Filipino Community & Lifestyle News
Ottawa Fiesta Extravaganza is returning for its second year on June 13 and 14 at the Cohere Centre with bigger crowds and a larger venue as organizers prepare to celebrate Filipino Heritage Month in Canada’s capital. The two-day festival is expected to attract more than 5,000 attendees. Organizers say that would nearly double attendance from […]
A Filipino writer from Calgary has won the prestigious RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers for his poetry titled “Psalmody for the Estranged”. “I was in shock,” Renato Gandia said when his name was announced as the winner of the poetry contest—with a $10,000 prize—at a gala held in Toronto, Ont. at the Royal […]
From fitness runs, flag-raising ceremonies, and festivals, here are noteworthy Filipino Heritage Month events taking place outside the GTA this June. While many of Canada’s largest Filipino Heritage Month celebrations take place in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Filipino communities across the country are also marking June with festivals, cultural showcases, community gatherings, and civic […]
Every June, Filipino communities across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) come together through festivals and events as they celebrate Filipino Heritage Month. For many attendees, the festivals provide a sense of belonging and connection. Toronto resident Julian Cuenca said being surrounded by fellow Filipinos creates “the feeling of being at home.” “Through the food, music, […]
Mabuhay Canada hires its first full-time reporter through the Changing Narratives Fund-Local Journalism Initiative grant Mabuhay Canada is thrilled to announce that we hired our first full-time reporter, Luis Miguel De Castro, thanks to the Changing Narratives Fund-Local Journalism Initiative grant. De Castro is a recent Humber Polytechnic journalism graduate, hailing from Biñan, Laguna, Philippines. […]
From Tinikling to Team Spirit: Why the Philippines Pavilion at Carassauga Still Feels Like Home For many Filipinos in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), spring doesn’t quite feel complete without a trip to the Philippines Pavilion at Carassauga Festival of Cultures in Mississauga, held this year on May 23 and 24, 2026. This vibrant festival […]
Diaspora Dialogues’ flagship event “Step Right Up: DD’s Big Literary Carnival” on May 22-23, 2026 invited guests into an immersive world where literature met performance, imagination, and community. Hosted at the Kimpton Saint George Hotel at 280 Bloor St. West in a conference room transformed into a literary playground, storytelling stepped off the page and […]
Book Review: What ‘Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self’ by the late Pulitzer-winner Filipino author Alex Tizon taught me about my Filipino culture. By Giana Tomas As a researcher, I have been reading a lot about what many members of the Philippine diaspora in North America experience: navigating identity shifts, desiring to […]
Concordia University’s Filipino student organization is turning up the volume this May—not just with music, but with meaning. On Saturday, May 16, 2025, the Filipino Organization of Concordia University Students (FOCUS) will launch “SHOWPAO: The Album”, a one-day cultural event and album showcase at Imagemotion at 370 Rue Guy, Montréal, Que. The event kicks off […]
Guest columnist Anton Dvoryadkin shares his first impressions of the Barong Tagalog and terno, and the moments that changed the way he saw Filipino fashion. I grew up in Siberia and moved to the Philippines in 2022. It was the right decision for me, and I have never regretted it. Before that, I didn’t even […]