The first Filipinos to travel to North America came aboard the Manila Galleons such as this, Spanish trading ships that traversed the Pacific ocean during the 1700s and 1800s. 

Most of the young Filipino men who came to California in the first half of the 20^th century intended to eventually return home, but many of them never did.

 Remembering Our Manongs- Sonoma County's Filipino History   is a historical documentary film covering the first Filipino immigrants who traveled to the US and settled in Sonoma County during the First half of the 20^th Century. The film will be broadcast on KRCB-TV, Channel 22 on Tuesday evening, May 12, at 9 pm.

Partial funding for the film came from  California Council for the Humanities through their California Stories grant with additional support from the Filipino American National Historical Society.  The Society's Sonoma County chapter is one of 30 across the country. Chapter president Delia  Lanosa Rapolla explains the organization's purpos in 5the audio clip below.

For more information about the film call (707) 294-3784.

KRCB's North Bay Report has won an Excellence in Media award from the California Teachers Association, for a report last April on peer-driven non-violence training for junior high school students. Today we reprise that award-winning report.

Rick Phillips (left) is the creator and leading advocate for the Safe School Ambassadors program, which is a project of the Sebastopol-based non-profit, Community Matters.

This story, which originally aired last April, has been honored with a 2009 John Swett Award for Excellence in Media by the California Teachers Association.

The Sonoma County Sheriff's Department is charged with illegally overreaching in their support for immigration enforcement by federal officials. The ACLU suit also challenges the regulation upon which that cooperation is based.

Julia Harumi Mass, staff attorney for American Civil Liberties Union of Northern  California (ACLUNC) is the lead attorney behind that group's suit  charging that the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been collaborating beyond the law to target, arrest, and detain Latino residents of Sonoma County.

The rights embodied in the US Constitution are not there only for American  citizens, says Mass, but are explicitly applied to everyone, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.

Even as the ALCU lawsuit unfolds, Mass says she sees some early hints that the new Obama administration may be moving toward a different stance on ICE enforcement usage of the disputed regulations.

Some proposed reforms to national labor law are finding broad support in Sonoma County

Ben Boyce,  Director of the Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County, points to a case in Sonoma Valley that he says illustrates the need for the protections embodied in the Employee Free Choice Act.

Because there has been scant enforcement of violations of the national Labor Relations Act, Boyce says businesses have developed a "culture of impunity," where occasional fines for such violations are taken in stride.

There will be a public forum about the proposed law in Santa Rosa tomorrow from 10 am to noon at SRJC's Newman Hall, with multiple labor organizations and elected officials participating, including:

Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey

State Senator Pat Wiggins

Assemblyman Jared Huffman

Supervisors Shirlee Zane and Effren Carrillo, and

Santa Rosa City Councilman Gary Wysocky.

During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly stated his support for the Employee Free Choice Act, a position he reaffirmed just before his innauguration in this meeting with the editorial board of the Washington Post.