Introduction to Filipino American History in the Pajaro Valley

Throughout the 1800s, the United States expanded westward across the continent. By the late 1800s, the US continued to expand through the colonization of lands and peoples overseas. After the Spanish-American War in 1898, the US acquired former Spanish colonial territories, including the Philippines, through the Treaty of Paris. 

In order to justify overseas imperialism, US officials argued that American rule would civilize and uplift populations they deemed to be racially inferior. In the Philippines, US imperial ideology was based around ideas of paternalism and benevolence. Proponents of the imperial effort characterized Filipinos as infantile, uncivilized, and in need of American colonial governance. US policies in the Philippines included the establishment of American-style education, government, military, and policing, as well as the recruitment of Filipino migrants to work in American agricultural and industrial industries. 

Map of the Philippines' 3 major island groups, Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, regional capitals and centers, cities, etc.

General map of the Philippines from Nations Online Project Links to an external site.

Starting as early as 1906, laborers primarily from the northern Ilocos region and the central Visayan region of the archipelago traveled to plantations in Hawai‘i and eventually, to fields and canneries on the Pacific seaboard, including Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley. The United States categorized laborers from the Philippines as “U.S. nationals,” colonial subjects who were prevented from obtaining citizenship once on U.S. soil and were denied land ownership, marriage opportunities, and basic access to protections against labor abuses and racialized discrimination. For decades, laborers, also affectionately known as “manong” or “older brother” in Ilokano and Tagalog, toiled for decades in the U.S. agricultural and canning industries enjoying limited benefits.

Upon arriving in the US, Filipino migrant workers were incorporated into the bottom rung of existing labor hierarchies that were organized by race and included other Asian and Mexican migrants as well as Black and white workers. Unlike white groups, Filipinos and other farm workers of color were excluded from unions like the American Federation of Labor (AFL) which fought for increased pay and regulations in agricultural and industrial sectors during the 1920s and 1930s. Filipinos were paid low wages, worked long hours, and endured harsh conditions in the fields. They were racialized as innately suited for certain types of agricultural labor, for example, harvesting strawberries, lettuce, and asparagus. Before victories won by the United Farm Workers union during the 1960s and 1970s, Filipinos and other farm workers continued to work in poor conditions. They did not have regular access to bathrooms and were required to work using equipment that forced them to bend low to the ground (the most infamous of which being the short-handled hoe or “el cortito”) which caused debilitating, life-long pain.

Photography of short handed hoe or "cortito"

Handheld Hoe (smaller) Links to an external site.. DeOcampo Family Collection. Watsonville is in the Heart: A Community Archive and Research Initiative. Accessed November 7, 2023.

Historical photography of farm workers in the fields sitting and on their knees picking produce

Unknown. Men Working in Scappoose Links to an external site., Oregon. 1932. Photograph. Sulay Family Collection. Watsonville is in the Heart: A Community Archive and Research Initiative. Accessed November 7, 2023.

Influenced by American colonial ideology and racial discourse of the time, many Americans stereotyped Filipinos as a threat to white society. They hoped that Filipinos would be temporary sources of labor and would return to the Philippines after completing work contracts instead of settling permanently in the United States. Because of this, Filipina women were discouraged from migrating in order to prevent Filipino farm workers from forming families in the United States. Moreover, lawmakers lobbied for and passed legislation and anti-miscegenation laws aimed to prevent manong from forming interracial relationships with non-Filipina women, especially white women, living in the United States. Filipino men and non-Filipina women who interacted and formed relationships faced discrimination and, at times, vigilante violence. Mounting fears of interracial relationships and economic anxieties during the 1920s culminated in racial violence committed by white individuals against Filipinos throughout the West Coast. The 1930 Anti-Filipino Race Riot in Watsonville, one of the most infamous examples, was the result of widespread anti-Filipino rhetoric and white rage concerned with interracial mixing between Filipino men and white and Mexican women at a dance hall located near Palm Beach. For five days during January 1930, a mob of an estimated 700 white men committed acts of violence that targeted Filipinos. They looted and committed arson and shootings at locations where Filipino farm workers lived. This included a raid on a bunkhouse at Murphy Crossing during which Fermin Tobera, a twenty-two-year-old farm worker, was shot and killed in his sleep.

Evening Pajaronian with the headline "Filipino Murdered, Victim of Rioters" in all capitals

Source: "Wild Rioters Murder Filipino in Fourth Night of Mob Terror. Links to an external site." Evening Pajaronian (Watsonville, CA). Jan. 23, 1930. Watsonville Historical Newspaper Archive. Accessed November 6, 2023.  

In defiance of laws that prevented Filipinos from becoming US citizens and from marrying, Filipinos formed families and communities. In the Pajaro Valley, many Filipinos had romantic relationships with white and Mexican women. As a result, mixed-race families made up a large part of the Filipino American community in the Pajaro Valley. Despite the racism and back-breaking labor Filipinos endured, they cultivated familial and kinship relationships, built social organizations and businesses, and engaged in leisure activities, such as gardening and playing music. Through these activities, they built community and articulated their Filipino American identities. 

Black and white photo of a large family (Asuncion family) of all ages enjoying a picnic at Sunset Beach

Source: Asuncion Family Picnic at Sunset Beach Links to an external site.. c. 1953-54. Photograph. Asuncion Family Collection. Watsonville is in the Heart: A Community Archive and Research Initiative. Accessed November 7, 2023.   

Further Learning

Learn more about how the Pajaro Valley Filipino American community is preserving its history:

References

Baldoz, Rick. The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America, 1898-1946 Links to an external site.. New York University Press, 2011. 

De Witt, Howard. “The Watsonville Anti-Filipino Riot of 1930: A Case Study of the Great Depression and Ethnic Conflict in California Links to an external site..” Southern California Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 3, 1977, pp. 291- 302.

​​Mabalon, Dawn. Little Manila is in the Heart: The Making of Filipina/o American Community in Stockton, California Links to an external site.. Duke University Press, 2013.