Bonus Episode: “Filipino Balikbayan is Homecoming in a Box” by Gravy Podcast

This Filipino American Life

Before we end 2023, we’re sharing a special bonus episode for you from our friends at Gravy, a narrative podcast produced by Southern Foodways Alliance and distributed by APT Podcast Studios. Named the “Publication of the Year” by the James Beard Foundation, the series showcases a South that is constantly evolving, using food as a means to dig into lesser-known corners of the region, to complicate stereotypes, to document new dynamics, and to give voice to the unsung folk who grow, cook, and serve our daily meals.

In the bonus episode we’re sharing, “Filipino Balikbayan is Homecoming in a Box,” Gravy explores the histories, politics, and cultures underlying the balikbayan box—a large box filled with everything from tubes of toothpaste to cassette tapes to cans of Spam—that Filipino immigrants in the United States customarily send home to family in the Philippines. There is an entire industry in Filipino communities across the United States dedicated to the logistics of shipping these boxes, which have been popular since the Philippines established the Balikbayan Program in the 1970s. We hope you enjoy it!

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