Today we are taking on a topic that sits at the intersection of high school and college education: Dual Enrollment. With the increase of dual enrollment courses at Mt SAC and across the state, we wanted to explore the lived realities of the instructors who are teaching these courses and leading the way for high school student success at the college level.

I had the privilege of sitting down with two seasoned instructors, Felix Jollevet and Sonya Masl as well as Mt SAC's new Dual Enrollment Faculty Liaison, Candace Leuthold. We had a chance to explore what dual enrollment actually is, and what it means to teach college level material to high school students including the unique joys and challenges. Join me as we get into this important conversation together.

Resources:

Mt SAC Dual Enrollment Website

https://www.mtsac.edu/dualenrollment/

Dual Enrollment Slides from Board of Trustee Study (Great info)

https://tinyurl.com/dualenpresen

Great articles about teaching Dual Enrollment courses - discussing the growth of and the nature of achievement/access gaps within Dual Enrollment programs:

https://nortonlearningblog.com/2020/12/creating-positive-dual-enrollment-experiences-six-tips-for-college-and-high-school-teachers/

https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2025/04/california-dual-enrollment-community-college-growth/

https://www.ccdaily.com/2024/02/deep-dive-into-californias-dual-enrollment-data/

Login to Canvas and Enroll:

https://mtsac.instructure.com/enroll/D8RPY8

Run Time: 37 min, 42 sec

To Find the full transcript for this episode click HERE

So nursing was always around me and our family and our upbringing, and I wanted to make a film that really honored my aunt and teachers like her. Then it became 2020 and the pandemic. We were just really concerned about what was happening to everyone, but specifically our community, and hearing these, these reports of how our Filipino nurses on the front lines were dying in disproportionate numbers.

Welcome to the Mount San Antonio College Podcast. I'm Chisa Uyeki, a Mt. SAC professor and librarian, and I'm pleased to be your host for this season. Our goal is to keep you connected to our campus by bringing you the activities and events you may not have time to attend, to share the interesting things our colleagues are creating and innovative ways they are supporting and connecting with Mt. SAC students. Join me as we explore Mt. Sac.

Today's episode comes from a campus film screening and panel focused on Nurses Unseen, a documentary about the courageous effort of Filipino American nurses who played a key role during the COVID-19 pandemic as they faced a resurgence of Asian hate and cultural invisibility. Following the screening, Mt. Sac's Equity Center hosted a panel discussion with the film's director, Michele Josue, alongside Mt. Sac's own nursing faculty, Sophie Bocarin and Dr. Victoria Abate-Matoier, as well as sociologist Dr. Anthony Ocampo from Cal Poly Pomona, who also appears in the film. The film is a testament to cultural resiliency and highlights the historical and social forces shaping Filipino migration and nursing experiences. You'll hear panelists share the moments that resonated with them most and reflect on the spiritual and physical toll of being on the front lines of a pandemic.

Other themes touch on the embeddedness of care work within Filipino communities and how the film itself represents a grassroots act of resistance in support of acknowledging Filipino contributions and encouraging the growth of Filipino media more broadly. I'm Ivan Sanchez, one of your co-hosts, and we hope this offers you a concrete example of how films and film screenings can facilitate impactful dialogues that support learning. We hope this encourages you to attend future screenings and to use film to invite your students into these learning spaces. Let's listen in.

Good afternoon. My name is Lance Heard. I'm the Dean of the Technology and Health Division. And today we're having lunch in honor of the screening of Nurse Unseen, a Powerful documentary about Filipino nurses and the COVID-2020 experience. And we're hosting the director of the film, Michele Josue, who we'll be having lunch with to talk with our students in nursing and our faculty in nursing and their experiences with the issues of the film.

What inspired you to do the film and, and where the ideas and themes came from for you?

Sure, my work as a storyteller and as a filmmaker, I'm very passionate about telling Filipino and Filipino-American-centered stories with the hopes of making it in a way that crosses over into the mainstream. I feel like I have that responsibility as a filmmaker working at a certain level. There are not many of us. There's very few Filipino documentarians out there. So to be able to have the opportunity to share these stories that really need amplification is very important for me. So after my Netflix show Happy Jail, which was about these Filipino dancing inmates in a jail in Cebu, I really reflected on the type of story I wanted to tell next. And I guess my gaze turned inward, and I really wanted to focus on my personal life, my family history. And I'd always been very curious about my aunt, who is my second mom.

Her name is Tita Dodo, or Dodo Cueva. Um, she was an oncology nurse in Children's Hospital. I came across Dr. Katherine Sinisa Choi's Empire of Care which really told this history and this legacy of Filipinos in nursing really well. So that was what we were aiming to do, to do a documentary about that kind of that history, tying in my personal story with it. Then it became 2020 and the pandemic. We were just really concerned about what was happening to everyone, but specifically our community and hearing these, these reports of how our Filipino nurses on the front lines were dying in disproportionate numbers. So that kind of kind of stopped us in our tracks, and we realized that there was a way we could tell the story that we were originally setting out to make, but also zooming out a bit and expanding the focus so that it also included the modern telling of what was happening in the time of COVID So as soon as we got vaccinated in 2021, we went into the field and tried to tell that story as well.

Hi, my name is Sally Marasigan. I'm a third semester for Mt. Sac nursing program. I grew up in the Philippines and I came here when I was 19 years old, so I did experience the change and how to adjust to the community here, and especially with the schooling, it's very different. But being with Mt. Sac and having this event, actually, I'm very thankful and happy to participate in it because like I, for example, like experience, like transitioning, learning the American culture, but at the same time meeting people who is very willing to learn about the Filipino culture. So it's like amazing for me to be able to share my experience. And I've also worked as an LVN throughout the COVID pandemic, and I've seen the experiences of our senior Filipino nurses, how COVID changed them.

I'm very thankful for this experience.

My name is Moses Magalos. I am a third semester nursing student here with Mount Sac's nursing program. Definitely, it's awesome to represent Filipino American History Month because, you know, when you go through this nursing program, the culture as a Fil-Am is like, you know, go, go nursing, especially as a first-generation Filipino. Our parents are like, you know, like, this will give you security and all that. But when you come to a community college and you figure out a little bit more about your culture, you come to realize that Filipinos have been here since the 1500s, all the way from Morro Bay to having its hand in the formation of the agricultural unions, working with Cesar Chavez, to all the way to nursing where, you know, it becomes a part of expatriate labor is what brought us here. And then it ends up being a contributor to the GDP of the Philippines. To be a Fil-Am and finding your way through that, it really humbles you, and especially having a whole month to bring this up to the surface, it actually goes to show that, you know what, as a Filipino-American, you come to realize the American dream may have its roots in nursing as we grew up here, but you come to realize how can we give back and how do we bring awareness now. And like for me personally right now as a paramedic prior to becoming a nursing student, Filipinos are part of healthcare.

Like, you know, we are, we are literally a majority, a silent majority up until this point. So it's awesome to see us represented.

Hi, my name is Katrina Miranda. I'm also as well a third semester nursing student. I'm very appreciative that this event is able to like rise up because I don't think there's that many like events or like basically like promotion of Filipino-American culture, especially for nursing. Especially for my family, I'm kind of like the first nursing person to be in my immediate family. My tita, my auntie, she's the one who first was— came to America with a contract, and she was able to get my whole family into America. So I'm very grateful for that. But I think one thing that kind of like carries on with me, especially with Filipino-American nurses, is that they're very hardworking, very determined, and they're always very kind and sweet with everyone. And that's something, a trait that I feel like carries along with a lot of the reputation of Filipino American nurses.

So, and then for me, like, with nursing school, I want to be able to, like, be the first one and, like, actually just be the one to take the NCLEX and let her know that I did it for you, Mom, you know, like, I did it for my family, like, I'm here to just, like, you know, uplift them.

I now have the honor of introducing our filmmaker of the film, Nurse Unseen, Michele Josue. She is an Emmy Award-winning Filipino maker whose feature debut Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine won 10 best documentary and audience awards from film festivals worldwide and boasts a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Michele is also the executive producer, director, and lead editor of Happy Jail, the award-winning Netflix original documentary series about the Cebu jail that is home to the world-famous dancing inmates. Recent works include her multi-award-winning feature documentary Nurse Unseen about unsung Filipino-American nurses, for which Michele was selected as the 2020 2021 Film Independent Fast Track Fellow and Food Roots about Fil-Am restaurants, searching for recipes of his ancestors. In 2022, Michel was selected by the Philippine Embassy and the Ayala Foundation as a delegate of the Filipino Young Leaders Program, a network of high-performing next-generation leaders who advance the Philippines and the Filipino people through their advocacy and expertise in various industries. Michele's films have screened at film festivals including IDFA, DOC NYC, Mill Valley, Chicago International, Cleveland International, and venues including the White House, the Washington National Cathedral, and the U.S. Department of State, and now Mount San Antonio College. I'd like to introduce you all to Michele Josue.

Along with our panel, I would like to welcome Sophie Boquiren. Sophie is our nursing faculty, as well as Dr. Anthony Ocampo, who's a good friend of the Arise program. He's a professor and program director of sociology at Cal Poly Pomona, and Dr. Victoria Abatay-Metoyer, another of our nursing faculty here at Mt. Sac. So round of applause for them.

This is such an amazing panel, y'all. You students, that you have your faculty here and our special guests. Kind of want to start with Michele and ask her, what was your inspiration or intent surrounding this film project? And can you share with the audience how you decided to situate Nurse Unseen within the context of socio-historical perspectives?

Sure. I just came from the call center, I with my new guess, headset. I'm still getting used to it. So this film started pre-pandemic after my last project, Happy Jail, that was the first project that I had done that was really focused on a Filipino story. And after Happy Jail, I really had an internal conversation with myself. What type of stories do I want to keep telling moving forward? And I really wanted to focus on continuing this trajectory of storytelling in terms of Filipino and Filipino American-centered narratives, I felt that that was really important. And there's so few of us, so few Filipino filmmakers working at a certain level, and I felt I had this obligation to really highlight our stories in a respectful way, an authentic way, in a way that had a chance to cross over into the mainstream. So with that being said, I really thought about my family, how I got to the United States.

I thought about my second mom, my Auntie Tita Doro, who you met in the film and how she really devoted her life to nursing. And I was really interested in that, creating a film that really honored her and the many teachers in my life just like her. I came across Dr. Catherine Sinisa Choi's book Empire of Care, and I was just really blown away. It felt really empowering to learn more about the history of why so many Filipinos got into nursing, how that affected my own family. And that was really how Nurse scene began. But then we got into 2020 and the pandemic and lockdown, and we were watching these stories on the news, and it was just really heartbreaking to hear how our Titas, our Filipino nurses on the front lines, were dying in such disproportionate numbers. So it was at that point that we decided to kind of pivot and to zoom out a bit and still tell the same story that would honor my family, my titidoro, but also provided more context as to what was happening during the time of COVID So in April 2021, when we all got vaccinated, we headed out into the field to really shoot what is now, 5 years later, really a raw, authentic historical document of COVID during the first and second wave.

So So that's pretty much how and why Nurse Unseen came to be.

Thank you so much. My next question is actually for our faculty. What part of the film resonates with you most and why?

Hi everybody, my name is Sophie Boquerin and I'm faculty here for the nursing program at Mt. SAC.

The thing, the theme that really carried with me is the culture of resilience for our Filipino people and from the immigration. My mom was an immigrant. She traveled during that time as a nurse. She studied in the Philippines, came here with that resiliency to make a life for herself and also for her family because she is the same story that we heard in the film where she worked because she knew she wanted to take care of her family in the Philippines. She was one of the first of her siblings to travel to the— to travel here to America and send money back to her family so they could continue with their education. To raise her younger siblings so they also had a future as well. And throughout the film, you can see the resiliency in all the Filipino nurses that continue to take care of their patients even though if they didn't have that PPE, if they didn't have even just the knowledge of what was to happen to themselves, they continued to take care of their patients. And so they continue with that resiliency And that's just the culture that I grew up with despite all the things that we went through in our lives, because both my parents were immigrants.

They brought my grandparents here from the Philippines. They raised us the best that they can. They continued to be resilient through all the things that they went through. And thank you for this film. It really makes me proud to be Filipino and to share the story and the culture of of what many may not know, the Filipino culture of resiliency, how nurses came to be, and how they continue to take care of the people despite sometimes a lack of acknowledgement that may happen in the community. But thank you very much for this inspiring film.

Thank you, Sophie. My name is Victoria Abate-Matorre, and I'm also a nursing faculty in the nursing department. And first, I wanted to thank Michele for this very important piece of work. It's not just Nurse Unseen, it's also Filipino unseen. In so many ways, it highlighted who we are as a culture. And something that really resonated with me, or some themes that really resonated with me through the documentary, was solidarity in times of uncertainty in a diverse culture of healthcare and social justice at the time, and even now. Another theme that really stuck out to me was this narrative of obligation to care. And throughout the movie, I saw how through the first and second waves of COVID the nurses that were being interviewed shared their narrative and their deep sense of obligation to care.

And central to all of was this need to continue to help people despite not knowing, despite being afraid. And care is so central to who we are as a culture. We, we kind of put the care in healthcare. Filipino nurses have really built the backbone of healthcare, especially during this very scary time of COVID-19. And it's no wonder that while others run away from chaos, Filipinos have it ingrained in themselves to care care. They feel obligated to care and to help. And so we ran into the chaos. And it's no wonder that there's a disproportionate outcome or negative outcome that more Filipinos, more Filipino nurses have died during this pandemic, because central to who we are is— are just very caring individuals, people who want to be part of a team for the betterment of others.

And it's defined who we are as a culture. It's what makes us just such a joy to be around and such a joy to work with. But it's also led to this really horrific statistic that I guess I didn't really know much about as I was working at the bedside myself. We were so busy going in and out of the hospital at the time. Sometimes it was hard to find a moment to look up and breathe and see how many of of my own aunties, how many of my own uncles and cousins have been putting themselves on the line just like the people that you've honored in this movie, and how many of us have died. One-third is such a horrific, horrific statistic, and I'm, I'm so grateful that you brought this to light to share with us and so that we can share this knowledge with others as well.

Thank you. You know, Dr. Anthony Ocampo, can I ask you a question?

Sure.

You know, the film— the thing that was surprising to me, you know, trailers are great when they're— when they don't really tell you the whole story. Like, you don't get the entire movie. So I was really pleasantly surprised to see you contribute to the film from a sociological perspective. Can you talk a little bit more about, like, the implications of these external social forces, historical perspectives that have impacted things that we see today? I think another part of the film that I connected with was just seeing some similarities with things that are going on today with respect to immigration, with respect to xenophobia and rise in anti-hate. You know, that was just literally 5 years ago. So, can you talk a little bit more about that perspective?

Yeah, thanks for this question. I want to start by just saying a little bit about the previous question about what resonated. I think the best kind of art is the art that when you revisit it or rewatch it, a third, a fourth, a fifth time, you get something different. And I've had the privilege to see this film a number of times, I think at least like 5 or 6 times in various ways. And every single time it affects me in a different way. To your point, Aida, I think what resonated most for me is that we're living in a time when immigration is being associated with criminality xenophobia, just outright violence. We witnessed these kidnappings happening down the street by ICE every single day. And so, I kind of see this film as an act of resistance to really show people that immigration— immigrants are part of the health of this country, both literally when it comes to the individual patient, but also when it comes to the larger society as well.

I love that. Thank you. Michele, you, you've screened this in various countries. You mentioned the Netherlands, UK, Canada, and probably more to come. Who do you hope this film reaches as you continue to screen it globally? And what are some salient messages you want to convey?

Yeah, thank you for that. We have been pretty tireless about taking this film out in a really grassroots way, which has been really meaningful. It's been a marathon. So we've screen all across the US with the film festival circuit, but now really in these amazing community-oriented screening events, which is wonderful. We've taken it to Amsterdam. When we went to the UK, we had the privilege of screening it with May Parsons, who you meet at the very end of the film, who is the Filipino nurse in the UK who administered the first COVID vaccine, and that was just such an honor. We do hope— oh, and Canada, of course. So we do hope to continue to screen it in all of those countries as well as take it to the Philippines for the first time.

We have yet to screen it there and we're really excited to do so. We definitely want to take it to the Middle East, just all places where there's a significant community of Filipino healthcare workers. And I can't really limit that because they're everywhere. So we're really looking forward to just continue to share the film and We really want to share it beyond the Filipino community. I think that's really important. Of course, it's really important to keep our Filipino and healthcare worker community engaged and to view this film because we made this film for you all, for those communities, as a love letter. But we really are hoping to cross over and let other people understand what it takes to be a caregiver, to understand that Filipinos are more than just their labor that is really seen see the nurses. That's why we, we entitled the film Nurse Unseen, because we were pinpointing this problem that our nurses and our healthcare workers aren't acknowledged and recognized and celebrated in the way that they should.

So we hope that other communities can finally see us in all our humanity, not you just, know, because of the care that we give, but because we're complex human beings with families and obligations that are really so integral to the history of this country and to the success of the healthcare system, not only in this country, but globally. To your point, it's been really interesting. Yes, I've seen the film. I made the film. I've seen the film 1,000 times. I really enjoy sitting in the back and watching it in a room full of people because there's such a tangible energy in the air and you get so much out of it. In the beginning, we made this film, like I told you in the beginning, as soon as we got vaccinated because we felt just this urgent drive to do so. We wanted to run out to the world and tell everyone what was happening to our community, that our titas were dying, and this was an urgent message that needed to be shared.

Now, you know, 5 years since the start of the pandemic, watching it back, it's, you know, there's not that urgency anymore. It's more about healing. It's more about this collective healing. And what I'm really proud— one thing that I'm really proud of with this film is we're able to be in community together and able to just stop for a moment together and really reflect and process and experience what happened during this historic, traumatizing, scary time and able to deal with those feelings. There should be a trigger warning on this film, and I promise we will do so in the future. I know it's very very difficult, really emotional, but I do think it's a really necessary watch as we move forward as a collective community.

Thank you. I'm going to switch gears a little bit because I see there's some comments and some questions, and I'm going to ask Tutasi to maybe share some comments and then also entertain some questions here.

Awesome. So someone said this film was wonderful. It was very heart-touching and tear-jerking. Depicting the shared grief among the Filipino-American community alongside the Joanne community that is so vital to our culture. I've never seen a film that displayed the struggles of our titas and titos, and seeing this film today opened my eyes to the struggles my family of nurses had to endure. So thank you. I guess this question opened up to anyone in the panel. This is titled Changes in Nursing. In what ways, if any, has nursing changed for Phil Lam since the pandemic? Pandemic, do they face any new struggles?

So I'll try to answer that. I don't know if these are new struggles that we're facing in terms of mental health. I think the struggles they're facing have been there. Now we just have a space to finally say, I'm struggling, and to share it with one another. What I do notice in our newer generation of young nurses is that they're not afraid to tell me, tell nurses, tell the people that they're training with, I'm scared, I'm anxious, I'm really unsure right now, I don't know what to do. And when I hear these struggles, these aren't new struggles. I think the pandemic, I think watching nursing become so exposed in the media and just in the hospital has given young Filipino-American nurses and aspiring nurses the courage to finally say the things that they've been struggling with.

Thank you. Next question. Um, this one probably— I saw this question, uh, maybe for Michele. Can you share what— not maybe, for Michele, can you share what you would have been some of the positive experiences you've you've had screening the film in different places?

Yeah, that's a great question. Gosh, so many. Well, last year at this time, we were invited to screen an excerpt of Nurse Unseen in the White House for their White House Filipino American History Celebration. So that was such a true honor to bring the film there. So that was really exciting. Last year, we did a really grassroots Oscar campaign, which we did just because we wanted to show people that even though it was going to be a real impossible dream, we wanted to show that we could still do it and that there was such support for the film. And in doing so, Joe Koy, the comedian, again, featured in the film, he finally got to watch the film and was so touched by it that he asked to come on board as an executive producer, and he's been such a great champion of the film. Um, he actually shared that he pays for a lot of his niece's nursing school tuition, so he's like, they're going to take care of me when I'm older.

Um, so that was truly great. And I think it's just being in spaces like this that's just so meaningful to me. When we were doing Happy Jail and we're signed up with with Netflix, it's a different experience because they kind of own the project and they can really dictate how you share it or how you don't, you're not able to share it. And so we weren't able to kind of do the film festival circuit, take it into schools and universities. And I really missed being in community and discussing the work. So with "Nurse Unseen," we just, even though we knew it was going to be harder, we wanted to go about it a little differently. So this film, is so, it's so different than that project because it was made for the community, it was financed by the community 'cause we did a big Kickstarter campaign for it. And now we're moving around the country sharing it in these really amazing spaces.

And that's really just such a joy. And I get to learn so much from my fellow panelists, from audience members. And again, I'm just so touched by people who feel compelled to share their experience. And I feel really proud that we've been able to give them a safe space where they can reflect and be vulnerable. And I really hope that Nurse Unseen is going to be an evergreen project, one that we hope to be taught in curriculums. And yeah, we just really look forward to a long future with this film.

Awesome. Thank you, Michele. Next question. It says, post-pandemic to now, have any of you seen a continuation of advocacy for nurses, Filipino nurses, How do we continue to be seen both here in the States and in the Philippines?

I don't know if I have a, a clear answer for how do we continue to be seen in the Philippines. I can tell you a number of my cousins are in the Philippines, are in our nursing school as well, so we know that nursing is still going strong over there. Thank you. I think through collective grief. This has allowed more Filipinos to band together and to make themselves more visible, maybe not in a social media way or a news type of way, but just working on the units. I think that over time, people are— especially through this pandemic, when people have recognized how hard Filipinos have continued to work work through the uncertainty and through all of these scary moments, it has bonded a lot of people together to Filipinos. It has— it's allowed people to feel more gravitated to Filipinos because we've brought such joy and, and good spirit to work. A lot of who we are shapes nursing and the way that care is— nursing care is delivered.

And a lot of who we are also shapes the potlucks. Potlucking is a huge part of our culture. Food, sharing food, sharing community is a huge part of our culture. And I think that by sharing more of ourselves or exposing more of ourselves to people and the work that we've done, that the advocacy is there in the community that we've been able to create and grow and the friendships that we've grown. Through sharing workspaces and sharing food.

If I could chime in from a different perspective, I think that when it comes to advocacy, that happens in many different ways. Obviously, there's protests, you can have labor unions, but one arena in which advocacy could happen is culture. At least when I was a kid growing up in the '80s, all you had were ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and those were pretty much the plate— Nickelodeon. That's a place where you got all your stories about the way the world is, what's important, families, etc. But now that we have social media, now that we have documentarians that are doing this work, we're able to have a much further reach to talk about who Filipino nurses are. And that can become the gateway to then, as you mentioned, talk about other aspects of Filipino culture, whether it's the culinary aspect, whether it's the comedy aspect, I'd like to think that the resurgence or this renaissance of Filipino American culture through films like this have an impact in other arenas. I don't know if anyone watches The Pit on HBO, but The Pit is a medical show. It's excellent.

It's very good. But this is a show about an emergency room in Philadelphia— in Pittsburgh, and it has 3 Filipino characters. One is Muslim, one is immigrant— two are immigrants, one is Muslim, one is not Muslim, and then there's a Filipino doctor. And even though the Filipino storylines aren't necessarily like central to the episode, it means something for audiences, for me to see Tagalog spoken on screen, to see someone named Princess depicted on screen, or Dr. Santos depicted on screen. And there's another show called St. Dennis. I don't know, it's a comedy.

There's a whole episode dedicated to the Filipino nurse mafia, which is purely about, you know, the Filipino— I don't know, what do I call it? Filipino Mean Girls? Or like the Filipino— the A group, I should say. How they are essentially in control of the hospital floor in which they work. And it's all in jest. It's comedy. But again, in a time when immigrants are being treated as subhuman and criminalized and, and all sorts of violent acts are happening against them, it is so necessary to have these reminders that we're full-ass human beings, that yes, we may work in the nurse industry, but that's just one aspect of who we are as a community.

One thing I do want to add to the advocacy of Filipino nurses is I really hope that other cultures that see this film see that, like Victoria's sentiment, at our core, we are caring people. And to the racism that's still alive and well, when other cultures are able to see this film and to see a Filipino nurse at their bedside, they are accepting and they know that at our core, no matter how you view us, we will still care for you. We will still care for your family. And I hope this film opens the eyes of others so that they just know, regardless of how they view the world, we will see you as a patient and we will continue to fight for your health. And I just hope that with this film, people will just see that again at our core. Us as a culture, we will continue to fight and to care and, um, to, to love our patients as we would our family members, because I really feel that that's what our culture does.

I love it. Thank you so much. I was thinking about that as you said, as you mentioned that, like, I'm sure the film is for the Filipino community, right, just to remind them, but it's so much more that everybody else needs to know who they are. That's why we were so happy to have —so that we continue to share your message with everyone. Another comment: "This film hits so, so close to home. Thank you for making me feel so seen as a young Filipina American.".

This last question that I wanted to share, actually I intended for faculty, but I think anyone on the panel can answer this question. And if you have something you'd like to offer, I hope you can. So thinking about nursing training programs overall, the healthcare industry today, and the students who are currently in their educational journey or about to transition to the workforce, soon, what themes from the film do you think are critical for their understanding of career readiness and professional development?

I think themes from this film, as well as personal and professional elements that are so necessary as you're transitioning into this workforce, include humility and self-awareness. And also, lastly, understanding your purpose. Because what I heard from each of the people that participated in this documentary is that they had a deep sense of self and they had a deep sense of their own purpose. And every day they got up, they got up and fulfilled that purpose, going to work, leaving their families behind, and knowing that a big part of their purpose was to continue to support themselves and to support their immediate family as well as their family back home. And as, as people or young people who are transitioning into this field, I encourage that you take time to understand yourself and to know your history, because this film really made me feel so proud of who I am. It helped me remember the sacrifices that, like Sophie, I share, where our parents are immigrants and we— they came to America by way of nursing and brought over one person and then another person and another person. And by remembering that, that is deeply ingrained in my history, it gives me a sense of purpose and pride. And so coming into the program, we need people who know their sense of purpose, who have a sense of pride of who they are, to build their self-awareness and to build the empathy that they need to be sharing at the bedside.

I think one takeaway is, I know we're living in the time of AI, and AI can be a useful tool for a variety of reasons, but I think the film is an illustration of how AI— there are many things that AI can't do. AI can't decide to build an online memorial. AI cannot be the person who is comforting a family in their time of loss. AI can't make the decision to be at someone's bedside in their last moments and pull up an iPad because that's the only way they're going to be able to be seen in their dying breath with their families. And so I guess I want to leave folks and encourage them to think about all the aspects of humanity that you witnessed on this screen, on this panel with each other that can't necessarily be duplicated with AI tools and understand and harness that those are exactly what we need to harness because there's just so much ugliness happening in the world. And I think if we harness those very human aspects of who we are, I feel like that's the seed of change and making things a little better. Little Miss Universe is my answer here, but like, I really do feel like leaning into our humanity— very Filipino to be Miss Universe about it— but, but yeah, leaning into our humanity, I think, is step one because there's so many things that are incentivizing us to automate or to climb to the top at any cost, no matter what it is.

Thank you.

One thing I'd like to also add to piggyback on what Victoria has said for our young people entering the career of nursing, I think our generation now is not afraid to speak up and stand up for themselves like the, the 10 nurses who stood up against the hospital to say we need PPE. And we— I— my hope for our younger generation is they stand up for the change that we need at the bedside when our hospitals will not stand for us. And as you know, there's strikes going on in our local hospitals and communities, and these nurses are standing up for what they believe in with proper patient ratios, equitable pay. And so I I hope that our younger nurses will also stand up for what they believe in, for the betterment of our nursing community, so that nurses that follow them have a better workplace, better conditions. And I just hope that this film continues to inspire that little bit of change to say you that, know, if 10 nurses can do it and stand up for the rest of the nurses, our younger generation can do the and make a difference.

Thank you, thank you so much. Michele, having completed this project and thinking about Filipino American History Month, why is telling these stories important, and what projects do you have ahead?

Yeah, a great question, because I'm really passionate about telling our stories the right way. You know, if we don't tell our stories, who will? You know, and I want to share our stories in it in just in all its complexities and show us in all our humanity. And just for other people to understand, and I said this in my other answer, that we're so integral to this country. And to show our experiences in this way is just a beautiful way to communicate that. So I did that with Happy Jail, tried to do this with Nurse Unseen, my next project, which will will premiere on PBS next May, if there's still a PBS next May, is called Food Roots, and it's about a Filipino-American restaurateur, celebrity restaurateur named Billy Deck, who travels back to the Philippines to discover the recipes of his ancestors before all his elders pass away. And that's also a very beautiful film. I'm developing a really exciting new project with my team about the history of jolly Holly Beeve. So that's something else that we're working on.

So we're— there's just so many stories to tell, so many exciting Filipino and Filipino American stories to tell that I feel like I'll just be doing this work forever, and I'm really honored and blessed to do so.

Thank you for listening to the Mount San Antonio College podcast. Brought to you by Mount Sac's Pod Office and created in partnership with Avant House Media. Original music created and edited by Neera Azira. Be sure to check out our growing library of over 230 episodes and let us know your thoughts. You can reach me, Chisa Uyeki, at [email protected]. Wishing you an amazing year and happy listening.