A Time to Rise: Collective Memoirs of the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP). This item is unavailable.A Time to Rise: Collective Memoirs of the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP)

A Time to Rise is an intimate look into the workings of the KDP, the only revolutionary organization that emerged in the Filipino American community during the politically turbulent 1970s and ’80s. Overcoming cultural and class differences, members of the KDP banded together in a single national organization to mobilize their community into civil rights and antiwar movements in the United States and in the fight for democracy and national liberation in the Philippines and elsewhere. These personal accounts document recruitment, organizing, and training in the KDP. More than two-thirds of the stories are by women, reflecting the powerful role they played in the organization and its leadership. Also included are chapters on the struggle for justice for murdered KDP and union leaders Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes. These memoirs offer political insights and inspiring examples of personal courage that will resonate today. A Time to Rise was made possible in part by a grant from 4Culture's Heritage Program.

Rene Ciria Cruz is the US Bureau Chief of Inquirer.net, the official website of Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippines’ largest circulation daily broadsheet. He was a founding member of the Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilinio (KDP) and was in its National until its dissolution in 1986. From 1973 to 1980 he was the KDP’s East Coast Regional Coordinator. In 1980 he joined the National Executive Board (NEB) and moved to Oakland, California, becoming Editor-in-Chief of Ang Katipunan in 1981. Starting in 1983, he simultaneously chaired the NEB, which guided the day-to-day operations of the organization. He later became Editor-in-Chief of Filipinas Magazine and an editor with Pacific News Service.

Cindy Domingo is Chief of Staff to King County Councilmember Larry Gossett. She joined the Seattle Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilinio (KDP) chapter in the fall of 1974. After attending the first conference of the Anti-Martial Law Coalition in Chicago, Cindy was assigned that arena of work. From 1976-77 she attended the master’s degree program in Philippine History at Goddard College in Boston and eventually was assigned to work at the KDP National Secretariat in Oakland, in the National Education Department, developing internal studies for the organization. After the murder of her brother, Silme Domingo, and Gene Viernes, Cindy returned to Seattle to become the National Coordinator of the Committee for Justice for Domingo and Viernes, until the families won their landmark federal civil suit against the Marcoses in 1989. She continues to speak about the murders and the role of the Marcos dictatorship and US intelligence. Cindy also continues her Philippine support work working with the Akbayan Party and serving on two International Observer Missions in the 2013 and 2016 Philippine national elections. Cindy is also active in many national and international struggles, building solidarity with Cuba, Venezuela and Latin American peoples’ movements.

Bruce Occena is a long-time activist. He was a founding member of the Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilinio (KDP) and the Alaska Cannery Workers Association (ACWA), part of the original team for the International Hotel struggle and a member of Line of March (LOM).

Augusto F. Espiritu is associate professor of History and Asian American Studies in the department of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is author of Five Faces of Exile: The Nation and Filipino American Intellectuals (Stanford University Press, 2005), and coeditor with Martin Manalansan, of Filipino Studies: Palimpsests of Nation and Diaspora (NYU Press, 2016).