Times were also hard: The incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II prompted families like Buell’s to wear buttons that read “loyal Filipino American” - an attempt to lessen some of the racism and discrimination they experienced. Navy band and taught her and her sister to play the guitar and piano. During her childhood in West Oakland, music was a major part of Buell’s life her father played in the U.S. Her grandfather, a Buffalo Soldier, fought in the Spanish-American war, then married and remained in the Philippines. That family history starts long before Buell’s birth in 1932. Throughout her multifaceted career, Buell has encouraged Filipino Americans to share their stories as she does - through music, creative writing and the celebration of her own multicultural family. The lovely harmonies of The Sampaguitas are just one of the many examples her admirers point to when explaining Buell’s knack for bringing people together.
Buell invited the women to sing a Filipino song at a previous hootenanny they formed an official group and continue to perform together today. In fact, if it weren’t for Buell, Francisco never would have met the members of her own three-part singing group, The Sampaguitas, named after the Philippines’ national flower. “Vangie is such a role model for me, not just as a person and a woman, but I feel really grateful to have this special connection because we are also both Filipina,” says Jenevieve Francisco, the Piedmont Gardens’ lifestyle enrichment coordinator and co-conductor of the hootenanny. Residents sing and listen to folk music during a Piedmont Gardens hootenanny. The audience is hushed by the low timbre vibrato of her singing voice her fingers strum the guitar strings.
When Buell sings her solo, it reverberates clearly and deliberately through the garden, the result of decades of practice.
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