Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 58

Introduced by Senator Pan

(Coauthor: Assembly Member Bonta)

May 5, 2015

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 58—Relative to Filipino American History Month.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SCR 58, as introduced, Pan. Filipino American History Month.

This measure would recognize the month of October 2015 as Filipino American History Month and the 428th anniversary of the first presence of Filipinos in the continental United States.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, Filipinos and Filipino Americans have been
contributing to California and the United States for hundreds of
years, ever since October 18, 1587, when the first “Luzones Indios”
set foot in Morro Bay, California, on board the Nuestra Señora de
Esperanza, a Manila-built galleon ship captained by Pedro de
Unamuno of Spain; and

WHEREAS, In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Filipinos helped
Father Junípero Serra establish the California mission system; and

WHEREAS, Since the late 1800s, Filipino communities have
existed in southern Louisiana, according to oral histories recorded
by Rhonda Richoux Fox; and

WHEREAS, After the Philippines was colonized, Filipinos
began immigrating to San Francisco, where they contributed to
the city both as military personnel and as service sector workers
such as bellhops, dishwashers, servants, and cooks; established,
by the 1920s, a thriving community around Kearny and Jackson
Streets, which became known as “Manilatown”; and settled, during
the post World War II era, into the Fillmore, South of Market, and
Excelsior districts; and

WHEREAS, Between 1906 and 1935, the first large wave of
Filipino immigration to the United States began, as Filipinos were
recruited to California, Alaska, and Hawaii to work in the
agricultural industries, canneries, and sugarcane plantations,
respectively; and

WHEREAS, The Filipino contract workers in Hawaii, or
“Sakadas,” became the largest group of Asians on the sugarcane
plantations by the 1920s; and

WHEREAS, At the turn of the 20th century, Filipino students,
or “pensionados,” farm workers, and laborers in manufacturing
and in the service sector began settling in Stockton and the
surrounding San Joaquin Delta area, where they built a community
that became the largest concentration of Filipinos outside of the
Philippines and established a thriving six-block ethnic
neighborhood that became known as “Little Manila”; and

WHEREAS, In 2000, the Stockton City Council designated this
area, in downtown Stockton at the intersection of Lafayette and
El Dorado Streets, as the “Little Manila Historical Site,” the first
designation of this kind in the country; and

WHEREAS, In the first decades of the 20th century, thousands
of Filipinos in California worked in agricultural fields throughout
the state, in cities and regions such as the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta, the central coast, Imperial Valley, Orange County, the Inland
Empire, Delano, Bakersfield, Coachella Valley, and the San
Francisco Bay area, and became a critical element in the growth
and political economy of the state, often enduring harsh labor
conditions and poor wages, but persevering and creating a strong
legacy of mutual support, strikes, and organization for farm labor
unionization; and

WHEREAS, In the 1920s, Filipinos in California also worked
as laborers in the shipyards of Vallejo, where they established a
Filipino American community and business center, and became
so successful that there were thousands of Filipinos working as
shipbuilders by the start of World War II; and

WHEREAS, During World War II, approximately 200,000
Filipino soldiers battled under the command of the United States
to preserve the liberty of our country and win back the liberty of
the Philippines from the Japanese occupation; and

WHEREAS, Thousands of these Filipino soldiers came from
California, served in the First and Second Filipino Infantry
Regiments, underwent training at Salinas and at Fort Ord,
California, and were stationed at Camp Beale near Sacramento
and Camp Cooke near Santa Maria; and

WHEREAS, After World War II ended, many Filipinos who
had served in the United States Navy settled in National City and
elsewhere in the County of San Diego, as well as in the Cities of
West Long Beach and Wilmington, where they worked in the Long
Beach shipyards and Terminal Island canneries, served in the
harbor area as nurses and medical workers, and created flourishing
Filipino American communities numbering in the tens of
thousands; and

WHEREAS, Between 1941 and 1959, the second wave of
Filipino immigration to the United States began, as nurses, students,
“war brides” and fiancées of World War II military personnel and
veterans, tourists, and Filipino members of the United States Navy
came to the United States; and

WHEREAS, In 1965, the third wave of Filipino immigration to
the United States began, as the passing of the Immigration and
Nationality Act abolished “national origins” as the basis for
immigration, allowing for more immigration from Asia and Latin
America and for much-needed Filipino medical professionals to
come to the United States to fill United States labor shortages; and

WHEREAS, On September 8, 1965, Filipino American
agricultural labor leaders, including Larry Itliong and Philip Vera
Cruz, organized more than 1,500 farm workers from the
Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee in the Delano Grape
Strike of 1965, in partnership with César Chávez, Dolores Huerta,
and other Mexican American labor leaders of the National Farm
Workers Association, sparking one of the greatest social, economic,
and racial justice movements in the history of California and the
United States, and led to the establishment of the United Farm
Workers of America; and

WHEREAS, These agricultural workers, along with other
volunteers, also built Agbayani Village, a retirement facility for
elderly Filipino farmworkers, or “Manongs,” located at Forty Acres
in Delano in the County of Kern; and

WHEREAS, In 1968, Filipino student organizers were
instrumental in the leadership of the Third World Liberation Front
that led to the founding of our nation’s first Third World College
at the University of California, Berkeley, and the first College of
Ethnic Studies, at California State University, San Francisco, that
was part of the larger effort to democratize higher education for
all; and

WHEREAS, From 1968 to 1977, Filipino American activists
and residents of San Francisco’s International Hotel organized a
popular, multiracial campaign that challenged local authorities and
private development to place people and the public good ahead of
profit, and support affordable housing for Filipino and Chinese
immigrants and community members; and

WHEREAS, From 1972 to 1986, Filipino American activists
organized massive educational and political campaigns to restore
civil liberties in the Philippines during the period of martial law
in that country, creating dynamic local responses to international
politics and placing pressure on the United States government to
end its support of the Marcos dictatorship; and

WHEREAS, In 1973, the fourth wave of Filipino immigration
to the United States began, as political exiles and refugees from
the Marcos era, intellectuals, tourists, students, student activists,
professionals, semiprofessionals, and families came to the United
States; and

WHEREAS, In 2002, the City of Los Angeles, home to over
120,000 Filipinos, designated part of the city as the “Historic
Filipinotown” district, the largest designation of this kind in the
country; and

WHEREAS, The Filipino Community Center of the Los Angeles
Harbor area in the City of Wilmington continues to serve as a
model organization, facilitating community events such as
weddings, baptisms, pageants, and fiestas; and

WHEREAS, On November 8, 2013, Super Typhoon
Haiyan/Yolanda, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in
human history, struck the Philippines and devastated the lives of
millions of people throughout the Philippines and the world; and

WHEREAS, Today, numerous other community-based
institutions that take responsibility for the services, advocacy, and
civic engagement needs of the Filipino American community exist
throughout the state; and

WHEREAS, The Filipino American population is currently the
largest Asian American and Pacific Islander group in California
and the third largest Asian American and Pacific Islander group
in the United States; and

WHEREAS, Nine Filipino Americans have received the
Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor in
action against an enemy force that can be bestowed upon an
individual serving in the United States Armed Forces; and

WHEREAS, Filipino Americans have served the public in a
wide range of capacities, including, but not limited to, Chief Justice
of the California Supreme Court, representatives to the United
States Congress, legislators in the state legislatures of California
and other states, and other city, state, and federal leaders of the
United States; and

WHEREAS, Throughout the history of the United States,
Filipino Americans have made cultural, economic, political, social,
and other contributions to our country that have become a vital
part of the rich, diverse, and vibrant tapestry of our nation; and

WHEREAS, Since World War II, federal, state, and local
redevelopment projects, freeway and highway construction, urban
decay, private development, demographic shifts, and poor city
planning have destroyed a significant number of Filipino American
historic sites and ethnic neighborhoods, and many of the remaining
Filipino American communities and historic sites are in danger of
being lost; and

WHEREAS, Preserving our Filipino communities throughout
California and the United States is critical to the preservation of
Filipino culture, history, traditions, and heritage and to the
preservation of our state and national history as well as our state
and national future; now, therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly
thereof concurring, That the Legislature recognizes the month of
October 2015 as Filipino American History Month and the 428th
anniversary of the first presence of Filipinos in the continental
United States; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.