EXPECT the Muslim population in Metro Manila to swell every time the Bangsamoro conflict escalates down south. To escape the brutalities of war in Mindanao, many Muslims particularly flock to Quiapo, the heart of downtown Manila, where a sizable Muslim community has taken root since the 1970s in the vicinity of the Golden Mosque on Globo de Oro Street.
As it is not easy to find a place to stay in Manila, Quiapo provides them a home away from home. Quiapo’s Muslim settlement, after all, is what sociologist Mokhammad Yahya calls a self-contained ethnic community with deep communal and emotional ties, allowing them to “maintain their ethno-cultural identity from the onslaught of the Christian majority ideology and the modernizing/secularizing tendencies of urban life.”
But while in the city, Muslims cannot completely escape certain situations in their search for a better life, like having to adopt Christian names just to land a job as they end up working in Manila’s underground economy to support their forced isolation from their homeland.
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RICK ROCAMORA has won awards for his images and picture stories from Asian American Journalist Association, SF Bay Area Press Photographers Association, New California Media, Media Alliance; he was awarded a California Arts Council Art Fellowship and a Local Bay Area Heroes Award from KQED and Union Bank of California for his work about Filipino WW II Veterans. His work is widely exhibited in national and international museums and galleries. His work is part of a collection of American arts most recently exhibited at the Court of Saint James in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. His work is included in the traveling exhibition “Points of Entry-A Nation of Strangers,” which was exhibited at the Smithsonian, Center for Photographic Arts, Museum of Photographic Arts, and other venues. His images are part of “Pork and Perks - Corruption and Governance in the Philippines” a National Book Award winner in the Philippines in 1994. “Second-Class Veterans” a film produced by Don Young that profiled Rocamora’s undying efforts to document the day-to-day lives of Filipino veterans was broadcast on PBS stations in 2003 and 2004. His book about Filipino WWII veterans, "America's Second-Class Veterans" is scheduled for publication before the end of 2008. He is also working on a project about Muslim-Americans after 9/11.
Solo and Group Exhibition
Smithsonian, Museum of Photographic Arts, Center for Photographic Arts, Jewish Museum, Gorman Museum,
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco Airport
Commission Gallery, Oakland Museum, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Santa Barbara, SF State University, Manila Town Heritage Gallery, US Embassy - London and Tokyo etc.
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, San Francisco Airport
Commission Gallery, Oakland Museum, University of California Berkeley, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Santa Barbara, SF State University, Manila Town Heritage Gallery, US Embassy - London and Tokyo etc.