The life of Thelma Garcia Buchholdt was one full of “firsts”:
The first Asian American elected to the Alaska State Legislature (1974)
The first female Filipino American elected to a legislature in the United States (1974)
The founder of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Alaska (1966)
The first female to be elected President of the Filipino Community of Anchorage, Inc. (1973)
The first Asian American elected to serve as President of the National Order of Women Legislators (1980)
Founder of the Asian Alaskan Cultural Center, the first cross-cultural center of its kind in Alaska (1980)
THELMA Garcia Buchholdt was a Filipino American community activist, politician, teacher, lawyer, historian, public speaker, and author. She was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives for four consecutive terms, from 1974 through 1982. She was the author of the book Filipinos in Alaska: 1788-1958, which is now in its third printing and available through the Anchorage Museum of History and Art.
Thelma Jean Garcia was born August 1, 1934, in the small fishing village of Claveria, Cagayan in the northern Philippines. She was the first of six children born to Eugenio Manalo Garcia and Dionisia de Leon. Her father was of mixed tribal heritage including Aeta and Ibanag, and her mother was of Ilocano heritage.
Her formal education began at the Academy of St. Joseph in Claveria, Cagayan. She came to the United States in 1951, graduated from Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1956, majoring in Biology. In 1996 she was honored by Mount St. Mary’s College as “Alumna of the Year, Community Service”.
She also enrolled in graduate studies at a Las Vegas-based extension of the University of Nevada, which later became the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. There, Thelma met her husband of 50 years, Jon Buchholdt. They were married June 14, 1957 and started a family.
Thelma taught elementary school until the family moved to Anchorage, Alaska in 1965. Thelma was active in the Anchorage community through the March of Dimes and the League of Women Voters, and she helped found the Boys and Girls Clubs of Alaska.
In the late 1960s, Thelma became involved in politics as a member of the Ad Hoc Committee of Young Democrats. In 1969, she was selected to attend a conference “On the Future of Alaska” held by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. George McGovern named her Alaska coordinator for his 1972 presidential campaign. She was appointed to the Alaska State Advisory Committee to the US Commission on Civil Rights. In 1973, Thelma was elected the first woman president of the Filipino Community of Anchorage, serving two consecutive terms.
After her work on the McGovern campaign, in 1974 Thelma was elected to the Alaska House of Representatives as an Ad Hoc Democrat. She was subsequently re-elected to the Alaskan legislature in 1976, 1978, and 1980. Thelma was the first female Filipino American legislator in the United States of America and the first Filipino American elected to a United States legislative body by a constituency which was less than 3% Asian American and less than 1% Filipino American.
Thelma Bucholdt served on the House Finance Committee, later becoming vice-chair of the committee. She championed funding for the Spenard Community Recreation Center, the Dempsey-Anderson Ice Arena, the Asian-Alaskan Cultural Center in Spenard, the renovation of the Filipino Community Hall in Juneau and many local roads, trails and parks. Thelma also sponsored and won funding for an underwater survey of Alaska’s bowhead whale population. She also won funding for the Alaska Commission on the Status of Women.
In 1980, Thelma was elected the first Asian-American president of the National Order of Women Legislators, and in 1994, she was appointed director of Alaska’s Office of Equal Opportunity.
Thelma became an expert on the history of Filipinos in Alaska. She produced a 30-minute documentary film on the subject and wrote a 200-page book, “Filipinos in Alaska 1788-1958.” Thelma was a three-term national president of the Filipino-”American National Historical Society.
When their four children Titania, Chris, Hans, and Dylan were grown, Thelma and Jon enrolled in the District of Columbia School of Law, graduating in 1991. Both became members of the Alaska Bar Association.
When Thelma died of pancreatic cancer on November 5, 2007, she was the National President of the Filipino American National Historical Society, and had written and lectured widely about Alaska’s Filipino communities. The history of the Filipino diaspora to America was important to Thelma. She wrote about history. But more significantly, Thelma Garcia Buchholdt made history.
To honor this great Filipino American, November 10, 2007 was proclaimed Thelma Buchholdt Day by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. (www.asianjournal.com)
(Published in LA Midweek March 4, 2009, p. B2)
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