Family, friends, colleagues, students and community members are invited to celebrate the life and work of Professor Steffi San Buenaventura at a memorial service 3-5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 10, at Putah Creek Lodge on the UC Davis campus.

San Buenaventura, a distinguished historian and professor of Filipino American history at the University of California, Davis, died peacefully at her home in Davis on Friday, Nov. 22, after a long and courageous struggle with cancer.

Professor San Buenaventura arrived at UC Davis from UC Riverside in November 1999 as a member of the faculty in the Asian American Studies Program. She was a beloved teacher and mentor to her many students at UC Davis and an active scholar, colleague and friend to the faculty and staff who worked with her.

Born on Aug. 7,1941, and raised in Manila, Philippines, she attended Maryknoll College and graduated with a degree in English literature and a minor in journalism. In the United States, she attended Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisc., and the University of the Philippines in Metro Manila, Philippines, for graduate studies. She received a doctorate in American studies at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, in 1990. She was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA in 1991. She then taught at UC Irvine and at UC Riverside in ethnic studies.

Professor San Buenaventura's research interests were in American ethnicity, immigration history, race relations, social movements, religion, Asian American studies (with an emphasis on Filipino American history), Asian diaspora and Philippine-U.S. relations.

She also published a number of scholarly articles on Filipino American history and experience. Her most recent essays include a chapter entitled "Filipino Religion at Home and Abroad: Historical Roots and Immigrant Transformation" in "Religions of Asian America: Building Faith Communities," an edited volume by Pyong Gap Min and Jung Ha Kim.

At the time of her death, Professor San Buenaventura was completing a book titled "Nativism, Ethnicity and Empowerment: A Filipino American Socio-Religious Movement (1925-1975)," which was under contract to Stanford University Press. It was to be the first in-depth study of Filipino American community formation, beyond standard historical narratives that simply emphasize the role of Filipinos as laborers in Hawaiian and West Coast agriculture.

In an early interview upon her arrival on the Davis campus, San Buenaventura said she began to think more about Philippine history and culture during her time at Marquette University. She remembered her folk-historian grandmother who raised her on the oral traditions of talk-story, often speaking about Hilario Moncado, the founder of the Filipino Federation of America. In honor of this familial and community memory, she wrote her dissertation on the federation. She moved to Hawaii to continue her studies on the Filipino American experience in Hawaii during the 1920s and 1930s. She became an active member of the local community in Hawaii, often representing Filipinos in multicultural alliances.

The Asian American Studies Program and Shields Library at UC Davis have been designated as the collection site for archival materials pertaining to Filipino/a Americans. In this regard, Professor San Buenaventura had begun to work on a preliminary plan to establish an Asian/Filipino American archival collection at Shields Library Special Collections to consist initially of quality primary documents, correspondence, publications and photographs that have been donated to her over the years from several sources,including the Filipino Federation of America and first-wave-generation Filipinos in the Los Angeles area.

As an historian of Asian American/ethnic studies, she was, in her own words, "more than aware of the absence of and the need to consolidate archival materials dealing with ethnic community history, particularly during the early part of the twentieth century."

Moreover, she was aware of the apparent opportunity to "expose undergraduate students on campus, especially Asian American studies majors, to the process of archival collection work and to develop in them an appreciation for the place of primary source materials in ethnic community historical research." She encouraged and guided students to do field research, starting with conducting oral history interviews in the Filipino American community or the larger ethnic communities surrounding Davis. She did this in and outside the classroom through specific projects with community organizations, such as the Filipino American National Historical Society in Sacramento and Stockton.

The faculty, staff and students in Asian American Studies are in discussion with Professor San Buenaventura's family to find ways to celebrate her scholarship and commitments to her communities.

Prof. San Buenaventura is survived by a daughter, Michelle Peixinho; grandchildren Taro Sakulich and Malaya Peixinho; son-in-law Mateo Peixinho; mother Sylvia Salumbides; sister Nona Posadas; and many other family and friends. The family, in conjunction with Asian American Studies Program, is planning a memorial service set for early January in Davis.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests remembrances to the Steffi San Buenaventura Archive Fund. The fund is for the development and preservation of an Asian/Filipino American archival collection of primary documents, correspondence, publications and photographs, especially those materials that have been donated to Prof. Steffi over the years from several sources, including the Filipino Federation of America and first-wave-generation Filipinos in the Los Angeles area.

Make checks payable to UC Regents and indicate on the memo portion of the check to the "Steffi San Buenaventura Archive Fund." Send the checks to:

Asian American Studies

Steffi San Buenaventura Archive Fund

3102 Hart Hall

One Shields Ave.

University of California

Davis, CA 95616

For further inquiries, contact Kathy Entao at the Asian American Studies office: 530-752-3625 or kmentao@ucdavis.edu.