Indie Alaska

My first visit here, I didn't know what to expect.

I really didn't.

I just didn't expect a lot when I came here.

I thought it was like, really country.

So we wanted to bring fusion food here because the Filipino food was not very well known here in Alaska.

You know, I didn't just grow up eating Filipino food.

I grew up eating Japanese, Korean, Hawaiian.

All kinds.

That's the kind of stuff that I missed when I moved here to Alaska.

We had to find a way to get people to know what Filipino food was.

To kind of get interested in our food.

So, that's how we came up with Jeepney Filipino Fusion Food.

For one summer, I remember we did the salmon lumpias, which was a pretty big hit.

That was one of the very Alaskan things that we did.

Anybody that moves, especially if you grew up in Hawaii your whole life, leaving the islands is scary.

Me and my sister growing up, we've always been into food.

Especially, experiencing just the way mom cooks, the way our uncle cooks, the way basically the whole family cooks.

I guess, me and my sister grew up seeing how my uncle also had a cooking business.

He catered to a lot of Filipino parties on the island that we grew up on Kauai.

Her and I seeing just how someone in the family could own a business, could show people in a community what Filipino cuisine is all about.

This is Jeepney on Old Seward.

I definitely think it kind of planted a seed in us where we think we kind of wanted to do the same.

2015, my husband decided to build our first food truck, which is the white, colorful one that everybody saw.

That's what most people used to know us by.

What a lot of people know us by now is our burritos.

The sisig burrito, The adobo burrito, the beef tapa burritos.

So this thing's about almost a pound or more.

I feel in a way, it has been a huge test in our family's relationship.

I think that it has forced us to, in a way, grow stronger in communicating and also understanding.

In this location in particular, my mom actually likes to bake.

So what we have here is a butter mochi, very traditional in Hawaii.

And, she also made some bibingka.

It's an ube bibingka.

Ube is basically a sweet potato and also we got some cream cheese on top of the bibingka itself.

You know, I remember when they were just a food truck.

So I'm like a long time client of Jeepney and lover of Jeepney.

Filipinos in the early 1900's were recruited to work in the sugar cane plantations and pineapple plantations in Hawaii.

And so, many Filipinos started moving to Hawaii and to the West Coast, United States, following the crops, working in the farms, and then eventually Alaska.

They learned that, hey, when they got to Washington, they're like, "you know what?

There's this place even farther up north.

Alaska.

And, they have salmon season, fishing season up there, and they pay a lot of money."

So, a lot of those Filipino workers that were following the crops from Hawaii to the western United States ended up also being contracted to work in Alaska.

And that was, again, like in the early 1900's, was when large scale migration of Filipinos began to Alaska, Asian Americans in Anchorage, or in Alaska more generally, composed the largest racial group outside of white folks and Alaska Native, American Indians.

You know, unlike other states in the United States, where the third largest racial group might be African American or Latino Americans.

For Alaska, the third largest groups after whites, after Indigenous peoples are Asian Americans.

You know, in Filipinos, you know, family is number one.

You prioritize your family's needs.

You prioritize your family's goals.

You know, we're a collectivist people, just like, you know, many other people, just like Hawaiians are.

And so I think that's another connection there culturally between the two communities.

Oh, the honor system, I'll tell you.

Hey, mahalos uncle, I appreciate that.

I feel like growing up in Hawaii, you feel a sense of 'Ohana, if you will.

Just like a sense of family.

And being here, just seeing the community of Filipinos and Hawaiians, it made me feel like I was still at home.

And, it's great because even our customers kind of adapted to that culture and they're not even Hawaiian, they're not even Filipino, but to an extent, they become family.

Everything's okay?

Yeah, how you doing?

Yeah, good.

Nice weather outside, it's just cold.

It is.

A little ice on the ground.

As they're coming in and ordering our food, and we just get to, like, share with them the new special of the day.

I tell them about it.

And they're like, "oh that's so cool!"

And they get excited about trying it and they instantly, in a way, become family to us.