By Brittany Rogers
Above image courtesy BYU–Hawaii
In temples and at the lab, BYU–Hawaii grad Lilian Pagaduan-Villamor connects families.
Reaching the Mangyan people is a feat. Traversing the Philippines, one negotiates land and sea, but the Mangyan Indigenous Cultural Community–Indigenous People (ICC–IP) live high in the mountains on the island of Mindoro, says Lilian Pagaduan-Villamor, an alumna of BYU–Hawaii. The trek takes hours on winding, washed-out roads.
The bigger feat, however, comes next—in the convincing.
“You are asking to swab their cheeks to collect their DNA,” says Pagaduan-Villamor. “You are asking for their trust.” This, of individuals who live off the land and who are generally wary of research groups—from the big city or abroad—who want access to the Mangyan ICC–IP’s culture or biological samples. “They don’t want to be exploited,” says Pagaduan-Villamor. “You have to seek for their understanding of the importance of science.”
As part of a scientific consortium working to create a pan-Asian genetic database, Pagaduan-Villamor and the research team would canvass nine populations across the Philippine archipelago, many in sites just as remote, and analyze DNA samples. The database’s completion in 2009 would be heralded in Science, a top academic journal, and allow researchers to tease out genetic differences across populations and tell centuries-old stories of migration.
Approaching the Mangyan ICC–IP, the plucky, newly minted BYUH grad was determined: For one, she’d collected hundreds of samples back at BYUH, driving at similar genetic questions. And two, the confluence of cultures was nothing new. Her university peers hailed from 50-plus nations.
“At BYU–Hawaii, we are so exposed to diversity,” she says. “We know how to come together.” On the BYU-Hawaii campus, in Laie, Hawaii, she learned the meaning of ‘ohana—family—both scientifically and spiritually, and she knew just how she could invite the Mangyan ICC–IP into her ‘ohana on the mountaintop.
Two Families
Pagaduan-Villamor was raised in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, the third in a family of seven children—affectionately called “Ate,” which translates to “mean older sister,” jokes her brother Jayson Pagaduan, “a term of respect.”
She is the one Mom and Dad left in charge.
Her parents traveled extensively both for her father’s work as a Church Educational System coordinator and for his callings, including stints as stake, mission, and temple president.
“[Lilian] took on the responsibility of caring for everyone when our parents were away for days at a time,” recalls her sister Amabel Pagaduan.
Pagaduan-Villamor also set a studious example, knocking out two years of college coursework as a teen. “She would seize every opportunity to improve her skills,” says Amabel. “She would say, ‘Whenever you have time, use it to learn something new so that you have stock knowledge to draw on later.’”
Both Jayson and Amabel would follow Pagaduan-Villamor to BYU–Hawaii. Jayson recalls Pagaduan-Villamor “scrutinizing” his classes after registration, deeming his schedule “too fun” and advising a more rigorous course load. “I did not question her,” he says. “I just did it. Looking back, I think it did me good.”
BYU–Hawaii was not initially the plan for Pagaduan-Villamor. She wanted to pursue medicine at a big university in the Philippines. A seminary teacher changed her mind.
“The way he talked about it, about the balance of education and spiritual learning, I just had a peaceful feeling,” she says.
That balance was the biggest draw, she says, followed closely by the diversity of the student body.
BYU–Hawaii’s mission statement is clear: the university exists first and foremost to serve students from Oceania and the Asian Rim. And for years BYUH ranked first for most international students among US baccalaureate institutions, up until 2017, when the Chronicle of Higher Education retired this ranking.
“I was delighted about the diversity,” says Pagaduan-Villamor, describing hymns sung in countless languages, her newfound love for Japanese cuisine, and her work at the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC). On campus, she found camaraderie in goals secular, like a full command of the English language, and spiritual, like preparing for her mission, which she served in Santa Rosa, California.
“We take everyone’s good things, and we complement each other and grow together in the same purpose,” she says. “We are unified in the gospel, like family.”
Finding Her Filipino Roots
What’s more, on the other side of the ocean, Pagaduan-Villamor learned more than ever about her homeland.
“At BYU–Hawaii they’re always trying to cultivate culture,” she says. Take Culture Night, the annual event that rivals the fanfare of homecoming at other US universities. Lines form hours in advance for the two-night affair in which 25 or so cultural clubs put on traditional dances in turn.
“I learned the bamboo dance, the native dance of the Philippines,” says Pagaduan-Villamor, who performed it for a senator visiting from the Philippines. “I grew up in the Philippines, but I never had those experiences!” she exclaims. “Only in Hawaii I got the chance to do it.”
Ever eager to expand her skills, she also entered a campus public-speaking competition. Each speaker had to present on his or her respective country’s history. Pagaduan-Villamor dove into her research at the Joseph F. Smith Library on campus, gaining new perspectives on the Philippines. “I learned so much about . . . my country,” she says. In a 1997 clipping from the school’s Ke Alaka‘i newspaper, Pagaduan-Villamor, who won first place in the category for English as an international language, poses with the other finalists.
And in a family-history class, she dug into her own roots, finding grandparents whose temple work remained to be done. One, her paternal grandfather, had lived on Kauai—just one island over—for 15 years as a pineapple farmer. “My research allowed me to visit where my grandfather walked and worked,” she says. She received her endowment in the Laie Hawaii Temple, where she was able to receive the ordinances for her maternal grandmother.
Her cultural deep dive extended even to the lab, where Pagaduan-Villamor, a biology major, investigated her Filipino heritage from yet another angle: the genome.
Drive in Her DNA
Pagaduan-Villamor could have attended “a top-notch university in the Philippines,” says Douglas Oba, her immunology and molecular biology professor at BYU–Hawaii, now a professor at the University of Maryland Global Campus. But the small class sizes at BYU–Hawaii—and some fortuitous timing—opened doors for her.
All BYUH biology majors were required to do a faculty-mentored senior project, says Oba: “Because [BYU–Hawaii] is a smaller campus, we could handle that.”
During Pagaduan-Villamor’s junior year, a BYU professor tapped Oba to help collect DNA samples from Hawaii’s diverse population for a molecular genealogy project. Oba turned to Pagaduan-Villamor, who spun it into her senior project.
The topic she chose to study was the population genetics of Filipinos and non-Filipinos. “Basically, I found we’re closer to Polynesians than other Asian populations,” says Pagaduan-Villamor, who collected 170 samples from students across campus with the help of Oba’s wife, Ellen, a nurse at the student health center on campus.
Pagaduan-Villamor didn’t stop there.
“Lilian has this personal drive,” says Oba. “She very quickly saw that we could take this a step further.”
In short order, she sought out funding for a semester-long fellowship at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah, working alongside then–BYU molecular biology professor Scott Woodward. Upon Pagaduan-Villamor’s return, Oba suggested she present her work at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students, put on by the American Society for Microbiology. “I made some initial inquiries,” says Oba, “but she did the rest.” Pagaduan-Villamor made the trip from Hawaii to New Orleans and presented alone—a tall order for an undergrad, Oba says. “But she was so competent. I didn’t doubt her ability.”
Pagaduan-Villamor’s drive extended to her church callings, adds Oba. It’s a small world in Laie, and Oba happened to be bishop of her student ward. As a Relief Society president, Pagaduan-Villamor “wanted to make sure the needs of the sisters were understood by the bishopric,” says Oba. To represent the needs of the sisters, she offered to attend additional meetings. Oba began involving both Relief Society presidents—the student ward had two—in priesthood executive committee meetings, something later suggested by the Church handbook. “She was a little ahead of her time,” he says, “and influential in bringing that viewpoint.”
