Florante Peter Ibanez

Florante Peter Ibanez is a graduate of Banning High School in Wilmington, CA. He went on to CSUDH where in became an anti- Vietnam War activist serving as their ASB Director of Community Peace & Education and worked as a draft counselor with fellow activist Mike Howard. He later worked at the UCLA Asian American Studies Center as their resource development coordinator in the early 1970s and was a co-founder of both the UCLA Samahang Pilipino and UC Irvine's Kababayan student organizations. He received his BA in Comparative Cultures from UC Irvine in 1977. As a student he became an activist with the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP) which supported the National Democratic struggle against the Marcos Dictatorship in the Philippines and and fought for social justice for the FilAm community in the U.S. In 2006 he completed both a Masters Program in Library Information Science and MA in Asian American Studies from UCLA. Florante is now retired but had worked at Loyola Law School from 1992 - 2020 as their Manager of Library Computer Services. In 1997 he served as president for the Kayumanggi Lions Club. He also taught Asian Pacific American Studies at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). Currently teaching at Pasadena City College since 2016. Florante has served on the boards of many non-profit community organizations including, LA as Subject, FilAm ARTS, Serve the People Institute (SPI) and the Filipino American Library. He has previously served on the Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA) Board for six years and as a City of Carson Environmental Commissioner for six years. From 2000 to 2004 he served on the UC Irvine Alumni Association Board and in 2001 became the charter president of the UC Irvine Kababayan Alumni Chapter. Florante is a past President of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA)2010-2011, and represented them on the Steering Committee for the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC 2012) and was selected to be an American Library Association (ALA) Emerging Leader in 2007. Archives, music, cycling and photography are his passions and he and his life partner, Rose Estepa Ibanez published "Filipinos in Carson and the South Bay" with Arcadia Publishing. They raised two daughters, Gabriela Ibanez Nguyenphuoc and Mikaela Estepa Ibanez, have two grandsons, Cleto and Liam Ibanez Nguyenphuoc, and had two pekinese doggies, Takeshi and Keiko. As a grad student he also created the short documentary film "Got Book?, Auntie Helen's Gift of Books" which screened at several film festivals. He fund raised over $5K as a rider in each of the following cycling events: 2001 Calif. AIDS Ride, 2007 & 2011 AIDS Life Cycle and 2003 Hawaiian AIDS Paradise Ride. Florante was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Library Services Board (2014-2022) serving as vice chair.

Florante has also contributed articles in the following publications:

Through the Archival Looking Glass: A Reader on Diversity and Inclusion,

Edited by Mary Caldera and Kathryn M Neal, 2014 Society of American Archivists

Asian American Society: An Encyclopedia, edited by Mary Yu Danico,.2014 SAGE

Asian Americans: An Encyclopedia of Social, Cultural, Economic, and Political History, edited by Xiaojian Zhao & Edward Park, 2013 ABC-CLIO (4 articles included)

Great Lives from History: Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, edited by Gary Y. Okihiro 2012 Salem Press (4 articles included)

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Filipina/x/o American Studies

by Kevin Leo Yabut Nadal & Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, 2022 SAGE