When Filipinos were driven out of America

Since 9/11 over a thousand Filipino TNTs (tago nang tago overstaying tourists and lawbreaking immigrants) have been deported to Manila at US government expense. This is not the first time America is removing Pinoys wholesale. A similar concerted effort took place 70 years ago, Fil-Am leader Rodel Rodis recounts in a widely circulated article to mark the centennial of Filipino migration to America. Digging into the archives of Time magazine, he turns up two reports that both enrage and amuse on why Filipinos were mistreated for their race and ways.

One report, "Philippine Flop" on Oct. 3, 1938, euphemized "deport" with "repatriate", lawyer Rodis notes:

Aboard the SS President Coolidge when it cleared the Golden Gate for Manila last week were 75 guests of the US government. They were Filipinos taking their next-to-last chance to go home at US expense. Already 1,900 had taken a free ride home since the Filipino Repatriation Act was passed in the summer of 1935. Just one more Filipino repatriation party is to be given before December 31, when the Act expires.

Although $237,000 has been spent to date on Filipino fares, Immigration officials and California Labor regard the repatriation program as a flop. Remaining in the US are 120,000 low-paid Filipino farm workers, houseboys, janitors, cooks. Half are in California, 97 percent are bachelors about 30 years old.

"The boys," explained Dr. Hilario C. Moncado, president of the Filipino Federation of America, "do not want to go back without money or assurance they will earn a living." Another good reason is that, in some cases, boys are loathe to leave a country where, as a California judge remarked (TIME, April 13, 1936), they boast of enjoying the favors of white girls because they are a very superior grade of lovers.

Rodis gnashes his teeth at the racial insult: "It was considered a flop because 120,000 Filipinos refused to be repatriated back to the Philippines. If all 120,000 Filipinos had been repatriated as the Act anticipated, it would have been hailed as a success." A fighter for racial respect, Rodis laments that the muscular National Federation of Filipino Associations in America (NaFFAA) under Loida Nicolas Lewis, was not yet in existence then.

Other readers would focus only on the report’s last sentence, though. That sentence in fact summarized an earlier, lengthier Time report, "Lovers’ Departure" on Apr. 13, 1936. It turned out that:

...A backer of this law was Pacific Coast Labor, which saw in the creation of the Philippine Commonwealth a good excuse for inviting Filipino workers to go home rather than stay in the U. S. selling their services for 10¢ an hour in competition with white men.

The Pacific Coast was interested in this subsidized exodus not only from the standpoint of labor but also from the standpoint of race and sex... To the intense dismay of race-conscious Californians these little brown men not only have a preference for white girls, particularly blondes, but have even established to many a white girl’s satisfaction their superior male attractions.

In Jan. that year, Time reported, San Francisco municipal court Judge Sylvain Lazarus had tried a case of two "rival white girls" fighting over a "Filipino boy". He ruled: "This is a deplorable situation... It is a dreadful thing when these Filipinos, scarcely more than savages, come to ... work for practically nothing, and obtain the society of these girls. Because they work for nothing, decent white boys cannot get jobs."

The savages, Rodis delights, did not take it sitting down. Promptly Filipinos in San Francisco, where Rodis now heads the multi-campus City College, passed a resolution denouncing the description, copy furnished Quintin Paredes, Philippine Resident Commissioner in Washington... Statesman Paredes sent Judge Lazarus a note saying, "I cannot believe that you had in any way intended to refer to my people as a whole." Time ran the magistrate’s lengthy reply:

"I intend to be as straightforward with you as you have been considerate with me. Basing my conclusions on years of observation, I regret to say that there is probably no group in this city, proportionate to its members, that supply us with more criminal business than the local Filipino colony. It is no compliment to the predominant race that most crimes committed by Filipinos have as background intimate relations with white girls. Jealousy between rivals for the affections of the same girl leads to assaults, knifings, and shootings; a desire to provide gifts for the objects of their affections offers temptations for thievery. I am making allowance for the fact that there is a scarcity–I imagine almost a total absence – of Filipino girls in this country and that the kind of white girls who associate with these Filipino lads is not calculated to provide the best influences for them. However, the girls are satisfied and generally very happy in their relations with these boys. Their sweethearts are working – all of them – as waiters, elevator operators, janitors, bell boys, etc. and are able to supply them, according to their notions, with abundant attentions and diversion.

Ever prim and proper, Rodis avoids commenting on the worldly side of Time’s reportage. The worst he would allude to it was to say: "The racial stereotype of ‘big black men’ now as having ‘superior male attractions’ were once the province of ‘little brown men’ after all."

Instead Rodis rebukes Time for its racism: "The piece surely had the effect of inflaming anti-Filipino sentiment in towns throughout the United States where, one would surmise, if Filipino men appeared, the white men there would hide their women and prepare their ropes... If Time magazine were to publish an article like this now or if a judge or any US official were to make a statement denouncing Filipinos as ‘scarcely more than savages’ or such drivel, there would be picket lines throughout the US against Time and the US official, organized by the NaFFAA."

At any rate, the Repatriation Act was declared unconstitutional in 1940, after 2,190 Filipinos were deported. And so, Rodis gamely invites Fil-Ams and Filipinos to join the festivities in Honolulu on Sept. 28-Oct. 1. To be commemorated is the 100th anniversary of the 1906 wave of Filipino migration to America, when 125,000 sacadas were brought to Hawaii to work in sugarcane plantations. "I hope to see you there this year for the first centennial celebration," Rodis pleads. "I doubt if anyone of us can make it to the second centennial celebration in 2106." Simultaneously to be held too are the 4th Global Filipino Networking Convention and the 7th NaFFAA National Empowerment Conference. (For more info, log on to www.naffaa.org.)

But other readers would be interested in the conluding portion of Judge Lazarus’s reply to Paredes, as quoted by Time:

"Some of these Filipino boys, with perfect candor, have told me bluntly and boastfully that they practice the art of love with more perfection than white boys, and occasionally one of the girls has supplied me with information to the same effect. In fact some of the disclosures in this regard are perfectly startling in their nature."

Time, the racist, also ran Paredes’s terse reply:

"Well, the Judge admits that Filipinos are great lovers."

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