“Racism Against Filipinos”
A segment from Talk of The Town’s Rewind, Season 2, Episode 5
Live streamed on Thursday, April 22, 2021, at 8pm EST/ 5pm PST
Why are Filipino Americans being targeted by racially motivated physical attacks, from California to New York, in the past months?
Of course, references to COVID-19 as the “China virus” or “kung flu” or “Asian virus” by some moronic politicians contributed to the spike in attacks against Asian Americans, and yes, Filipino Americans.
But discrimination against Filipinos did not just happen overnight. This racism against our people has its roots in a war more than a hundred years ago, and it has reared its ugly head time and time again during the early years of Filipino migration to this country.
During the brutal Philippine American War, American soldiers called native Filipinos as “Goo Goos.”
The term “Goo Goo” is a racial epithet equivalent to the “N-word” that later metamorphosed into “Gook”, which American soldiers used as a derogatory term to refer to Koreans in the 50s and Vietnamese in the 60s and 70s.
By the 1920s, there were about 45 to 48,000 Filipino agricultural laborers already toiling in fruit and vegetable farms in California, Oregon, and Washington where they harvested asparagus, grapes, strawberries, carrots, lettuce, potatoes, and beets. These migrant workers are mostly men.
White American farm laborers resented the influx of Filipinos, whom they see as competition for scarce jobs in the face of shrinking economy.
White American men were also angered by the Filipino workers’ penchant for going out with White American women in taxi-dance halls.
The first recorded violent anti-Filipino incident in the US mainland took place in Stockton, California on New Year’s Eve in 1926. White men entered hotels and pool halls, looking for Filipinos to attack. Filipinos were stabbed and beaten, but The Stockton Daily Evening Record reported that “Filipinos ran amuck, attacking whites,” instead of blaming the white culprits.
In November 1927, in Yakima Valley, Washington State, a mob of 30 white men stormed the house of a local Filipino man married to a white woman. The mob demanded that farmworkers staying at the couple’s home leave the valley by midnight.
The men of the mob believed that since the Filipinos were brown-skinned and Asian, they should not be permitted to approach white women or compete with white men for jobs. The economic and sexual fears of the men were clear and openly expressed.
Other mobs raided Filipino boardinghouses the same night, smashing furniture and beating young men, with the goal of “deporting” all Filipino farmworkers from the valley. The Sheriff’s deputies described the mobs as armed and determined to kill every Filipino they found. The manhunt for Filipinos lasted for four days.
In September 1928, in Wenatchee Valley, Washington, white farm workers attacked Filipino laborers, expressing their opposition to the relationship between the Filipinos and white women.
A year later, in October 24, 1929, in Exeter, a farming community in central California’s San Joaquin Valley, a mob of 300 White men stormed a Filipino camp, stoned and clubbed about 50 Filipinos, and burned the barn. About 200 Filipinos were driven out of the district.
The most explosive anti-Filipino riot occurred in Watsonville, another California town nearer the coast, where Filipinos had been constantly harassed. On January 11, 1930, a small Filipino club leased a dance hall from two Americans in Palm Beach. The thought of Filipinos dancing with white women angered Watsonville citizens.
On January 20, 1930, about 200 Americans hunted Filipinos on the streets, and on the following day, the dance hall was raided. Two days later, Filipinos were beaten and one Filipino was killed by a mob of 500 white Americans who also destroyed the Filipino quarters. Remember his name: Fermin Tobera.
A few days later, on January 28, 1930, a Filipino clubhouse belonging to the Filipino Federation of America in Stockton was bombed
In August, 1930, a bundle of dynamite was also thrown in the camp of 100 sleeping Filipinos near Reedley, California in an effort to drive out the more than 500 Filipinos working in the region.
Around the same time, about four hundred white vigilantes attacked a Filipino club in nearby Monterey, where they severely beat many Filipinos. When police attempted to stop the beatings, the vigilantes called them “Goo Goo lovers.”
Minor riots and clashes also occurred in Filipino farmworker communities in San Jose and San Francisco, California.
Sadly, this racist aggression against Filipino Americans has cropped up again, in a big way, almost 100 years later.
About Rewind
Rewind is a regular segment of Talk of the Town. Hosted by Noel Pangilinan, Rewind provides an overview of Philippine and Filipino American history. Noel teaches Filipino language and Philippine history and literature at the College of Mount Saint Vincent and is a Senior Editor at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.
About The Host/Author:
References:
Immigration to the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States
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