Immigrants (and their descendants) from various ethnolinguistic regions of the
Philippines, especially the Ilocos, Tagalog, and Visayan Provinces. The largest Filipino
communities in the United States started in Hawaii and California during the first quarter
of the 20th century while the Philippines was an American territory. The influx of
thousands of predominantly young, single, male agricultural workers during that time has
been augmented since the mid-1960s by even larger numbers of immigrants, including
entire families and professionals of both sexes, who reside with their descendants, in
urban centers throughout the country. Filipino American folklore reflects the marked
differences in the American experience of these two waves of immigrants.
The early immigrants, known as “old-timers” (abbreviated as “O.T.” in Filipino folk
speech), were lured to the Western states by “drummers” of shipping lines, and by
photographs, enclosed in glowing letters from relatives and friends, showing young
Pinoys (Stateside Filipinos) sporting tailor-made Amerikana suits, silk shirts, wing-tip
shoes, and Panama or Stetson hats. From their poverty-stricken villages, young men
caught in the “Hawaiian Fever,” or, in dreams of an “Eldorado” in California, sought
passage on the Dollar Lines, bringing with them no more than their basket of clothes,
with perhaps a bottle of shrimp or fish paste to flavor their monotonous diet aboard the
ships.
These ocean journeys, along with more journeys on land, still are the subject of
storytelling by the elderly manong, as the old-timers are called. The narrator vividly
reviews the routes of his occupational life—cutting sugarcane and harvesting pineapples
in Hawaii; following the crops from Washington state to Mexicali while picking hops,
thinning lettuce, planting celery, “stooping for the green gold” of asparagus, harvesting
grapes, strawberries, and apricots; then returning north to the canneries and to the
salmon-fishing season in Alaska. Drifting to the cities in winter, exiled in cheap hotels in
Chinatown or “Manilatown,” his dreary life was punctuated with brief forays into
gambling casinos, pool halls, taxi-dance halls, and brothels.
Since miscegenation laws forbade marriage to White women, and few Filipinas
immigrated, he remained a bachelor. At labor camps, he bunked with other lonely
unmarried men. With them, he enjoyed boxing, cockfighting, and other male sports.
Racial attacks, which, for instance, killed a bunkmate during the anti-Filipino riots in
Watsonville, California, in 1930, ensured his isolation at work and at play.
From the Alaskero to the Hawaiiano, Filipino migrant workers share a common
repertoire of personal narratives, as well as legends, jokes, and folk speech. Legends
feature a migrant worker who does the work of ten grape pickers and eats the tortilla and
pork chops prepared for forty men. Dialect stories, jokes about the immigrant greenhorn
(such as the Pinoy who drew a map of the kitchen when told to mop the kitchen floor),
and protest tales about the labor foreman or the ship’s captain (whose vengeful Filipino
steward served him coffee brewed with the latter’s smelly socks) follow traditional
structures and motifs but revolve around their work life. Still to be documented from the workers themselves are the stories of houseboys, waiters, bellhops, and other service
workers among the early immigrants, as well as the experiences of latter-day housekeepers, garage attendants, nurses, and office workers in Filipino
American communities everywhere.
The folklore of the new immigrants, unlike that of the bachelor pioneers, revolves
around the family, the church, and community organizations—institutions designed for
the preservation and transmission of cultural traditions. The home is the main transmitter
of cultural identity. Stories from their own childhood are retold by the older to the
younger generation. In many Catholic homes, the altar, with its assemblage of favorite
Catholic saints’ statues, serves as a reminder of family unity.
Rites of passage such as baptisms, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and funerals,
which reunite relatives and friends from far and near, reinforce kinship ties. Ritual
kinship established by cosponsorship of godchildren at baptisms and weddings extends
the interdependent unit. The Filipino definition of family is flexible and adaptive. Those
without families, like the early immigrants, become ritual or fictive “aunts” and “uncles.”
The Filipino sense of community likewise is elastic and expansive. It is rooted in an
ever-widening circle of kababayan (people who come from the same place). A Filipino
may belong to several different clubs—one composed of his covillagers or townspeople,
another consisting of province mates, and still another, which comprises his whole region. His strong attachment to his place of origin is a key theme in the proliferation of
community clubs around which social activities revolve. Most of these clubs sponsor
town and provincial fiestas in honor of their respective patron saints.
Community celebrations are marked by the usual cultural displays characteristic of
many other ethnic festivities. Unlike family affairs, which usually are exclusively
Filipino, community festivals are intended for other groups as well. Foodways, folk
dances and music, as well as a selected array of traditional arts and crafts, are associated
with various celebrations from saints’ feast days to national holidays. Although family
affairs often are gastronomic feasts, public events tend to have a scaled-down,
stereotyped menu with the favorite triumvirate of pancit (a noodle dish), lumpia (a kind
of egg roll), and adobo (chicken or pork stewed in spices and vinegar). Along with these
foods, folk dances, especially the tinikling bamboo dance (also taught as a recreational
activity in public elementary schools), the music of the rondalla (string band), and the
folk art of making the parol (festival lantern) have become stereotyped features of
community festivals.
Parades and processions, traditionally held during national holidays and religious
feasts, respectively, have turned as well into presentations of ethnic cultural heritage. In
addition to the American-style drum-and-bugle corps and floats bearing city dignitaries,
parades often feature Filipinos costumed as northern Luzon hill tribes, Mindanao
Muslims, and Christian lowlanders—ethnocultural categories promoted by local and
visiting dance troupes as an instance of cultural richness and diversity. Also highly
popular is the Santacruzan (a religious procession of community club beauty queens who
represent important titles of the Virgin Mary). Traditionally held in May, the Santacruzan
has become a regular feature of many other community events, including those held
during city-sponsored cultural-heritage months. Community celebrations, while
continuing to be reunions of compatriots, also have become collective expressions of
ethnic pride and identity.
The family, the church, and community clubs, along with ethnic-heritage schools that
teach folk dances, music, and arts and crafts, are the active preservers and purveyors of
tradition for new generations of Filipino Americans.
Herminia Q.Meñez
References
Almirol, Edwin B. 1985. Ethnic Identity and Social Negotiation: A Study of a Filipino Community.
New York: AMS.
Bulosan, Carlos. 1943. American Is in the Heart: A Personal History. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Cordova, Fred. 1983. Filipinos: Forgotten Asian Americans: A Pictorial Essay, 1763-circa 1963.
Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.
Mefiez, Herminia Q. 1980. Folklore Communication among Filipinos in California. New York:
Arno.
Takaki, Ronald. 1989. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York:
Penguin Books.