The Little Manila Foundation and Black Eyed Peas will be honored next week by the California Preservation Foundation for their efforts to preserve remains of what was once the country’s largest Filipino neighborhood.“We’ve been aware of the Little Manila Foundation for a number of years, as well as their efforts to save Little Manila in Stockton,” said Cindy Heitzman, executive director of the statewide preservation group.The Little Manila Foundation will be recognized with the group’s President’s Award during a ceremony May 4 in Los Angeles.

“Their efforts to save the last vestiges of that area is exemplary,” Heitzman said. “They face an uphill battle to raise the funds.”

“It was totally unexpected,” said Dillon Delvo, executive director of the Little Manila Foundation. “It just fell out of the sky.”

The hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas, which counts a Filipino American among its members, is being honored for its video for “Bebot.” The song, rapped in Tagalog, is set in Stockton’s Rizal Social Club.

The club, once a bustling dance hall, is one of three buildings the foundation is hoping to save.

For four decades, beginning in the late 1920s, Little Manila was home to the country’s largest Filipino population.

– Bobby Caina Calvan