Bosque Family Collection

Marcelo “Marcel” Cardona Bosque was born on January 16, 1909, in the municipality of Santa, in the province of Ilocos Sur, in the Philippines. He was one of many Bosque family brothers and cousins including Guillermo (b. 1895), Luis (b. 1911), Dionicio (b. unidentified), Policarpo Cardona Bosque (b. 1901), and Emiliano Cardona Begornia (b. 1911). Beginning in the 1920s, the Bosque brothers and cousins migrated to the United States for work. Guillermo was the first to migrate to Hawai‘i before making his way to Watsonville. Marcel and Dionicio followed in 1929. The two docked in San Francisco and quarantined at Angel Island for two weeks. Guillermo met them at Angel Island and drove them to San Juan Bautista where they worked in the fields and lived in a labor camp. According to census data, Fermin Tobera was among the other Filipino men living at the San Juan Bautista labor camp. By the 1930s, the other Bosque family members, including Luis, Policarpo, and Emiliano, immigrated to California.

In the 1930s, the Bosque family moved to Watsonville where they boarded with other Filipinos in a rental home on Main Street. During this time, they worked at a seed farm, likely Ferry Morse or Jackson and Perkins, and with various crops in the Pajaro Valley region. Members of the family also traveled to Delano, Stockton, Upland, El Centro, and Mt. Eden, California, and to Montana to follow crop rotations. Eventually, Bosque's family members left Watsonville and settled throughout California.

Marcel eventually had two daughters, Sharon Bosque-Wiebe Hoffmann (b.1955) and another (name unknown) born in 1958. The family settled in Livermore, where other manong migrated and started a thriving Filipino community.

Although many of the Bosque family left the Pajaro Valley, their ties to the region remained. Marcel and his children traveled to Watsonville and San Juan Bautista regularly after establishing themselves in Livermore. After serving in the military during World War II, Emiliano, Marcel’s cousin, returned to Watsonville and resided there until his passing in 1997.

Marcel passed on December 9, 1991, at the age of 82.

The Bosque Family Collection was contributed to Watsonville is in the Heart by Marcel Bosque's daughter, Sharon Bosque-Wiebe Hoffmann, in 2021. The collection contains a total of forty-four items. Items include photographs and photograph albums all of which are from Marcel's personal collection. The items document the Bosque brothers, cousins, and other manong as they engaged in migrant labor, leisure activities, and courtship as they traveled for work. The collection also includes several photographs that depict Luis Bosque while he trained for World War II military service at Camp Beale, California.

Sharon Bosque-Weibe Hoffmann