Erlinda Taytayon Heebner interviewed by Dr. Steven McKay

In this interview, originally conducted via Zoom, Erlinda Taytayon Heebner speaks with Dr. Steve McKay, a member of the Watsonville is in the Heart team. Erlinda discusses her father, Eliseo Tapia Taytayon, and her mother, Rosalinda Mendoza Taytayon and their experiences migrating to the United States from the Philippines. She shares that Eliseo migrated to the United States alongside his cousin Florencio Cawaling in 1929 and worked as a farm laborer until he retired at age 75. She explains that Eliseo and Rosalinda met and married as a result of an arrangement facilitated by the Cawaling family. After their marriage, Rosalinda migrated to Watsonville where she worked in the canneries. Erlinda discusses her experiences growing up in Watsonville including the class and racial dynamics of the various neighborhoods where her family lived and the schools she attended. Throughout the interview, she also describes the various Taytayon family homes as places where many relatives and community members congregated to enjoy her father’s cooking and purchase clothing from her maternal grandmother who worked as a seamstress.

Erlinda Taytayon Heebner and Dr. Steven McKay

June 4, 2021

Watsonville is in the Heart (WIITH) is a community-driven public history initiative to preserve and uplift stories of Filipino migration and labor in the city of Watsonville and greater Pajaro Valley. All oral history interviews are donated to WIITH by the narrators. Copyright is held by WIITH. Oral history interview recordings and transcripts are available for unrestricted use and reproduction by educators and researchers. Please note that the recordings on this website are provided via Soundcloud. For access to oral history audio files, please contact the project director at wiith@ucsc.edu. If you are an oral history narrator and would like to remove your interview from the archive website, please contact the project director.

English

Oral History

Steven McKay

Erlinda Taytayon Heebner

.mp4

1:02:14

[1:33] Biographical information for Erlinda, her parents, and her siblings
[2:23] Erlinda’s father, Eliseo Tapia Taytayon’s migration to Seattle in 1929 and his marriage to Rosalinda Mendoza in 1959
[5:09] Description of how Eliseo and Rosalinda settled in Watsonville
[7:08] Memories of living on Marchant Street in Watsonville including extended family members who lived with the Taytayons, gatherings, and racial demographics of the neighborhood
[8:25] Memories of playing in the Pajaro River and the junkyard behind her home
[9:31] Erlinda discusses her childhood living in a “bubble” on Marchant street around many other Filipino and other Asian working-class folks
[12:12] Eliseo’s talent for cooking which he shared at family and community gatherings for the Filipino Catholic Association and the Makato Association
[14:05] Erlinda shares that she always felt like she belonged because she was around many other Filipinos and family members
[14:46] Eliseo’s cooking
[17:03] Memories of fishing with her father and siblings
[19:24] Eliseo’s gardening
[19:50] The Taytayon’s move to Doering Lane
[21:10] Comments Eliseo made about racism he experienced during his early life and how Erlinda learned about the challenges the manong faced through an Asian American studies course she took in college
[24:51] Reflections on the class and race demographics in the neighborhood on Doering Lane and how they differed from their previous home on Marchant Street
[27:52] Rosalinda’s work in Green Giant cannery
[29:09] Erlinda’s maternal grandmother who lived with the Taytayon family and worked as a seamstress and fortune teller
[31:03] Discussion of the many Filipino women and others who came to their home to purchase clothes from her grandmother
[32:40] The financial struggles the Taytayon family encountered when supporting family members who lived with them after migrating from the Philippines
[35:09] Erlinda’s primary and secondary education
[39:12] Erlinda reflects on the differences between the descendants of the manong and migrants who came from the Philippines after 1965
[41:15] Interactions with post-1965 immigrants
[45:13] Attending college at San Jose State and moving away from Watsonville
[49:21] Eliseo’s 23 year-long career as a foreman at a strawberry field owned by a Japanese American man
[51:28] Eliseo’s experience serving in the Second Filipino Regiment during World War II