Allan Bergano

Allan was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. He is a product of immigrant Filipino parents. His father came to America as a teenager, worked as a houseboy and graduated from Franklin High School in 1928. He worked his way through college and graduated with a BS in Pharmacy from Oregon State University. On a trip to The Philippines, he met his wife, a third-grade teacher who taught in the “jungle” hiding from the Japanese in WWII. They married and settled in Seattle.

Allan was raised in the predominantly Black Central Area neighborhood of Seattle. He helped desegregate all-white Roosevelt High School as a member of the city’s Voluntary Racial Transfer program. In college, he benefited from the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and affirmative action and became the first Filipino American to graduate from the University of Washington School of Dentistry in 1981. In 1983, he became the first Filipino American to practice dentistry in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He and his wife, Edwina, founded the Hampton Roads Chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) in 1989. Programs created by FANHS-HR helped students of Filipino ancestry embrace their personal journey by embracing who we are and what we can become. When it comes to racial equity as a Filipino American, Allan knows the way, goes the way, and continues to show the way in the making and shaping of a better America.