# @nextshark on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DPo0qDHkoL9
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/35569618-nextshark-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/559aa9720c.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-10-10T17:55:21.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** NextShark (@nextshark) — https://gondola.cc/nextshark

## Caption

This FAHM piece is presented by lovedearflor - a FilipinoAmerican owned small business. 

Before Bruno Mars and Olivia Rodrigo, there were the Filipino Rough Riders — America’s first touring Filipino performers.

In 1899, at the height of the Philippine-American War, three Filipinos — Geronimo Ynosincio, Felix Alcantara and Ysidora Alcantara — joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show as the “Filipino Rough Riders.” Recruited in Hawaii, they traveled from San Francisco to New York aboard the SS China, debuting that spring at Madison Square Garden — where the crowd booed them amid anti-Filipino sentiment.

According to Buffalo Bill’s 1899 and 1900 Route Books, the troupe rode more than 22,000 miles by rail, giving over 670 performances across roughly 267 towns and cities from the Northeast to the Deep South — reaching an estimated six to seven million spectators. By 1900, the group had expanded from three to eight members, including Gregorio Azarraga, Eustaquio Caliz, Ysidoro Constantina, Lorenzo Emán and Filimon Ermoso.

They faced racial hostility but resisted on stage — once nearly striking after being ordered to portray Spanish soldiers in a battle reenactment. Scholars Emmanuel David and Yumi Janairo Roth call this “playing Filipino”: performing roles written by empire while reclaiming their own identity through style and defiance. Off stage, they wore bright shirts and red neckties, rejecting the “primitive” image forced on them.

A rediscovered 1900 photograph shows seven Filipino Rough Riders posing with the Philippine flag, their inscription reading “Remember the Filipinos Troupe — Octubre 1900.” It was their message to the future.

Today, Filipino and Filipino American artists headline the same nation their ancestors once toured on horseback — from Lea Salonga on Broadway to apl.de.ap (Black Eyed Peas), H.E.R., Saweetie, Bella Poarch, Guapdad 4000, and global icons Bruno Mars and Olivia Rodrigo.

The Filipino Rough Riders faced jeers instead of applause — but their journey paved the road from invisibility to visibility, from colonial spectacle to superstardom.

#FilipinoHistory #BeforeBrunoAndOlivia #FAHM #RepresentationMatters #FilipinoPride

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## Tags

filipinohistory, filipinopride, beforebrunoandolivia, fahm, representationmatters

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