Invited artist: AGNES LOPEZ
The Faces to Remember Project is a series of black and white photographs of Filipino World War II veterans, some of whom are survivors of the Bataan Death March, whose amazing stories of perseverance and courage need to be shared. The portraits aim to show each person without ornamentation, impacting viewers through an authentic expression.
As a Filipino-American woman, I am acutely aware of the return of anti-immigrant rhetoric that mirrors another dark time in American history, when policies like the Filipino Repatriation Act and Rescission Act of 1946 were signed into law to erase the colonial ties of the Philippines to the United States and deny Filipinos their promised benefits.
I began this project in the fall of 2017, photographing subjects in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida and the surrounding area. The life story of Patricio Ganio, a Bataan Death March survivor, Purple Heart recipient, and civil rights hero, compelled me to learn more about World War II in the Philippines and the Filipino veterans’ 75-year fight for equity and recognition for their service. It was a subject I had been taught so little about yet had a direct effect on my family; my uncle joined the US Navy in the Philippines and was the catalyst for my family’s migration to the US.
Important history is being forgotten – or worse, it is never being taught at all. Very few people know about the sacrifice by Filipino and American troops in fighting the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II at the Battle of Bataan and the subsequent Bataan Death March that saw over 60,000 soldiers forced to walk 65 miles to Camp O’Donnell in the blistering heat with no water or food.
In the case of the Filipino soldiers of General Douglas MacArthur’s United States Army Forces in the Far East, their stories are distilled into a single famous photograph that they do not even appear in, MacArthur’s return to Luzon by LIFE Magazine's Carl Mydans. The Filipino soldiers’ role during WWII and the suffering of the entire Filipino nation are not mentioned in U.S. history books. After the war ended, President Truman signed the Rescission Act, which reclassified the service of the Filipino soldiers as not full-time, thereby disqualifying them from receiving their rightful benefits promised by President Roosevelt.
It is my hope is that The Faces to Remember Project will inspire viewers of the photographs to learn more about the Filipino-American connection and reexamine their views on immigration and the history of the US.
Agnes Lopez is a Filipino-American editorial and commercial photographer with a studio in the historic Riverside-Avondale neighborhood of Jacksonville.
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Her work has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, MIT Technology Review, The Local Palate, in shows on the Food Network, and more. She was awarded the gold medal for her food photography in the cookbook category of the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2017 for The Chef’s Canvas Cookbook.
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For the past three years, Agnes has been hard at work directing her first documentary, JAX Filipino Chefs, following the journey of eight Filipino-American chefs as they set out to change the culinary scene of Northeast Florida with their food.
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Her portraits of Filipino World War II veterans, The Faces to Remember Project, were recently on display in an exhibit at the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville, Florida. More about the project can be seen at www.thefacestoremember.com.