Philippine Expressions Bookshop Owner’s Legacy to the Filipino American Community of Los Angeles

To mark her 86th birthday May 27, and as a gift to the Filipino American Community of Los Angeles, Linda Nietes-Little’s collection of Philippine indigenous and ethnographic art and artifacts will be donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art or LACMA, and to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles or NHM. Her memorabilia and some books will be donated to the California State University, Dominguez Hills or CSU-DH where the Filipino American Digital Archive or FADA is located.

LACMA is one of the largest art museums in the West Coast today and is located along the Miracle Mile in Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles. For more details, visit: Los Angeles County Museum of Art – Wikipedia. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles is located in Exposition Park, Los Angeles. It is part of The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County or NHMLAC  which also include the La Brea Tar Pits in Hancock Park/Mid-Wilshire, and the William S. Hart Museum in Newhall. They protect and share more than 35 million specimens and artifacts, the largest natural and cultural history collection in the western United States. They also explore the nature and culture that surrounds us today, both in Los Angeles and the world.

Until its formal turn-over to the two museums, the Collection is on display at Pinta*Dos Gallery which is adjacent to Philippine Expressions Bookshop. Both are located in the 1928 vintage art deco building called The Arcade, in the heart of the arts district of San Pedro, the Port City of Los Angeles.

The Collection consists of over one hundred items of handwoven Ikat textiles and other ancestral weaves, backstrap looms; hand-carved wooden utilitarian artifacts and rice granary gods called Bululs from the Cordillera; knives, costumes and beaded bags, jewelry and other body decorative arts; an original umbrella used in a Muslim dance called Singkil which is decorated with hanging silver coins of the early American Period in the Philippines; hand-woven mats and baskets of assorted materials and designs; traditional musical instruments made of bamboo and wood, and a vintage kulintang set, all derived from various cultural communities located in different parts of the Philippines, such as the B’laan, Bontoc, Ga’dang, Hanunoo-Mangyan, Ibanag, Ifugao, Isneg, Kalinga, Kankanay, Mandaya, Manobo, Maguindanao, Maranaw, Subanun, Talaandig, Tawsug, T’boli, Tiruray and Yakan.