How Can You Forget Me

Marissa Aroy directed and Niall McKay wrote the short documentary films for How Can You Forget Me: Filipino American Stories at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. Created through Media Factory, the films accompany an exhibition presented by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center and curated by Sam Vong.
The exhibition begins with twenty-six steamer trunks discovered in Stockton, California, in 2005. Preserved by the Legionarios del Trabajo, the trunks held personal belongings that reveal the lives of early Filipino migrants. Photographs, clothing and keepsakes open up a history of work, friendship, mutual aid and the community that made Little Manila a home.
The films connect those intimate histories with the people preserving them today. Discovery of the Trunks recounts the find by Antonio Somera, with Dillon Delvo of Little Manila Rising reflecting on its significance. The History of Little Manila follows the growth of the community, while Rising Up from the Fields explores Filipino farmworkers and their place in the American labour movement.
For Marissa, the exhibition continues a longstanding engagement with Filipino American history, following Little Manila and The Delano Manongs. The title comes from an embroidered pillowcase found in a trunk: a personal message that becomes a wider appeal to remember lives too often left out of the historical record.
The exhibition is scheduled to run from 23 December 2025 to 28 November 2027 in the Taubman Gallery, 2 West, at the National Museum of American History. Admission is free; the museum website carries current visiting information.