Lilia Mundelius, chapter coordinator for Malaya Movement Massachusetts, has been involved with fundraising since they were young. After moving to Boston post-grad, Lilia combined their experience raising money for important causes with their love of cooking to support Filipino human rights campaigns through baking. During our conversation, Lilia shared how they decided to start hosing bake sales to support these issues, and resources to get connected to causes in the Philippines.
For updates about where Lilia will be fundraising next, follow their Instragram @floral.filipinx. Books, websites, and resources mentioned in this episode are linked in the transcript below.
Listen to the full conversation below, or subscribe to our show on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify.
Transcript
[MUSIC]
Kaitlin Milliken: Hello, and welcome to the BOSFilipinos Podcast. I'm your host, Kaitlin Milliken, and this show is obviously made by BOSFilipinos.
In each episode of our podcast, we highlight a different aspect of Filipino life in the Greater Boston area. So today we’re to chat about fundraising to support causes that affect people living in the Philippines.
Lilia Mundelius, chapter coordinator for Malaya Movement Massachusetts, has been involved with fundraising since they were young. After moving to Boston post-grad, Lilia combined their experience raising money with their love of cooking to support Filipino human rights campaigns through baking. During our conversation, Lilia shared how they decided to start hosing bake sales to support these issues, and resources to get connected to causes in the Philippines.
We will be linking the organizations, books, and websites mentioned in our show notes at bosfilipinos.com.
Thank you so much, Lilia, for joining us today.
Lilia Mundelius: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Kaitlin Milliken: So I just love to start off by asking when you decided to start fundraising through selling baked goods? What drove you to do that?
Lilia Mundelius: So I've always done fundraising ever since I was little. There's like Relay for Life kind of stuff. So I've done that since I was a kid. Most recently, Liyang NorCal had their like giving circle. And so they gave us, like, how to fundraise, what you should do, like all that kind of stuff. And so it kind of sparked my interest in getting back into it. I'd also been really wanting to get back into cooking and baking like Filipino food and snacks. “Oh, the stars have aligned, I can start selling these snacks.”
Kaitlin Milliken: And we were chatting earlier. You mentioned that you grew up in Kentucky. Did you learn how to bake and cook Filipino food there? Was that something you grew up with?
Lilia Mundelius: Yeah, definitely. Nay, I would also always make pancit and lumpia. All of the classic Filipino stuff. I learned how to bake from my dad. He liked to make breads and cakes and all that kind of stuff. And so I learned how to make pan de sol later in life. But I'd already had that basis for breadmaking.
Kaitlin Milliken: It's so hard to get Filipino baked goods in Boston and Massachusetts. And it's also hard to find, you know, reliable recipes. Are you looking online? Do you do the cookbook thing?
Lilia Mundelius: Yeah. So I always asked Nay, “Do you know how to make this?” If she does, she'll tell me. Filipinos sometimes don't really write down recipes. You just kind of like have a feeling. For pan de sol, I actually got that recipe from the cookbook that I am Filipino Cookbook. I don't know if you guys know it. That recipes stray from that. So it's basically a vegan recipe.
Kaitlin Milliken: Dang, that's awesome. I also find that there's sort of this myth of Filipino food is not vegetarian or vegan friendly. And I think there are so many new recipes or modified recipes that really adapt to that, which is awesome.
Lilia Mundelius: Yeah, definitely.
Kaitlin Milliken: So I know that you're supporting different organizations through your fundraising. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what issues you're most passionate about supporting, and some of the orgs that you're fundraising for?
Lilia Mundelius: The organizations that I support are mainly human rights organizations, and either based in the Philippines or based around Filipino issues. The ones that I have supported so far are... So there's Sabokahan, which is like Lumad, like women, they are trying to continue their education of their community and like have community resources spread around themselves. The Lumad people have been under attack. Their schools have been being destroyed, and they haven't been able to like keep up with education a lot because of that. I fundraise for them.
And then there's Karapatan Alliance. They literally do, like legal work around human rights, trying to get political prisoners free and standing up for human rights activists and stuff. And then there's also Malaya Movement, which is I'm part of. We're a US based organization, and we do mainly the PHRIA campaign. So we're lobbying our legislators trying to ask them stop sending us tax dollars, which there's a lot of Filipinos here. We pay taxes here. And we're basically funding like the genocide of our family and friends back home. Getting funds to them, so we can stop sending money over to Duterte and things like that.
Kaitlin Milliken: It's so cool that you're a part of Malaya Massachusetts. I know that that's one of the Filipino organizations that folks throughout the state can be a part of. Can you talk a little bit about how you got involved there? What got you started?
Lilia Mundelius: We had gotten in contact with the New York chapter of Malaya. There's a couple of friends who got in contact with Boston PEAR, which I'm also part of. For people who don't know, PEAR is, Boston, Filipino Education Advocacy Resources. So they were trying to build a coalition with us. And then they asked, “Do you want to make a chapter in Massachusetts?” And we're like, “Actually, yeah, that's really cool.” So a bunch of us decided to take up leadership roles. As I said before, I'm the coordinator. We one day just started a chapter. I think in December last year, so now here we are.
Kaitlin Milliken: Wow, that’s so new.
Lilia Mundelius: We're babies. We're actually recently going to be lobbying Ed Markey soon. We have a planning committee meeting up next week. So that's exciting.
Kaitlin Milliken: And I'll definitely ask a little bit later, how folks can get involved. But I do want to get a little bit more into your cultural identity. So you were born and raised in Kentucky and moved out here, Have you always been really plugged into your Filipino identity? Was that something that you had to build up and connect with over time?
Lilia Mundelius: I don't think I had any interactions with Filipinos until I went to college. And even then it was just kind of one person I kind of knew. And we didn't try to be friends. When I moved here, I was informed about PEAR and I was like, “Oh, my God, Filipinos, this is great.” And then there's also a poetry event that I went to. It was called Four Brown Girls, which is literally like four girls who are brown. And one of them was Gretchen, who runs BRWN GRLZ the earrings on Instagram, and I went there, I cried. So hard. I was like, “ have never known this kind of representation. This is the possibility of what I can be.” From there, I just kind of was always trying to reach out to other Filipinos, anything and everything about Filipinos got my hands on and read and listened to. And it's just been really amazing to kind of reconnect to that part of my life.
Because you know, like, my mom moved here, before I was born, and all of my family is still in Cebu. So I haven't been able to physically meet any of them. It was like heartbreaking to grow up with. And sometimes I feel like that now. I feel like really disconnected. I've been trying to connect more and more through learning, and also like, finally, Facebook has allowed us to talk. So that's been really, really great.
Kaitlin Milliken: That's awesome. I know, you mentioned you're a big reader. And we were talking about some books a little bit earlier. I love — and I'm putting you on the spot here [LAUGHS] – but I'd love it if you could share anything that you've read that you felt really helped foster that connection or reading picks for folks who want to learn about Filipino culture through that?
Lilia Mundelius: One of my favorite fictional books is called In The Country. It just has so many like short stories and snippets of like Filipinos living just being you know, and it's just a really great place to start. I guess. If you want to get like more kind of academic on Filipino things, there's also the website called Ibon. And they have links to a lot of like articles and essays, and it's all free and open to anyone to read.
One of the books that I'm currently reading is called Tikim. I think a lot of people might know about it now like it's been covered in a lot of news stories and things since last year. And that one's a lot about like Filipino cuisine and not just like factually stating what are the flavors, but actually the culture behind it. When you sit down with people and connections, What memories those bring up. It's just like a whole new world that you're diving into.
Kaitlin Milliken: It's so great that you're doing a bunch of fundraising and that you've really kept up with issues that affect the Filipino community abroad. I think that's something that can feel very intimidating to folks who may not know very much about it. And like they're Filipino. They're Filipino American, and they want to learn more, but don't know where to start. How do you recommend learning about these issues for folks who you know, want to be more involved in that?
Lilia Mundelius: Yeah, so if you're more curious about the political issues stuff, you can either go on the website for like Malaya Movement, you can follow them on Instagram, just @malayamovement can sign up for their newsletter on the website. There's also like Liyang Network. I would also suggest following them on Instagram and on Facebook. I'll give you guys the spelling later.
Kaitlin Milliken: We will also put all the information in our show notes on the website, which is great. And this is my final question for you, Lillia. Where can we catch you in July in August for fundraising and for supporting your baked goods? And what can people expect to indulge in food wise?
Lilia Mundelius: Ah, okay, so it's kind of embarrassing that I don't have a schedule out that far. I do. Go in front of Brookline Booksmith which is in Brookline, and I also go in front of the Trader Joe's and continue them out Alston but I try to post on my Instagram like where I'm gonna be. I've been trying to do like the monthly schedule, so I will probably have that post out soon.
Kaitlin Milliken: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Lilia for chatting. We really appreciate it.
Lilia Mundelius: Yeah, thanks for inviting me.
[ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS]
Kaitlin Milliken: This has been the BOSFilipinos Podcast. I'm your host, Kaitlin Milliken. Music for our show was made by Matt Garamella. Special thanks to Lilia for joining us. To find out where Lilia and their delicious cooking will be next, you can follow their instagram at @floral.filipinx. If you liked this episode of our show, you can subscribe to the BOSFilipinos Podcast on your streaming platform of choice. You can also follow us on Instagram, @bosfilipinos, to stay connected. If you have ideas of what we should cover, you can let us know at bosfilipinos.com. Thanks for listening and see you soon.