Filipinos in the United States

A History

Miguel LloraDepartment of Asia/Pacific Studies

San Diego State UniversityCopyright © 2006 Miguel B. Llora. All Rights Reserved.

What will be covered?

Beyond Push/Pull The Manila Men Pensionados Manong Migration The Navy and the Merchant Marine The Tydings-McDuffie Act The Nurses Post 1965 The Future

The PastBeyond Push/Pull

Due to strong colonial ties, the United States remains the number one “settling point” for most Filipino migrants.

I. The Manila Men The first arrival of the “Manila Men” to this

hemisphere occurred in what is currently New Orleans, at an astonishingly early period. These sojourners worked on the Manila-based Spanish Galleons that sailed back and forth between the Philippines and Mexico, as early as 1565 until as late as 1815.

II. Pensionados In October of 1903 the initial group of Filipino

students arrived in the U .S. as Pensionados. The majority of graduates returned to the

Philippines.

III. Manong Migration The first major stream of

migration began with the end of the Spanish-American war.

Large scale recruiting in 1907 provided opportunity to work in Hawaii.

Annexation of the Philippines by the US instantly gave Filipinos status as “American Nationals.”

III. Manong Migration

Finances allowing, the new status resulted in seamless entry in and out of the United States, giving the sojourners unimpeded movement between the Philippines and the United States.

III. Manong Migration

Aguinaldo was captured in 1901, and the fighting wound down somewhat, although mopping up campaigns continued for several more years. As a civilian government replaced military rule, along with bureaucrats came hundreds of idealistic American teachers. Their mission was to impart Western civilization to Filipinos under a policy of “benevolent assimilation” and political tutelage. One group of Americans who seemed quite aware of events in the Philippines were Hawaii’s plantation owners.

III. Manong Migration

Filipinos were particularly attractive because of their unusual legal status. As U.S. “nationals” they traveled with American passports, so that the existing immigration laws and the Gentlemen’s Agreement, which barred other Asians, were not applicable to them.

III. Manong Migration

The HSPA’s choice of where to seek workers explains in part why 60 percent of the Filipino emigrants to Hawaii came from the Ilocano-speaking provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Abra, and Pangasinan, while 30 percent originated from the Cebuano-speaking provinces of Cebu, Bohol, and Negros Oriental.

III. Manong Migration

The Ilocano provinces in mountainous north-western Luzon were among the country’s most densely populated. Since their narrow coastal plains are not suitable for the large-scale cultivation of export crops, their hardworking people, who long ago developed a tradition of outmigration in search of work, have been the main natural resource the region has relied on for survival.

III. Manong Migration The Cebuano

provinces in the center section of the Philippine archipelago, on the other hand, were where the Spanish and the Americans established sugar plantations, so their inhabitants were familiar with sugar cultivation.

IV. The Navy and the Merchant Marine

An alternative route for entrance into the United States was made available by service in the Merchant Marine and the United States Navy.

After WW I, Filipinos were worked as stewards and mess boys. When their service on board ship ended, they were allowed to remain in the US.

IV. The Navy and the Merchant Marine This policy lasted until

1936. During the 1920s and

1930s, the number of servicemen was around 4000.

Military recruitment increased dramatically with the start of the World War II.

V. The Tydings-McDuffie Act

Immigration into the United States was nearly stopped in 1932, when the Great Depression severely curtailed recruitment of Filipino workers abroad.

The passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act by the US Congress granted the Philippine Commonwealth independence, thus recategorizing Filipinos as aliens.

It also limited their entrance to the United States to 50 a year.

VI. The Nurses

U.S. colonials at the turn of the century effectively formed the foundation for subsequent migrations through the creation of an American-style infrastructure and training program, initiating an American-style nursing work culture, by effectively gendering the nursing industry and relegating nursing to "women's work.”

VI. The Nurses

Moreover, this move, perhaps as an unintended consequence developed fluency among the nurses in the use of English, and by starting programs such as the Exchange Visitor Program (EVP) that eventually brought Filipino nursing students to the US for advanced training.

VI. The Nurses

Ongoing demand in US hospitals, who relied on the labor of foreign-trained nurses, may have been one but certainly not the only reason for the massive exodus out from the Philippines and into the US.

VI. The Nurses

Changes in the immigration laws via the 1965 Immigration Act, travel in the US by skilled workers was made much easier and becoming permanent residents of the US made easier still.

The PresentVII. Post 1965 to present

The majority of Filipinos currently living in San Diego arrived in the last 50 years.

Filipinos in San Diego organized several associations in the latter half of the 20th Century whose starting point is ethno-linguistic or regional and/or based on other shared agendas.

The PresentVII. Post 1965 to present

These agendas could be among professionals, such as nurses and teachers or those in the military, such as Veterans and the Navy personnel.

In categorizing themselves “as such,” Filipinos look for the companionship of their peers and reassuring conversation in “home bound” languages.

The FutureVIII. What can the Fil-Am become?

Filipino American (and arguably the Philippines) is a “community without unity.”

Filipinos need to look deep into the values that make us a “community” and create, uncover, or “invent” notions of “unity.”