By ADITI KINKHABWALA
JERSEY CITY, N.J.—Holding a broom, looking across the Filipino wares at the Philippine Bread House here on Newark Avenue, Edwin De La Cruz smiled sheepishly. No, he said, he's not really a boxing fan.
"I am just a Manny fan," the 42-year old Filipino immigrant said, his eyes lighting up as he named his countryman, boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao.
Pacquiao, who holds titles in a record eight weight classes, takes on Shane Mosley Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for the WBO welterweight title, and for Pacquiao's countrymen, any Manny fight is a big fight. "Oh yes, of course it's party time when Manny fights," Han Lazaro said, as she stepped out in the area known as Little Manila with her two sons, 9-year-old Angelo and 6-year-old Augustine.
An immigrant from Manila who's been in America for six years, she says that as distastefully "violent" as boxing may be, she lets her boys watch because she wants "them to see the culture their parents come from and be proud of that."
"My dad likes him because he likes Filipinos!" little Augustine says, mock-punching like a mini-Pacquiao.
The largest group of overseas Filipinos live in America, and while California and Hawaii boast the largest concentrations of Americans of Filipino ancestry, the New York metropolitan area has a sizable population, too. Tagalog is one of the 10 most-spoken languages in Queens. Manhattan annually hosts a Philippine Independence Day Parade and the Five Corners district here in Jersey City has a slew of Filipino restaurants, food stores and doctors' offices.
There, at Casa Manila, a Filipino restaurant farther up Newark Avenue, men eating an earlier dinner took breaks from their Kare-kare and Mungo to say rooting for Pacquiao is about rooting for one of their own.
"The Philippines are a small country and to see how big he has become—he says anybody can do it," Damaso Bugarin said. Bugarin left a province north of Manila 30 years ago for America and like De La Cruz, he said he is more a Pacquiao fan than a straight boxing aficionado.
His family hasn't missed a chance to have a gathering to watch him fight, and while he admitted he's not a huge fan of Pacquiao's outside interests—the 32-year-old sings, acts and is an elected member of the Philippines House of Representatives—he did proudly say, "He gives the Filipinos a name."
Gerard Sunaz, a 25-year-old dietary aide who left Bicol nine years ago for Jersey City, said the same way Tiger Woods may have inspired a legion of young minority golfers, Pacquiao fostered an interest in boxing for his generation.
Sunaz said Pacquiao is a distinct fighter—"He has speed and he has the great left hook"—whose distinctiveness makes him especially easy to root for. But more than that, every time he fights, Sunaz said, "he gives me goosebumps."
Write to Aditi Kinkhabwala at aditi.kinkhabwala@wsj.com
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