Helen Agcaoili Summers Brown

Helen Agcaoili Summers Brown was born in Manila on May 16, 1915. She was the third of seven children born to Trinidad Agcaoili Summers, a Filipina woman, and George R. Summers, an Anglo American man. Her father had emigrated to the Philippines to teach English as part of efforts to establish Western-style schools following the acquisition of the Philippines by the United States through the 1898 Treaty of Paris. The experience inspired her to become a lifelong collector of resources about Filipino culture. She is the first known Filipino to have graduated from UCLA. Brown was an early supporter of Asian American Studies at UCLA; she was a member of the interim steering committee that drafted the proposal to establish the Asian-American Studies Center in 1969. They traveled to Boulder City, Colorado to get married due to California's miscegenation laws, then in place, which would not permit a mestiza to marry a white man. Due to a disability, Bill was not required to serve during World War II. Instead, Bill worked the midnight shift at Bethlehem Steel as a tester for welders. At the time, Brown was pregnant with her first son, and took a leave from teaching for six months. Many women worked as welders, and after encouragement from her husband, Brown became a welder, and welded the bulk heads of liberty ships. The Browns enjoyed traveling, and would take their four sons on trips. Brown would periodically travel to the Philippines every two years after her marriage, bringing her children and husband, to visit her family and tour the country. ==Work as an Educator==

Brown worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for thirty-four years, retiring in 1974. She also lobbied on behalf of Filipino-American schoolteachers, working to increase the number of teachers and to see them promoted within the system. ==Establishing the Filipino American Library==

After retiring as a teacher, Brown focused her energy on the collection of materials she had gathered for four decades. A short documentary titled ''Got Book? Auntie Helen's Gift of Books'' was created by Florante Ibanez in 2005 to recognize Brown and the founding of the FAL. In the film, Brown is interviewed by her son and discusses her upbringing in the Philippines as a mestiza. When the Filipino American Library closed, the collections were sent to the University of Southern California Libraries. The USC Libraries have digitized materials in the Filipino American Library Collection, including materials written in English, Tagalog, and Ilocano. ==Later life and death==

Brown and her family lived for over fifty years in Hermosa Beach, California. She spent her last years in an assisted living residence in Hermosa Beach. Brown died there on January 25, 2011. ==References==