Arborg’s Filipino community really brightened up the Arborg Street Festival’s parade last Friday with two culturally symbolic floats and plenty of cheer to spread around.
Although the Filipino community had taken part in a parade under the Arborg Fair and Rodeo about 15 or so years ago, Beverly Magaway said this was the first time they entered floats in the street festival’s parade.
Both lavishly decorated floats are culturally symbolic of Filipino culture.
“The flower float represents one of the most famous festivals – the festival of the flowers – held in the summer capital of the Philippines. We call [the festival] Panagbenga, which means season of blooming,” said Magaway, who has lived in Arborg with her family for 16 years.
The second float featured a house and is a replica of a Philippine cultural icon called the bahay kubo, which is a rural house that’s supported on stilts. The house represents the spirit of community unity, in which people would come together when others needed help.
“In a small Philippine community in the old days when someone needed help moving their house, their bahay kubo, to another spot, people would get together and [physically] carry the house to the new location,” said Magaway.
A recent Philippine newcomer to Arborg – who was recruited to work in the agriculture sector – was the mastermind behind the two floats, said Magaway. Jai Umali, who has a background in and flair for design, along with his friend Rachelle Mangunay and others in the community, helped put together the floats.
“Jai used to work as a florist in the Middle East and as a food decorator and he is very talented,” said Magaway. “He made some of the flowers for the float out of paper towels that he spray-painted pink and purple. And we supplied some scrap materials that he turned into a canopy for the flower float and other features.”
After a few families settled in Arborg, the Filipino community began to grow with newcomers from the Philippines being recruited by local businesses to work in the agricultural, food service and health-care industries, she said. Early this year there was another influx of people from the Philippines that were recruited by the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority.
“We carry on our tradition of helping others in the community,” said Magaway, who has been running her own business, Magaway Cleaning Services, for seven years. “We have our own Filipino group chat and when someone reaches out for help, we can help. We have an annual Christmas party and we take part in Arborg’s Culturama, which is coming in September. We consider Arborg our second home because the atmosphere is similar to where we came from and the cost of living is reasonable.”
Express Photos by Beverly Magaway and Corrine Einarsson
