Come and celebrate Youth empowerment as Anakbayan New Jersey and New York turns 6. Share a day of empowerment, inspiration and community building. There’ll be fun, food and music.

Anakbayan was founded on November 30, 1998, the 135th birthday of a revolutionary Filipino patriot named Andres Bonifacio. Andres Bonifacio a young worker in Tondo, helped found the “Kataas-taasang, Kagalang-galangang Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan”  or Katipunan for short. Andres Bonifacio, together with other youth, primarily peasants and workers, together with intellectuals will lead the Katipunan and wage the first anti-colonial armed revolution against the Spanish Empire. It signifies Anakbayan’s recognition of its role to continue the unfinished revolution for national liberation and genuine democracy.

2 years after its founding, Anakbayan played a crucial role in the EDSA People Power Uprising in 2001 as it mobilized hundreds of thousands of youth nationwide by effectively uniting the youth from peasant and working class background up to the students and professionals.

Meanwhile, in New York and New Jersey, a young Filipino migrant/worker organization called MAKABAYAN or Magaaral at Kabataan para sa Bayan (Students and Youth for the People) and JERSEY YOUTH heeded the call of Anakbayan in the Philippines to organize the Filipino youth to participate in our people’s unfinished struggle for genuine freedom and democracy. Though thousands of miles away from the Philippines MAKABAYAN and other progressive youth organizations in the U.S. saw the concrete link of our history of migration and identity to the ongoing revolutionary struggle in the homeland.

In 2005, MAKABAYAN and JERSEY YOUTH, united to officially found the New York and New Jersey chapter of Anakbayan. Since then, Anakbayan has participated in countless local struggles in New Jersey and New York area, from Anti-trafficking campaign to worker strikes, from relief operations to campaigns against human rights violation in the Philippines, in line with the general struggle of our people for national liberation and genuine democracy.