Paul Ruiz didn’t always have an easy time growing up as a Filipino American in the Bay Area.
“I can’t tell you how many people have told me, ‘Go back to where you came from,'” says the 58-year-old Benicia, California, resident, who graduated from De La Salle High School in 1982 and then went on to attend UC Berkeley.
Then he started to learn about the sizable yet too-often-overlooked roles that thousands of Filipino soldiers — including Ruiz’s father, Jose — played during World War II.
