Tuzon Family Collection

Modesto Jarmillo Tuzon was born in the municipality of Santo Domingo in the province of Ilocos Sur in the Philippines on June 15, 1907. In 1926, he immigrated to the United States to study music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He specialized in the mandolin and eventually toured the Pacific coast playing at Filipino dance halls and other small venues. Later in life, he played with a small band composed of other Filipino men at Filipino community events in Watsonville. Until the late 1950s, Modesto was also a migrant farm laborer. He primarily worked in the fields alongside his cousins, Leon and Cipriano Lazo and Leon and Paul DeOcampo, in the Pajaro Valley and Arroyo Grande, California.

Linda Ardell (Kyle) Craner was born in Idaho on June 11, 1937. The Craner family migrated through California from San Francisco to Arroyo Grande before settling in Pacific Grove. During the 1950s, Modesto met Ardell at a diner in Arroyo Grande. In 1954, the two traveled to Mexico to get married. The exact dates of their meeting and marriage are unknown.

After their marriage, the Tuzons moved to the Pajaro Valley where they lived in rural Pajaro off Lewis Road before eventually moving to a neighborhood in Las Lomas. They had three children: Modesto Orlando Tuzon (b. 1956), Denise Lane Tuzon (b. 1958 - d. 1959), and Rita Louise Tuzon (b. 1959). After settling in the Pajaro Valley, Tuzon farmed sugar pea fields on the Lazo family property and then transitioned to a job as a tractor driver for Sears Schumann Farms. Linda Ardell was a reading specialist at Hall School in Las Lomas where the library is now named in her honor.

Music filled the Tuzon household. Modesto played mandolin for his entire life and was often accompanied by his wife, who was a singer, and his children. While growing up, Modesto Orlando and Rita worked in Watsonville before attending college and pursuing careers outside of agriculture and the Pajaro Valley region. Rita has two children: Jared Kyle Stone (b. 1998) and Sophia Denise Stone (b. 2002).

Modesto passed on October 19, 1981, and Ardell on January 31, 2013.

The Tuzon Family Collection was contributed to Watsonville is in the Heart by Modesto and Ardell Tuzon's children, Modesto Orlando and Rita Tuzon, in 2021. The collection contains forty-three items in total. It includes two oral history interviews with Modesto Orlando and Rita during which they reflect on their father's migration and labor histories, his passion for music, and their family's experiences navigating mixed-race identity. It also contains forty-one material culture items including photographs of Modesto playing music and his Philippine bandurria.

Modesto Orlando Tuzon

Rita Louise Tuzon