Jonathan Melegrito

Secretary of FilVetREP, Activist, Son of Veteran

Jonathan Melegrito is an activist and son of a veteran. In his interview, he expresses his outrage and gives insight on how veterans are treated. He talks about the effort FilVetRep has put towards the cause.

HIGHLIGHT CLIPS

That’s what being under American colonial rule meant. It’s that you are subjected to the interests of your colonial master.”

– (12:48) in full interview

Why is America treating them this way? Like we’re still little brown brothers? We’ll just acquiesce and accept, and surrender, and suffer in silence.”

– (25:29) in full interview

 

This is not just a Filipino story of a bunch of brown men, you know, taking up guns to fight the Japanese, but that’s the narrative that we’ve been told.”

– (47:53) in full interview

It would be a miscarriage of justice not to acknowledge and give importance to the role, the service, that these Filipino veterans played during the war.”

– (43:29) in full interview

 

What they really, really wanted was an official recognition by the United States government that they served under the U.S. flag, that they exist! That they mattered!”

– (24:20) in full interview

 

FULL INTERVIEW

(43:14)

Filmed June 2019

This is a machine-generated transcript and may have errors.

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