Remembering Florante Peter Ibañez (1951-2025)

 

The UCLA Asian American Studies Center and Department and UCLA Samahang Pilipino are deeply saddened by the passing of Florante Peter Ibañez, a pioneering voice for Filipino Americans, a life-long scholar activist, librarian, and Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander community builder. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife Roselyn Estepa Ibañez, along with his daughters Gabriela Nguyenphuoc and Mikaela Ibañez, son-in-law Hoanvinh Nguyenphuoc, grandsons, brothers, sisters, colleagues, friends, students and the many activists whose life he touched and helped shape.

 

Florante came to UCLA's Asian American Studies Center in 1971 as the center's first full-time Filipino staff member, a coordinator for resource development and publications. During that same year, law school student Casimiro Tolentino taught the first course on Filipino American history at UCLA. Students in the class conducted research, found sources, and wrote most of the contents of Letters in Exile: A Pilipino American Anthology. We are particularly grateful to Florante who helped select essays that would be included in "Letters in Exile," the second book published by the AASC, following Roots, which was also a course-reader-become-textbook for the field of Asian American Studies. He later co-authored with his life partner, Roselyn Estepa Ibañez, Filipinos in Carson and the South Bay with Arcadia Publishing (2009).

 

For the UCLA Ethnic Studies Center's 40th Anniversary commemorative book, Florante shared in an article, "I didn't know anything about my own culture, except the food." While at UCLA, at age 20, he found friends among like-minded Filipino American undergraduates, graduate students, such as Casimiro Tolentino, and they formed an organization called Samahang Pilipino to investigate and celebrate their roots. Their first event, a potluck dinner, was eye-opening, he says: "Folks who recognized each other from riding up and down in the dorm elevators" didn't know they shared Pilipino heritage until they 'saw each other in the same place at the same time.'" In his 2018 Oral History Interview, part of AASC's Collective Memories Project, Florante reflected on why Samahang Pilipino was founded and said, "We were basically working off the principle that we should know about our community and our history, our culture, and that we should get together. We should be a group, because there were other groups already here...Black Student Union...and then La Raza."

 

Samahang Pilipino had grown significantly when Florante returned in 2003 to seek a joint master's program in Asian American studies and library and information studies. The library degree enhanced his skills for his job as manager of library computer services at Loyola Law School. The master's in Asian American studies allowed him to fulfill a lifelong dream as an adjunct professor at Loyola Marymount University and Pasadena City College, teaching Filipino American Studies where he used chapters from Letters in Exile in his classes. Florante's passion for preserving history and community-based institutions is demonstrated in his master's thesis, "The Filipino American Library: outreach and access via the World Wide Web."

 

Photo Credit: Cindy Quach, UCLA Asian American Studies Center; (Re)Generations 2025

 

The passing of Florante Peter Ibañez is a devastating loss not only to the Filipino American community but to all of us committed to social justice. A person with multiple and rich talents, his presence and life-long work was a gift that lives on in the legacy he has bequeathed to all of us. We, at UCLA's Asian American Studies Department, bow our heads in gratitude and reverence to his memory as we send our heartfelt condolences to his family and loved ones.

 

Florante was exceptionally dedicated to serving the community to bring about social justice and transformation. He was instrumental to the anti-Martial Law movement in the US as part of Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino (KDP). He was president of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, a member of the Filipino American National Historical Society-Los Angeles, served on the boards of the Filipino American Library, LA as Subject, FilAm ARTS, and, Search to Involve Pilipino American (SIPA), as well as a beloved photographer for the Association for Asian American Studies and countless community events. In 2014, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Florante to the California Library Services Board.

 

In his oral history, Florante described those who influenced his life and left a message for future generations:

 

Mentors and folks that have been a big influence on me are Roy Morales, Helen Brown, and my parents. We often talk about a lot of good folks that have gone on before us, the shoulders that we stand upon, so Larry Itliong and Phillip Vera Cruz, who I had the honor of meeting face to face. We need heroes and role models so we can learn from the past but also have something to look forward to...the sacrifices they gave up. I think maybe that's what the next generation has to learn. That there is sacrifice. It's not just, "Let somebody else do it." Or, "It's not my struggle, it's those people. It's Black Lives Matter. That's their problem, not mine." They're not understanding the wholeness of humanity.

 

We are forever grateful to Florante for all the gifts he left us to inspire future generations on the importance of community building, fighting for justice, and preserving history and culture. Rest in power and peace. Florante Peter Ibanez Presente!

 

A viewing has been scheduled for December 20, 2025 from 5:00 to 8:30 PM at Green Hills Mortuary in Rancho Palos Verde, CA 90745. The family would like to invite anyone who can attend and join them in remembrance of Florante Peter Ibanez. Please fill out the form to receive details for Florante's Community Celebration planned for January 2026.

 

 

 

Learn more about Florante Peter Ibañez's life and legacy in his Oral History Interview for AASC.

 

 

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