Lourdes Navarro
A collage of photos from Lourdes Navarro and her family’s personal collection. (Photo by Joshua Albeza Branstetter)
In April 1999, Lourdes Navarro came to Juneau to visit her daughter. Then she never left.
Navarro grew up in Manila, in the capital region of the Philippines. She arrived in Alaska's state capital to a Filipino community that was already generations deep. Her service to others became central to her life in Juneau.
She was active in the community, showing up whenever and wherever she was needed, cooking for events and parties. For her dishes, she’d recall her mother’s recipes and used a Filipino cookbook, adapting recipes to whatever ingredients she could find at the local grocery stores.
“I can make whatever I want to cook, as long as I can find it in the market,” she said during an interview in 2023.
She worked at McDonald’s, and later, the Mountain View Senior Center. She remembered enjoying entertaining customers and co-workers, and taking on whatever tasks were at hand.
“Sometimes I work at the counter. It was all around. Whenever there’s somebody upset, I have to work [in] their place. That’s why they like me, because I don’t pick any certain duty, whatever I can do, I do it,” she said.
Outside of cooking and work, Navarro was also a skilled seamstress. She became interested in sewing when she was still in the Philippines and attended the Torres Evening Vocational School. She learned how to sew trousers and polo shirts, and made her own dresses. She sold what she made, and would even sew clothing for her co-workers in Juneau who’d pick items from catalogs for her to replicate.
Her skills were ever-present and essential in all parts of her life. She remembered lovingly how she met her husband, Jose, through her boss at a restaurant, where Jose fell in love with her cooking. She and Jose raised six children, and Navarro learned to adapt her cooking to each of her children’s food preferences.
“Somebody [has] a birthday; I cook something that is special for them,” she said.
It was important for Navarro to share her heritage with her children. She taught them how to speak Tagalog and Chinese, and hoped to pass down values of honesty, friendliness and respect.
“I’m proud of them because they work hard and they are very respectful to everybody,” she said about her children.
In 2024, Navarro died at 92 years old, leaving a quiet legacy as a cherished mother, co-worker and friend to those who knew her in Juneau. The lesson she passes down is simple.
“I want everybody to be honest and be friendly to everybody,” she said.
