Castillo Family Collection

Doroteo Lafer Castillo was born in Laoag, Ilocos Norte, Philippines. His date of birth is unknown. At the age of 16, Doroteo and a few of his friends immigrated to Hawai‘i to work with his brother Leon in the sugarcane industry. Doroteo eventually moved to the mainland United States, where he worked with a Filipino agricultural labor crew in San Pedro, California and throughout the West Coast.

Doroteo migrated throughout the western United States for work. He eventually traveled to Billings, Montana where he met Rosie Archibeque-Bustos, a mixed-race Mexican American woman, at a dance hall where she worked. Rosie’s location and date of birth are both unknown, but she was fourteen years old when she met Doroteo.

Together, Doroteo and Rosie had two children: Freddie Leo Castillo (b. 1944) and Julia Gloria Castillo (b. 1945 or 1946). Doroteo, Rosie, Freddie, and Julia settled in Watsonville, where Doroteo worked as a strawberries sharecropper. Eventually, Rosie separated from Doreteo and moved back to Montana. After remarrying, Rosie had a son, Jose Arturo Lopez, who continues to live in Billings, Montana. Doroteo stayed in Watsonville where he raised Freddie and Julia.

The Castillo family were close friends with Margaret Sanchez, a Mexican American woman, and Benito Nerona, her Filipino husband. The two couples’ children grew up and attended school together. Margaret’s and Benito’s son, Raymond “Ray” Gonzalez grew up alongside Doroteo’s and Rosie’s son, Freddie. Freddia and Ray consider themselves brothers. As teenagers, Freddie and Ray worked in Pajaro Valley agricultural fields together and participated in the Filipino Youth Club at Watsonville High School during the late 1950s.

The Castillo Family Collection was donated to Watsonville is in the Heart in 2023. It contains one oral history interview with Freddie Leo Castillo.

Freddie Leo Castillo