected in Who's Who Among America's 
Teachers 2002
 
By Isaac R. Kliatchko Jr.
 
TARLAC CITY, April 24 (PNA) -- An Ateneo de Manila University
economics graduate, batch '85, has been selected for inclusion in the
seventh edition of Who's Who Among America's Teachers, 2002.
 
 Jose Kliatchko Estrada, Ph.D., 39, presently an assistant 
Professor at the University of Texas at Brownsville, School of Business, was
nominated by his student Francisco J. Zamarripa, himself an
outstanding student in the US.
 
 Only those listed in Who's Who Among American High School 
Students and the National Dean's List in the United States are qualified to
nominate one teacher from their entire school life.
 
 Parke H. Davis, publisher of Who's Who Among America's 
Teachers, told Estrada in a letter "you will find this honor
 
exceptionally gratifying since it comes from a successful former
student who recommended you because "you made a difference in his
life."
 
 "There is no greater reward for teachers than to be valued by 
former students," Davis said. "Only high school and college students who
have been cited for academic excellence themselves in Who's Who Among
America's High School Students and the National Dean's List,
respectively, are invited to nominate one teacher from their entire
academic experience."
 
 Estrada is the son of Dr. Jose Estrada and Sonia Kliatchko, 
Both US-trained in cardiology and pharmacy/medical technology,
respectively.
 
 Dr. Estrada, a cardiologist of the late Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" S.
Aquino, had signed the medical certificate that made possible the
late senator's heart surgery in the US.
 
  Estrada is married to Sheryl E. Ronquillo, a licensed 
Occupational therapist in three US states. The eldest of six children, his two
brothers and three sisters are all medical doctors in the US.
 
 He took his M.A. in economics at Fordham University in 1988 and
finished his Ph. D. in agricultural economics at the Mississippi
State University where he became the most outstanding Ph. D. student
in 1992.
 
 An Ateneo student from elementary to college, Estrada teaches
economics in the bachelor's level and quantitative methods in the MBA
program.
 
 As a young economist in America, he developed geographic 
Information systems (GIS) applications used for local, state, and federal
government economic planning.
 
  "One of the applications that I developed for a community in
Mississippi received commendations from the US Department of
Agriculture and the Office of the President of the United States,"
 
Estrada said.
 
 As an economist of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in
Louisiana from 1998 to 2000, he served as research consultant for the
Cross Border Institute for Regional Development,a center devoted to
the economic development of Northeastern Mexico and Southeastern
Texas.
 
 He also assisted state senators in drafting legislation on 
Economic factors affecting natural resource conservation and represented the
US Department of Commerce's Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management
Council - Socio-Economic Panel, providing advise to the council on
the management of fisheries resources in the Gulf of Mexico. (PNA)
 

phix7@yahoo.com Nestor Palugod Enriquez