Mariano Family Collection

Marcelino "Bob" Mariano was born in 1910 in the municipality of Camiling, in the province of Tarlac, in the Philippines. He was the oldest of three brothers and had a contentious relationship with his father. At fifteen, Marcelino left the Philippines to work on a sugarcane plantation on the island of Hawai‘i. Upon his arrival, he changed his last name to “Mariano,” which was his mother’s maiden name. Sometime in the 1930s, Marcelino moved to Los Angeles where he became a short-order cook at an unknown diner.

He worked in Los Angeles until 1942 when he was drafted into the First Filipino Infantry Regiment. He was stationed in Fort Ord, California. During a Halloween party at Fort Ord, Marcelino met Hazel Maxine Bickel who he later married in Nogales, Arizona. Shortly after, Marcelino was deployed to New Guinea and later to the Philippines. During his time abroad, Hazel gave birth to their son, Bobby Mariano, in El Centro, California in 1944. When Marcelino returned to California his son was seventeen months old.

Hazel was born on July 18, 1923, in Shawnee, Oklahoma. Her father was originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Her family moved first to Stockton, California, and later resettled in Watsonville, California to escape the conditions of the Dust Bowl. She and her parents worked in agriculture primarily in the canning industry.

Hazel’s parents purchased a property with two houses in Watsonville, California where the Mariano’s lived when Marcelino completed his service. Marcelino returned to working in the fields following the seasonal crop harvest. He initially worked in packing and loading and then eventually became a foreman. Hazel left the canneries and worked in healthcare at a senior nursing home.

The Mariano Family Collection was contributed to Watsonville is in the Heart in 2022 by Marcelino and Hazel Mariano's son, Bobby Mariano. The collection contains three items, two photographs, and an oral history interview with Bobby. In the interview, Bobby his father's migrant labor, his parents' interracial marriage, and his perceptions of Watsonville as a multicultural community.

Bobby Mariano