About this site

Tabok tells the stories of Filipinos in America: the people who crossed oceans, and the lives they built on the other side.

We are not a news site. You won’t find breaking headlines or hot takes here. Instead, every week, we bring you one true story about one person or family: a nurse who raised her children through a phone screen, a veteran who served a flag that wasn’t yet his, a lola who turned her kitchen into a neighborhood’s second home, a young Fil-Am learning the language his parents stopped speaking.

These are the stories that rarely make the papers, but they’re the ones that hold our communities together.

Why “Tabok”

In Bisaya, tabok means to cross: to go over to the other side. It’s what millions of Filipinos have done, crossing seas for work, for family, and for a chance at something more. And it’s what their children do every day, crossing between two languages, two cultures, and two ideas of home.

Every story on Tabok is about a crossing, and about what people carry with them when they go.

Who we are

Tabok is an independent publication run by two Filipinos on opposite sides of the Pacific: a journalist in the United States who has spent years telling the stories of our communities, and a creative technologist in the Philippines who builds the home those stories live in.

We’re family, and like many Filipino families, we’re separated by an ocean and connected by the stories we share.

What to expect

  • One story every week, delivered to your inbox and published here
  • Real people, told with care. Every story is shared with the consent of the people in it.
  • Always human, never clickbait

Do you know someone whose story deserves to be told: a parent, a grandparent, a neighbor, a friend? We’d love to hear about them. Write to us at hello@thetabok.com.

And if a story moves you, the best thing you can do is pass it on. Forward it to someone who’d understand.

Salamat for reading.