A gathering of de los Reyes family and friends in front of the Revester family home on Riverside Road in Watsonville, CA.

Gathering at the Revester Family Home, Oct. 1967, photograph, 3.5 x 3.5 inches, Collection of Joanne de los Reyes- Hilario.

Creation of Alternative Kinship Networks

Katrina Mitsuko Pagaduan

A common finding across the oral history collection is the multitude of families that had large and interconnected kinship networks. Compared to American notions of a nuclear family, the Pajaro Valley Filipino American community expanded their families to include friends and extended family members. Through these extended kinship networks, they established a communal sense of responsibility for manong and children within the community. As a result, they created support systems in communal living situations within the labor camps and expanded their network of caretakers beyond Filipino American women. Furthermore, these networks allowed Filipino American families to access childcare, education, and housing at a time when resources for Filipino American communities were scarce and exclusive. Although extended kinship networks pushed against traditional American definitions of family, they still centered heteronormative relationships.  

Many of our narrators reflected on the central role of expanded kinship networks during their childhoods. Loren Cawaling recalled his father’s close friends, who he called his uncles, living intermittently with his family. Additionally, Maurice Carrillo discussed the many caretakers who looked after him and his brother while their father migrated across California and Yuma, Arizona following the crop cycle for months at a time. In his interview Maurice stated, “...we followed the crops. And then my dad finally realized we were getting too old to drag around and took us– took us to a Mexican, well, actually Mexican-Filipino family to live with when he was away working in the fields…And we would visit him during the winter months or during Christmas time when we could, but mostly he– we wouldn't see him for months on end.”  Migratory farm work made family time a challenge for many, but the support of extended kinship networks brightened childhood memories and built lifelong support systems for many of our narrators.  

Kinship networks among Filipino Americans in the Pajaro Valley also provided support in other ways, such as acting as caregivers, sponsors, and support systems for manong and helping them navigate life in America. In Joanne de los Reyes’s interview, she shared stories of the ways her mother and father financially supported family members who remained in the Philippines and those who had recently migrated to the United States. These types of familial support were very common among Pajaro Valley Filipino American families. The assistance these families offered and received from their kinship networks built close-knit communities. Despite the array of family models found among Pajaro Valley Filipino American families, our oral history interviews attest that family was defined outside of blood relation and that chosen family members were central to building support systems.

Eulalio "Max" Bersamin holding one of his prized roosters. 

Eulalio "Max" Bersamin with his Rooster and Sentry Dog, c. 1985, photograph, 6.25x 4 inches, Collection of Manuel Bersamin.

A Filipino Fourth of July float representing the Aglipay and Donna Aurora Quezon Caballeros de Dimas-Alang lodges. 

Juanita Sulay and Joan Millares on a Caballeros de Dimas-Alang Float, 1957, photograph, 10 x 8 inches, Collection of Joan Ellen Rodriguez.

Performance of Gender

Markus Faye Portacio

From cockfighting to pageantry, Filipino Americans in the Pajaro Valley performed masculinity and femininity in ways that often reinforced contemporary gender or sex roles. Leisure activities, community events, cooking, and labor were areas where gender was expressed. Through these acts, the Filipino American community in the Pajaro Valley reinforced gender as a binary.   

Their performances of hyper-masculinity were a response to their racialized and gendered identities as immigrants. In the twentieth century, Asian men were emasculated and infantilized in order to justify and perpetuate immigration and labor policies that relied on cheap and temporary labor. The manong commonly asserted their masculinity to elevate their image by wearing dapper suits and engaging in relationships with multiple women.[i] The most central activity through which masculinity was performed and reproduced was cockfighting. As Manuel Bersamin remembered, the cockfights were “male-oriented.” Many of our male narrators remember attending cockfights with their fathers and helping to raise roosters while none of the women who were interviewed had memories of attending the cockfights.[ii]  

According to our narrators, the cockfights were violent. Many have memories of seeing the losing chickens being boiled after a fight, sparring practices in their kitchen, and witnessing run-ins with law enforcement trying to shut down these illegal events. Bobby Mariano recalled an instance in which his grandmother had to perform surgery on his father’s fighting rooster due to injuries. He remembered that she had “to stitch him [his rooster Blackie] twice….She would take a big bunch of Vaseline and clean the wound, smear it with Vaseline, and sew it with regular needle and thread” (Mariano). The cockfights functioned as a competition of manhood between the manong; the violence acted as a response to the emasculation they experienced from white men in town. 

Idealized and traditional notions of Filipino American womanhood were displayed through pageantry at social box dances and parades. At dances and parades, Filipino American femininity was a public spectacle for both the Filipino American and greater Pajaro Valley communities. These events became the teaching grounds for manang to raise the second generation of Filipinas in a certain kind of femininity and womanhood that emphasized beauty. Dressing up in ultra-feminine costumes was the primary way that gender was expressed. Rita Louise Tuzon recalled dressing up for the Fourth of July parades as “another gender thing where we all had to, then they told us, we had to wear gowns, and we arrived at the manang's house, and she's giving us tiaras and white gloves.” There was a collective understanding about  how they were to be presented to the community on top of the floats. Second-generation Filipina Americans were taught to present as ultra-feminine. The manang hoped that this would help their daughters learn to navigate racialized and gendered hierarchies in America.[iii]

In their interviews, many second-generation Pajaro Valley Filipino American women expressed critical opinions of these performances of femininity as outdated. In Shirley Ancheta’s interview, she recalled the social box dances— fundraising events held by the Caballeros de Dimas Alang in which manong would buy tickets to dance with young women from the community. The young women who brought in the most ticket sales would be crowned the queen. In reference to these dances, Ancheta explained that she “hated it at first” because of all the dressing up and “giving up my date nights and football games.”

Overall, our narrators discussed the ways in which men and women reproduced traditional gender or sex roles through performances of masculinity and femininity. However, as a result of their racial and class positions, community members also defied gendered expectations through the types of labor they participated in. While many manong were agricultural workers, they also commonly participated in household and family care work. Most notably, a majority of our narrators remember their fathers doing most of the cooking for their families. Similarly, many of our narrators’ mothers engaged in labor outside of the home—working in the fields alongside men and in the canneries. 

[i] See Linda España-Maram, Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles’s Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture, 1920a-1950s, New York: Columbia University Press, 2007; Steve McKay, “Filipino Sea Men: Constructing Masculinities in an Ethnic Labour Niche,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33, no. 4 (2007): 617-633; Mina Roces, “’Those Guys Came Out Looking Like Movie Actors’: Filipino Dress and Consumer Practices in the United States, 1920s-1930s,” Pacific Historical Review 85, no. 4 (2016): 532-576.

[ii] See Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, Little Manila is in the Heart: The Making of the Filipina/o Community in Stockton, California, Durham: Duke University Press, 2013.

[iii] See Melinda De Jesus, ed., Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory: Theorizing the Filipina/American Experience, New York: Routledge, 2005.

A black and white photograph of the Fallorinas the strawberry fields.

Fallorinas and Unknown in front of Strawberry Fields, c. 1963, photograph, 3.5 x 3.5 inches, Collection of Daniel "Dan" Kerubin Fallorina.

Narratives of Labor

Katrina Mitsuko Pagaduan

The Filipino American families of the Pajaro Valley spent much of their time working to provide for their families. While our oral history interviews contain many examples of our narrators, manong, and their wives challenging preconceived notions of labor, other experiences discussed  in the oral history interviews reproduce standard narratives of male labor in Asian American studies literature.[i] These narratives of labor associated with the manong generation include ideas that manong were single, bachelors, and migrant workers, and were the most prominent providers for their families. Many of our narrators emphasize their fathers’ and other manongs’ labor before delving into the working lives of the manang. These narratives obscure the vast amount of familial responsibility and labor contributed by manang. Our narrators’ focus on the manong experience is a result of their desires to uplift the contributions of the manong generation and to show that their stories are an important part of American history. However, the desire to uplift manong labor history often overshadows the experiences of working manang and their children. Discussions of women’s labor are present in many of our interviews, their labor is overlooked or thin when compared with the multitude of detailed memories our narrators share about manong labor. 

When women’s labor is discussed, it is clear that their work was central to the agricultural economy of the Pajaro Valley. Many women such as Victoria Bersamin and Aladina Cawaling worked in canneries in Watsonville. The canneries were a popular source of employment for manang in the Pajaro Valley. Estelita Tabios is one narrator who recounted her experiences working in the canneries. She stated, “Well, we opened up and as only five Filipinas open it and run it. It was October twenty-second. I can remember that. I was still in [unknown] Road, 1962...I mostly, I mostly work eight hours or nine hours on that line of the Green Giant.” Additionally, many of these women also worked in the fields alongside the manong. It is important to note that many narrators were unable to share as many memories of their mothers’ work because it was less visible to them. This is particularly the case for our narrators whose mothers worked night shifts at the canneries. Because their mothers worked at night, our narrators did not directly witness their labor. 

When recalling their family’s labor histories, many of our narrators hesitated or had difficulties openly discussing and reflecting on their own contributions to the labor force as children. Dan Fallorina is one of many narrators who recalled working in the fields of Pajaro Valley as a young child alongside his mom, dad, and younger brother harvesting crops like strawberries. Furthermore, Loren Cawaling briefly described his experience  working at a cannery as one of his first jobs. However, the experiences of child labor that are shared in the interviews are quite brief compared to the labor history shared about the fathers and manong of our narrators. Discussing child labor can be a sensitive subject and some narrators who worked in the agricultural sector as children stray away from discussing their experiences. Encouraging more discussion surrounding child labor and manang labor in future oral history interviews is one way our project will work to highlight the labor history of all family members. 

[i] See Carlos Bulosan, America is in the Heart: A Personal History, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973; Fred Cordova, Filipinos: Forgotten Asian Americans, Dubuque: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 1983; Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans, Boston: Little Brown, 1998.

Photograph of a group of people at a picnic in a field.

Picnic in the Fields, c. 1930s, photograph, 4.5 X 2.75 inches, Collection of Juanita Sulay Wilson.

A photograph of men working in a pea field in Casmalia, California. 

Pea Field in Casamalia, California, c. 1930s, photograph, 3.5 x 2.5 inches, Collection of Juanita Sulay Wilson. 

Tensions regarding Class and Labor Organizing

Eva Mcbride

One way the manong and manang addressed the scarcity they experienced was through hard work. Many of our narrators discussed how their parents came to the United States to work and build a better life for their families back in the Philippines. This narrative subscribes to the “bootstrap mythos,” which is the belief that through hard work, the American Dream could be achieved. Lydia Tumbaga said that her father “came with nothing at 16 years old and made something of himself. So, in America, the opportunities are here and that my father is one who proves that.” Even though they had few possessions or savings, some of the manong eventually made a life for themselves in the United States and started families. Our narrators attributed this success to their fathers’ hard work ethic, and ability to overcome tough working conditions. However other narrators’ complicate these narratives by stating that their fathers’ relentless endeavors to work hard were indicative of the tenuous nature of the American Dream. While describing the difficulty of his father’s work day Maurice Carrillo said, “he was just constantly working, just never stopped.” Many of the narrators discuss the long work days that their parents had to endure as well as memories of working alongside their parents. 

While many of our narrators reinforce narratives of hard work, others discussed their fathers’ complicated relationship to labor unionization and protest. Alongside harsh working conditions, there were often labor strikes and efforts to unionize. Children’s memories of the labor strikes are fraught due to varying class positions among our narrators. Those who were more financially secure had the flexibility to choose to participate in labor strikes. While many of our narrators know the importance of unionizing and collective action in Filipino American history, they also understand their parents’ decision to not participate in strikes. For example, Antoinette DeOcampo-Lechtenberg described her father's unique leadership position as a labor contractor by stating, “You have your employer and you have your people and then you know what's right, but it was a hard place to be. So I know in the end—I know in the end, my father's heart was with his people. But it was a lot to take in at the time in the Pajaro Valley. It was a struggling time.” In contrast, some narrators expressed their view that participating in the labor strikes was a form of resistance that deviated from the model minority narrative. For example, Manuel Bersamin’s father was one of the manong who was very involved in labor strikes, efforts to unionize, and passionately supported the United Farm Workers (UFW) movement. His father and others who participated in the UFW did so because they refused to be treated poorly. When faced with poor working conditions, joining the UFW and participating in labor strikes was their way of fighting back. In his interview, Bersamin reflected that participation in UFW strikes was part of his father’s “rebellious nature” when he “faced poor conditions, poor working conditions, he would fight.” 

A black and white group photograph taken at Juanita Sulay Wilson’s second birthday party.

Group Photograph at Juanita Sulay Wilson's Birthday (1), 1944, photograph, 2.75 x 4 inches, Collection of Juanita Sulay Wilson.

A photograph of Andy Andvincula, an unknown woman, and Marcelo "Marcel" Cardona Bosque.

Group Photograph of Andy Andvincula, Unknown, and Marcelo "Marcel" Cardona Bosque, unknown, photograph, 11x8.5 inches, Collection of Sharon Bosque-Wiebe Hoffmann.

Racial and Ethnic Divisions within the Filipino American Community 

Eva McBride

In contrast to the overt discrimination and racial violence that the manong experienced in 1930 during the Watsonville riots, many of our narrators did not discuss negative racial dynamics in regards to their own experiences growing up in Watsonville during the 1950s through the 1970s. They often described Watsonville and the Pajaro Valley region as a “multicultural paradise” where people of different races and ethnicities coexisted and formed relationships without conflict.[i] Additionally, narrators spoke about how their parents embraced a “colorblind” approach to race or avoided speaking about discrimination all together. Some narrators argue that their parents did so in order to insulate their second-generation children from experiencing or perpetuating racism. For example, when discussing her childhood, Lydia Tumbaga Brumblay shared a perspective that many other narrators echoed, stating, “We didn't see color back then in Watsonville, in my time, in the 60s and 70s. So, one thing I can hand my father is I'm glad that he did not dwell on that.” She described race as a topic not often discussed and was therefore something she did not think about while growing up. According to our narrators, their fathers, mothers, and other manong did not want to taint their children’s’ view of the United States as a site of possibility and economic stability so they chose to not disclose the racial discrimination they faced. 

 However, the perception of Watsonville as an equitable and multicultural community was not a reality for everyone. Our narrators discussed racism that their parents faced, including laws that prohibited Filipinos from owning property and engaging in inter-racial relationships. They also shared memories of their own experiences of racial discrimination in their neighborhoods, schools, and careers. For example, when reflecting on experiencing racism as a child after immigrating to Watsonville from the Philippines in 1957, Frank Madalora stated, “I had come to the United States believing and, you know, all men are created equal and people are treated the same. You know, that's kind of like where I discovered all of that isn't necessarily true.” 

 Due to the racial and ethnic diversity of the Pajaro Valley, interracial marriages and mixed-families formed. This included many families of White-Filipino and/or Mexican-Filipino (commonly referred to as “Mexi-pino”) descent. While our narrators reflected on their mixed-race identities with pride, many also experienced exclusion within the Filipino American community in Watsonville. Feelings of non-acceptance caused some second-generation, mixed-race children to grapple with their identities throughout their lives. For example, Juanita Sulay Wilson reflected on her experiences growing up mixed-race in Watsonville and being in an interracial marriage later in life. Like Sulay Wilson, many mixed-race narrators expressed their challenges with accepting all parts of their identity. She shared that she was very proud of her mixed-race Filipino American identity, but she experienced individuals in her community telling her, “Well you're not Filipino. You don't speak the language." 

 As Mexican and Central American immigration to the Pajaro Valley increased, growers pitted Filipinos and Mexican and Central American farm workers against one another forcing the groups to compete for work and pay. This led to tensions between the communities.[ii] While some narrators highlighted the similarities and solidarities formed between these communities, other narrators’ discussions of Mexican and Central American communities in the region revealed racial tensions that contradict narratives of multicultural harmony. For example, when comparing Filipinos to Mexican and Central American migrant farmworkers Bobby Mariano stated, “Filipinos didn't create trouble, they don't cause—they were very respectful…They were never the victim. That's what I want of all things to share that very proud, very happy go lucky, very easy to smile, very low maintenance people, man, you know, very proud.”  Characterizing Filipino Americans as hard-workers who kept their heads down served to distance them from other minoritized groups. This narrative exemplifies the ways Asian immigrant communities often racially triangulate themselves between White and other marginalized communities of color.[iii]

[i] See James Kyung-Jin Lee, “Multiculturalism” in Keywords for Asian American Studies eds Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Linda Trinh Võ, and K. Scott Wong, New York: New York University Press, 2015.

[ii] See Adrian Cruz, “There Will Be No ‘One Big Union’: The Struggle for Interracial Labor Unionism in California Agriculture, 1933 – 1939,” Cultural Dynamics 22, no. 1 (2010): 29–48; and “The Union Within the Union: Filipinos, Mexicans, and the Racial Integration of the Farm Worker Movement,” Social Movement Studies 15, no. 4 (2016): 361–73; Cletus E. Daniel, Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870–1941, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. See also, Eiichiro Azuma, “Racial Struggle, Immigrant Nationalism, and Ethnic Identity: Japanese and Filipinos in the California Delta,” Pacific Historical Review 67, no. 2 (1998): 163–99 and Arleen De Vera, “The Tapia-Saiki Incident: Interethnic Conflict and Filipino Responses to the Anti-Filipino Exclusion Movement,” in In Over the Edge: Mapping the American West, eds Valerie J. Matsumoto and Blake Allmendinger, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

[iii] Claire Jean Kim, “The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans,” Politics & Society 27, no. 1 (1999): 105-138.

A black and white photograph of members and officers of the Filipino Women's Club of Watsonville at their second ever annual meeting at the Watsonville Veterans Hall. 

Second Ever Annual Meeting of the Filipino Women's Club of Watsonville, 1951, photograph, 10 x 8 inches, Collection of Eva Alminiana Monroe.

A notecard with a sketch of the Filipino Youth Club emblem.

Filipino Youth Club Sketch, c. 1958-1961, object, 5x 3 inches, Collection of Juanita Sulay Wilson.

Filipino American Identity and Belonging 

Markus Faye Portacio

Pajaro Valley community members articulated Filipino American identity through participation in social clubs and organizations. Although there were many local organizations, such as the Filipino Catholic Association, the Caballeros de Dimas Alang, and the Filipino Youth Club, oral history narrators continually referred to the Filipino Women’s Club of Watsonville and the Watsonville Filipino Community as important sites for the formation and expression of Filipino American identity.  However, groups like the Filipino Women’s Club and the Filipino Community were also spaces where the community leaders’ perceptions of authenticity made some feel excluded.  

 Many oral history narrators characterized The Filipino Women’s Club of Watsonville as playing a central role in uniting Filipino Americans through the cultivation of a shared ethnic and cultural identity. Eva Alminiana Monroe, daughter of the club’s founder Rosario “Nena” Nieva Alminiana, described her mother’s mission for the club: “That was her big deal. She was not about to live someplace where the Filipinos were considered laborers. I mean, they had a life, they had a culture, they had education. And she wanted to make sure that the town where we lived was going to be able to provide some social equity for everybody who was living there.” Eva’s mother had been trying to subvert the racism they experienced and to demonstrate other aspects of Filipino American experiences. The club’s events taught the second generation and members of the wider Pajaro Valley community  about Filipino culture and heritage. Through public displays of culture, including dancing, clothing, and food,  the club’s leaders asserted their version of an authentic Filipino American identity. However, the leaders’ notions of Filipino American identity and culture was not inclusive to all members of the community because it was often informed by their experiences as Filipina women from wealthier families with higher levels of education. Oral history narrators like Modesto Orlando and Rita Louise Tuzon expressed that members of their family felt excluded from the Filipino Women’s Club. This included individuals from working-class backgrounds, those who lived in rural areas or labor camps, mixed-race Filipino Americans, and non-Filipina women married to manong. 

Like the Women’s Club, the Watsonville Filipino Community was also created as a place to foster community belonging. However, tensions regarding racial and ethnic identity and what it meant to be Filipino caused mixed-race individuals to feel excluded from the Watsonville Filipino Community. This is exemplified in Maurice Carrillo’s oral history interview. Carrillo identifies as a mixed-race Filipino American and comes from a family with a white mother and Filipino father. He recounted seeking to participate in a Watsonville Filipino Community event at the Filipino Community Hall as a way to reconnect with his community and heritage. However, he remembered being told,  "We don't want any coconuts  in our organization." He believed that this sentiment “was a direct stab at us half- breeds, we were the coconuts that were half white, half Filipino.  So we–that dissuaded us from going back and we never did go back” (Carrillo). The Filipino Community Hall member that he encountered had a definition of Filipino which led to an isolating experience for Maurice and other mixed-race individuals. 

Carrillo’s and other second-generation, mixed-race Filipino Americans’ experiences with exclusion informed their creation of a Filipino Youth Club. The Filipino Youth Club’s mission was to be inclusive of all expressions of Filipino American identity. It served as an important place for mixed-race children of the manong to find community. 

Taken as a whole, our oral history interviews reveal that Pajaro Valley Filipino Americans created organizations to express their identities and find community. Although there were tensions within these organizations due to conflicting notions of what it meant to be Filipino American, the strength of these organizations were the ways in which they fostered a sense of community belonging and pride.