Emily Lorenzo Catapang is the Executive Director of the Mangyan Heritage Center (MHC), a non-profit, non-governmental organization assisting the Mangyans, a general term for the eight ethnolinguistic groups living in Mindoro, the fourth largest island in the Philippines. MHC promotes the appreciation of these indigenous peoples (IP) through its research library/archive and lectures; and celebrates their contributions to the diverse Filipino cultures and the world through traveling exhibits.

Ms. Catapang is an Ibanag, one of 110 IP groups in the Philippines. She has been working with the Mangyans for the past 16 years and gives presentations to students, teachers and visitors. While on a four-week fellowship at the Rockefeller Archive Center in New York in 2005, she gave lectures at several organizations and at different universities. She searched for Mangyan documents and artifacts in libraries and museums in the United States. For more information on the Mangyans and the MHC, visit www.mangyan.org.