Marina Estrella Espina, author of the book Filipinos in Louisiana, was one of the first modern historians to document the story of the Filipinos at Saint Malo. Between 1970 and 1990, she tracked down descendants of the Manilamen, and gathered family photos, birth certificates and stories, which she stored in her New Orleans home. But when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, her home took on 11ft of water, literally washing away her research. "Every 50 years, nature seems to diminish the Filipino history here," she said in a 2006 interview.
