A visit to Massachusetts
One of the most popular states in the US is Massachusetts, which holds a very prominent place in American history not only because it is one of the 13 original colonies, but is also the landing place of the ship Mayflower and the Pilgrims.
We visited Massachusetts recently for some meetings and activities, among them the 2018 Seafood Export North America trade show in Boston where a delegation representing Filipino companies participated. We also had dialogues with the Filipino-American community as well as Fil-Am students and administration officials of Harvard University.
We also met with the top officials of the Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment (MOITI), namely assistant secretary of business development Nam
Phan and executive director Mark Sullivan. MOITI is Massachusetts’ international development agency that is tasked with promoting trade and investment with international partners. We explored potential areas where Massachusetts-based companies can partner with Philippine counterparts.
Massachusetts is also home to America’s political royalty — the Kennedys — and of course, the most popular of them is John F. Kennedy, whose term as president was cut short by an assassin’s bullet in November 1963. His legacy, however, is immortalized and preserved at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, which I took the opportunity to visit.
The nine-story building designed by I.M. Pei contains photos, official documents, objects and memorabilia about JFK, his family, his childhood and his days as President — a fitting tribute to the well-loved and charismatic President. Among the most popular exhibits is the replica Oval Office that features the furniture and other objects he used when he was President, such as the signing desk and bookends with replica models of the cannons in the USS Constitution ship.
A significant part of the visit to Massachusetts was the meeting with Congressman Joseph Kennedy III at his district office in Newton. The grandson of the late senator Robert Kennedy and grandnephew of JFK, Congressman Joe, as he is fondly called, is continuing the political legacy of the Kennedy clan. One of the priorities of his legislative agenda is education, with emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) as a vehicle not just for innovation and advancement, but for access and opportunity.