Students celebrated Filipino and Latino culture at an art gallery in Kerckhoff Hall Wednesday.

The Filipinx/Latinx Art Gallery was hosted in partnership between three Cultural Events Commission programs – The Word on Wednesday, WorldFest and Art Series – and Empowering Latines Against Struggle, a student-run cultural organization. The gallery featured several visual art submissions, poetry readings, music performances and a short documentary showing.

The event aimed to ensure that Filipino and Latino cultures are represented in UCLA’s programming, said Temilade Fagbule, co-director of WorldFest and a fourth-year neuroscience student.

“There’s a great value in going outside of your comfort zone and learning more about another culture and celebrating them as they should be, because UCLA is such a diverse campus and so there’s so much you can do to learn more about your fellow peers and student body here,” she said.

Filipino-American History Month and Hispanic Heritage Month overlap in early October, creating an opportunity to uplift the cultures of the two distinct groups on campus, Fagbule said.

Konani Chinn – the co-director of The Word on Wednesday, a weekly open-mic poetry and spoken word event series, and a fourth-year world arts and culture student – said the event highlighted the impact of colonialism on the Filipino and Latino communities.

“It’s not by chance that both of these things happen in October,” Chinn said. “There are a lot of overlapping histories and overlapping struggles as well as very unique things that happen in both cultures.”

Several artists also explored how the history of labor activism in the United States has shaped both the Filipino and Latino diasporas, including through a short film titled “Children of the People” by Inez Amihan Anderson, a fourth-year film, television and digital media student. The documentary focused on the experience of immigrant workers from the Philippines and their fight to secure workers protections.

Latino and Filipino communities played key roles in the 1960s and 1970s labor rights movement, organizing labor strikes that led to the passing of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act – which granted the right of collective bargaining to agricultural employees – in 1975.

Chinn also performed a spoken word poem at the event titled “Letter to the Colonized,” which focused on her identity as a Filipino-American and criticized colonization and its long-lasting influences on Filipino culture.

“My main point with this piece is that not only do I not fit into the expectations of what a perfect Filipino is but also what a perfect Filipino is fighting against,” Chinn said. “Back home, there is a Filipino and larger Asian American community that understands all struggle and accepts me for who I am.”

The gallery allowed attendees to see their culture represented and learn about others, said Bella Umeki-Martinez, the CAC co-chief of staff.

“I hope people either feel themselves and their friends and their loved ones represented, but also, if you’re not a part of these communities or know people part of these communities, it’s an open space to learn and to grow,” said Umeki-Martinez, a third year Chicana/o and Central American studies and communication student.

As some attendees explored the paintings on the wall and images projected on a screen, other guests pointed toward the artworks that had especially spoken to them.

The gallery emphasized the Filipino and Latino communities’ joy and resilience, Chinn said in a speech.

“I just hope people take away some joy,” Umeki-Martinez said.