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Honoring Filipino Nurses

In recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Month and National Nurses Month, SEIU commissioned Jonathan Chang, one the artist most associated with #StopAsianHate to memorialize Filipino nurses who died from COVID-19. While Filipino Americans are 4 percent of registered nurses in the United States, they account for about 25 percent of RNs who have died of COVID-19.

The artwork features three dedicated Filipino nurses, Ali Guilermo, Araceli Ilagan Buendia, and Rosary Castro Olego, who passed away after being exposed to the virus while selflessly caring for patients.

Ali Guilermo

After Ali Guilermo, a 44-year-old father of three and nurse at Long Island Community Hospital in New York fell ill with a high fever and dry cough, he was admitted to the same ICU where he worked and later died.

Rosary Castro Olego

Rosary Castro Olego retired from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 2017. When coronavirus hit, she took shifts as a traveling nurse to help various hospitals that were shorthanded. In mid-March of 2020, she and her twin daughters were hospitalized with COVID, but Rosary never came home. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti honored her as the first healthcare worker to die of COVID-19 in L.A. County

Araceli Ilagan Buendia

Araceli Ilagan Buendia, or “Celi” as she was affectionately known, was described by fellow members of SEIU 1991 as a nurse’s nurse. She took care of some of the most critically patients in the surgical intensive care unit and mentored fellow nurses over course of nearly 33 years at her hospital. She was the first nurse of Jackson Health System to die of COVID-19.

Share the portraits on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and follow Jonathan Chang, @jdschang, to support his important work in calling for #AAPI justice.

Updated May 24, 2022