This twenty-eighth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on the Filipino American Cultural Renaissance.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, a great many developments occurred for and by the Filipino American community, spurred by advanced research and creativity and the formation of a more distinct identity.

In the 1990s, a San Diego study found that Filipino girls had the highest rate of suicide and unwanted pregnancy among Asian ethnic groups. During the same time, Filipinos were found to have the highest rate of HIV/AIDS among Asian Americans.

In education, Filipinos eventually were found to have the lowest admission rate of any ethnic group in the UC system, and few Filipino American professors had tenure nationwide. Filipino undergraduates at colleges and universities nationwide rallied for the hiring and tenure of Filipino American professors, Filipino American Studies courses, higher admissions and retention for Filipino college students, and ethnic studies courses.

In the community, youth activists created summer camps and programs to develop Filipino American youth leadership in Sacramento and at Stanford University. Pilipino Youth Coalitions were created in Northern California cities. National Filipino American organizations such as the Filipino Civil Rights Advocates (FilCRA), the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NAFFAA), and the Filipina Women’s Network (FWN) were established.

With respect to politics, Daly City, Milpitas, Stockton, Vallejo, Union City, and Carson elected Filipino American city officials.

In fashion, clothing companies Downright Pinoy, Pinay, and Tribal Pinoy were established in Los Angeles around this time.

As far as arts, the San Francisco Bay Areas’ Represent and Los Angeles’ Our Path to Follow poetry and spoken word events bring Filipino American poets and performance artists to wide audiences. The Rock Steady Crew, composed of DJs Qbert, Apollo, and Mixmaster Mike, won the DMC World Championship three years in a row. Their crew, the Invisibl Skratch Picklz, continued to dominate and influence turntable jazz and hip=hop culture in general. In Los Angeles, the Beat Junkies formed.

The digital media revolution and the Internet allowed Filipino Americans to produce, publish, and disseminate their own books, magazines, zines, CDs, and independent films and documentaries, and to create their own independent record companies, film production companies, and music festivals.

All of this resulted in a unique and celebratory time of Filipino American history.

This twenty-seventh day of Filipino American History Month brings more detailed information on great boxers of Philippine descent.

The most recognizable boxer of Philippine descent today is Manny Pacquiao. Other current boxing champions of Philippine descent are Nonito Donaire, Jr., Marvin Sonsona, Brian Viloria, and Donnie Nietes. Filipinos have a long and illustrious history with boxing. As far back as the early 1900s, when American soldiers first occupied, the Philippines, they taught boxing to young Filipinos in towns throughout the islands.

The natives had no problems understanding and accepting the rules of boxing, as handed down by the Marquis of Queensberry in 1865, but it was the style of boxing the Americans taught that the Filipinos could not or would not follow.

The American soldiers taught the Filipinos to “keep their dukes up,” describing the motion of their arms and their fists pointed upwards in the style of heavyweight boxing champion “Gentleman Jim” Corbett. The Filipinos, who grew up learning the Filipino self-defense art of Arnis de Mano (harness or armor of the hand), had other ideas, preferring to constantly move their bodies and weave their arms in angular and circular motions, thereby acquiring and mastering the flow.

A great many boxers of Philippines descent truly dominated boxing from 1920 to 1941. The greatest boxer was a pugilist from Negros Occidental, who was born on August 1, 1901, under the name Francisco Guilledo. He stood 5 foot 1 and weighed 114 pounds. Before he died at the age of 24, this fighter, who was better known as “Pancho Villa,” fought in 109 matches with an amazing record of 92 wins (24 KOs), 8 losses, 4 draws and 5 no-contests. This fighter was never knocked down in any of his fights and, like Manny, even went out of his class to fight featherweights and even lightweights.

After winning the Philippine flyweight title from Terrible Pondo in 1919, Villa received an offer in 1922 to fight in the United States, where he made a name for himself with victories over Abe Attel Goldstein, Frankie Mason and Young Montreal, which set the stage for a shot at the American Flyweight title against Johnny Buff. He defeated Buff via an 11th round TKO in 1923. By coincidence, Buff’s grandson, Jimmy Buffer (well known for his trademark “Let’s get ready to ruuuuumble” announcements in wrestling) was the ring announcer for the De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight. After defeating Buff, Villa’s next fight was with Jimmy Wilde, a hard-punching British boxer, who was the world flyweight champion.

On June 18, 1923, before 20,000 screaming fans at the Polo Grounds in New York, Villa knocked out Wilde in the 7th round with a single right that broke Wilde’s jaw to capture the World Flyweight title and cause Wilde to retire permanently from boxing.

Villa returned to the Philippines and received a hero’s welcome in Manila and a victory party in Malacanang Palace. He returned to the United States of America for a non-title fight with Jimmy McLarnin that was scheduled for July 4, 1925, at Ewing Field in Oakland, CA. Days before the fight, Villa’s face swelled due to an ulcerated tooth. Villa fought McLarnin, despite the swollen jaw and lost. The infection worsened and spread to his throat, which eventually caused him to die in a hospital on July 14, 1925.

Another great Pinoy boxer was Ceferino Garcia (August 26, 1912—January 1, 1981) who was born in Tondo, Manila, Philippines. He was renowned for his “bolo” punch, which was executed by winding up like an uppercut, hook, and cross. This helped him achieve 57 knockouts. Garcia also won another 24 bouts by decision. He won the middleweight title in 1939 by knocking out Fred Apostoli in seven rounds in New York. When Garcia was asked how he came to develop his “bolo” punch, he recounted that when he was young, he used to cut sugarcane with a bolo knife, which he wielded in a sweeping uppercut fashion.

After Garcia, the next great Filipino boxer was Gabriel “Flash” Elorde (March 25, 1935—January 2, 1985) who was the WBC junior lightweight/super featherweight champion from March 1960 until June 1967 and WBA super featherweight champion from February 1963 to June 1967—making him the longest-reigning world junior lightweight champion ever.

Elorde retired in 1974 with a record of 87 wins (33 KOs), 27 losses, and 2 draws and was named “the greatest world junior lightweight boxing champion in WBC history.” In 1993, he became the first Asian inducted into the New York-based International Boxing Hall of Fame. He was also enshrined in the World Boxing Hall of Fame.

Many of these fighters and their stories can be remembered and celebrated in the movies The Great Pinoy Boxing Era and World Champions of the Great Pinoy Boxing Era.

This twenty-fifth day of Filipino American History Month brings more detailed information on Filipino American families and the discriminatory anti-miscegenation laws that kept them from forming.

Whether it is dating or marrying someone of a different race, interracial relationships are not a new phenomenon among Asian Americans. When Filipinos arrived en masse to the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, a major gender imbalance existed, at 14 Pinoys to 1 Pinay. This made marriage and family development difficult, if not impossible, for many Filipinos. A few of them eventually married women in the U.S. who were not Filipino. However, many people soon saw Asian intermarriage with Whites as a threat to American society. One action to stop this threat took place on January 26, 1930, when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that Filipino/White marriages performed since 1921 were invalid.

One Congressperson wrote about miscegenation, “Intermarriage between Whites and Blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant to the very principles of Saxon government. It is subversive of social peace. It is destructive of moral supremacy, and ultimately this slavery of White women to Black beasts will bring this nation a conflict as fatal as ever reddened the soil of Virginia or crimsoned the mountain paths of Pennsylvania. … Let us uproot and exterminate now this debasing, ultra-demoralizing, un-American and inhuman leprosy.”

Although anti-miscegenation laws in many states, including California (Civil Code 60 and 69), prohibited marriage between Whites and “Mongolians,” “Negroes,” and “Indians,” Filipinos continued to assert their rights to marry who they wanted to. In 1932, Salvador Roldan sued the State of California for the right to marry his English wife. He pointed out that the law specified “Mongolians” and that Filipinos were “Malay.” He won, but lawmakers quickly added “Malay” to the law.

The constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws only began to be widely called into question after World War II. In 1948, the California Supreme Court in Perez v. Sharp ruled that the Californian anti-miscegenation statute violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. California was the first state since Ohio in 1887 to repeal its anti-miscegenation law.

One political theorist, Hannah Arendt, believes that anti-miscegenation laws were an even deeper injustice than racial segregation. The free choice of a spouse, she argued in Reflections on Little Rock, was “an elementary human right”: “Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs.”

It was not until 1967, during the height of the civil rights movement, that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Loving v. Virginia case that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. At that time, 38 states in the U.S. had formal laws on their books that prohibited non-Whites from marrying Whites.

Before the case escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1965, Virginia trial court Judge Leon Bazile, who heard their original case, refused to reconsider his decision. Instead, he defended racial segregation, writing, “Almighty God created the races White, Black, Yellow, and Red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

When the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, they ruled unanimously in Loving v. Virginia, stating, “Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

The U.S. Supreme Court condemned Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law as “designed to maintain White supremacy.”

Statistics today show that U.S.-raised Filipino Americans have a very high level of intermarriage with people of other races, which would not even be possible if anti-miscegenation laws were still in effect. It is important to remember these lessons in order to prevent injustices like these from continuing.

This twenty-fourth day of Filipino American History Month brings more information on Pablo Manlapit and the Hanapepe Massacre.

Pablo Manlapit immigrated from the Philippines to Hawaii in 1909. He worked as a plantation laborer at Hamakua Mill Company. He studied to become the first Filipino lawyer in Hawaii and helped organize the Filipino Labor Union (FLU).

He led the first major pan-Asian strike in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Filipinos and Japanese participated in the work stoppage against the Hawaiian Sugar Plantations Association (HSPA). They wanted better and fair working conditions. Filipino workers were not paid equally for doing the same work as the Japanese workers. The Filipinos were paid $0.69 and the Japanese were paid $0.99. While they were on strike, plantation workers on other islands continued to work to raise about $600,000.00 in support of the strike. It began on January 19, 1920, with 3,000 FLU members. When the Japanese laborers joined them in February 1920, more than 8,300 plantation laborers, or 77 percent of the work force was on strike. The strike went on for two months.

By 1922, Manlapit had organized a new Filipino Higher Wage Movement which numbered about 13,000 members. In April 1924, it called for a strike on the island of Kauai, demanding $2 a day in wages and the reduction of the workday to eight hours. This strike, which lasted approximately six to eight months, lead to increasing violence against Filipinos. In one incident on September 9, 1924, 16 Filipinos strikers were shot and killed by police in Hanapepe and four policemen were killed. Manlapit was jailed and deported to the mainland. Filipinos who participated in the strike were blacklisted by many employers, which led to the immigration of many families and single men to the mainland.

Although Manlapit went into labor organizing in California, he in returned to Hawaii in 1933 to continue his work. In 1935, he was permanently expelled from Hawaii to the Philippines. By that time, he had already left a lasting legacy of labor empowerment.

In June 1960, the American Federation of Labor chartered the Agricultural Worker’s Organizing Committee (AWOC). Some Stockton organizers in the AWOC were Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, Cipriano “Rudy” Delvo, and Dolores Huerta. They would become integral parts of the labor movement, leading many protests, including the Delano Grape Strike.

The Delano Grape Strike began on September 5, 1965, when the AWOC called a strike against 33 grape growers near Delano California. By September 8, 1965, the 2,000 mostly Filipino members of the AWOC had walked out. When the AWOC approached the National Farm Workers Union (NFWU), led by Cesar Chavez to join the strike, the NFWU declined out of “not being ready.” On September 16, the NFWU joined the strike.

The strength of the united organizations was not to be ignored. In 1967, the AWOC and the NFWU formed the United Farm Workers Union-AFL/CIO (UFW). Cesar Chavez was elected President, and Larry Itliong became Assistant Director. Philip Vera Cruz was elected Vice President, and Pete Velasco became Treasurer.

The grape strike catapulted Cesar Chavez into the national spotlight, but the Filipino leaders received little recognition for their efforts. While the role of individuals of Philippine descent in the grape strike is often overlooked, it is a hope that every group’s contribution to history is acknowledged.

This twenty-second day of Filipino American History Month brings information on the anti-martial law movement (AMLM).

The period from 1965 to 1986 was characterized by a massive influx of Philippine immigrants as a result of changes in immigration law, and by unrest and division in the Philippines and in the United States of America over the government of the U.S.-backed President Ferdinand Marcos.

Ferdinand Marcos was elected President of the Philippines in 1965. Unrest over his leadership led to the launch of the First Quarter Storm on January 30, 1970, marked by anti-Marcos protests in the Philippines from January to March. This is typically seen as the start of the anti-U.S./anti-Marcos movement.

Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines, on September 21, 1972, sparking a massive protest movement among Filipinos in the USA and in the Philippines. Thousands flee the Philippines seeking political freedom. The USA maintained a position of staunch support of the Marcos government during this time.

In 1973, Ferdinand Marcos announced the Balikbayan program, which invited all overseas Filipinos to return to the Philippines to visit. The program was criticized as a pro-Marcos propaganda ploy, but several hundred Filipino Americans return. Tensions rose on May 18, 1973, when Marcos’ blacklist of U.S. residents is revealed in Los Angeles.

On July 28, 1973, the Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino (KDP), or Union of Democratic Filipinos, was founded in Santa Cruz, California. Other anti-Marcos organizations founded in the fall of that year included the Movement for a Free Philippines (September 22, 1973, in Washington DC) and the Friends of the Filipino People (October 20, 1973, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania).

On December 28-29, 1974, the first AMLM Unity Conference was held in Chicago, Illinois. The movement continued to grow and on November 2, 1975, the Anti-Martial Law Coalition was formed in New York, New York.

During the 1980s, the AMLM continued to politicize and polarize the Filipino American community. Even within the movement, ideological rifts plagued. When, on August 21, 1983, Senator and opposition leader Benigno Aquino, Jr. returned to the Philippines and was assassinated at the Manila International Airport, the situation worsened. On November 3, 1985, Ferdinand Marcos announced a “snap election” for the Philippine presidency, to be held on January 17, 1986. However, the election was postponed to February 7, 1986.

On February 22, 1985, the EDSA ”People Power” movement, supported by a military coup, toppled the Marcos regime and elected Corazon Aquino President of the Philippines. Three days later, on February 25, 1986, President Ronald Reagan formally withdrew his support of the Marcos administration, and Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos left the Philippines for Hawaii.

The AMLM in the USA, made up of many groups and individuals, challenged Filipino Americans and the U.S. government of their support of the Marcos regime. It further demonstrated the inextricable connection between the Philippines and the USA. Today, while the time period continues to be a controversial one to discuss, more and more information and research is revealed about it.

This twenty-first day of Filipino American History Month brings information on Filipino World War II veterans and veteran rights.

One of the most pressing long-time issues in the Filipino American community is the fight for Filipinos, who fought for the American military during World War II, to receive full veteran benefits. Over the years, these veterans have acquired partial benefits such as becoming naturalized U.S. citizens, burial benefits with military honors in national cemeteries, and access to care in Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes.

However, Filipino World War II benefits still fall short. They are not eligible for non-war related disability pensions that their American counterparts receive. Many Filipino Americans are barely subsisting and seek livable pensions. In 1993, the Filipino Veterans Equity Act was first introduced to enable Filipino World War II Veterans full benefits. Until today, this act has not been successfully passed. The Filipino American community, young and old, continue to struggle and fight for the rights of our Filipino heroes.

This twentieth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on the International Hotel (I-Hotel).

Filipino Americans have a long history of fighting for equal rights and justice. One notable event in the Filipino American movement revolved around the I-Hotel. From 1920-35 the Filipino male population in the United States was 39,328. Legislation forbade Filipinos from owning land or setting up businesses. They were to be kept moving, remain transient. They stayed in rooming houses, hotels, and labor camps. The I-Hotel was one of these. Manilatown, the Kearny and Jackson Street area of San Francisco, became a permanent settlement, a convenient culture contact. It was the home field workers returned to, where merchant marines lived while in port, where distant relatives and friends could be contacted, and where they could enjoy the security of a common culture.

The I-Hotel served as a family and provided protection. The Filipino community in San Francisco existed in groups dictated by economic necessity and blood brotherhood. The I-Hotel became a symbol for an entire minority community.

About 1954, the I-Hotel became significant for yet another reason. Enrico Banduccci, opened his original “Hungry I” nightclub next door to Club Mandalay in the basement of the I-Hotel where many performing artists got their start, including Nina Simone, the Smothers Brothers, Lenny Bruce, the Kingston Trio, Dr. Irwin Chory, and Bill Cosby.

During the urban renewal and redevelopment movement of the mid-1960s, the I-Hotel was target for demolition, despite its full occupancy. The first eviction notices were issued to residents in 1968, and began an almost 40-year battle spurring disagreements and debate among activists and public officials.

For years after the first eviction notices were served in 1968, many individuals were involved in the long fight that took place on the streets, in courtrooms, and in the everyday lives of the I-Hotel and Manilatown residents. Some community characters involved in the struggle were Al Robles, Filipino American San Francisco Poet, and Bill Sorro, Filipino American activist.

The San Francisco Housing Authority Commission voted to acquire the building using $1.3 million in federal funds and turned it over to tenants rights groups. When a court rejected that plan and ordered evictions in January of 1977, more than five thousand people surrounded the building, barricaded the doors, and chanted against the evictions. Sheriff Richard Hongisto refused to execute the eviction order, which resulted in his being held in contempt and serving five days in his own jail.

The final residents were evicted on August 4, 1977. The building stood empty while the fate of the site continued to be debated, but it was finally demolished in 1981.

Subsequently, because of strong community opposition the site was designated by the Board of Supervisors as a site for low income senior housing. In 1994, the site was acquired by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco. The air rights were later sold to Chinatown Community Development Center which planned to build a replacement low-cost residential project. In 2003, construction began on the new I-Hotel, and the building was completed on August 26, 2005. The new building contains 105 apartments of senior housing. A lottery was held to determine priority for occupancy, with the two remaining living residents of the original I-Hotel given priority. Occupancy started in October 2005. The new building also contains a ground-floor community center and a historical display commemorating the original I-Hotel.

This nineteenth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on Filipino American culture and art.

Filipinos have a long tradition of art. When one learns about musicians like Joseph “Flip” Nunez or Sugar Pie DeSanto, or painters like Eliseo Silva or Alfonso Ossorio, they learn about the multitalented Filipino American community.

In addition to the popular arts, Filipino Americans continue to push the boundaries outside mainstream forms and have achieved recognition for their work. For example, Ian Gamazon and Neill dela Llana, directors of the acclaimed 2005 indie film “Cavite” worked magic with a $7,000 budget.

Similarly, percussionist and composer Susie Ibarra is widely known for her incorporation of diverse styles and influences, such as blued, gamelan, and kulintang, a challenging and cutting edge part of contemporary culture.

In theater, Bindlestiff Studio, established in 1997 in San Francisco, CA, is the only permanent, community-based performing arts venue in the nation dedicated to showcasing emerging Filipino American and Pilipino artists. It provides the often under-served Filipino American community access to diverse offerings in theatrical productions, music and film festivals, workshops in directing, production, acting, stand-up comedy, and writing, as well as a children and youth theater program.

These individuals and groups continue to blaze new trails for Filipinos and Filipino Americans.

This eighteenth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on Filipino American performers.

Filipino American performers are some of the most popular artists working in all aspects of the entertainment industries such as music, film, comedy, and sports. Although artists of Filipino descent have played a myriad of roles, they have rarely been seen or understood as Filipinos. This has especially been the case in the field of acting, where they have been cast in just about every ethnic role. One of the most popular of these portrayals was that of Lou Diamond Phillips who played Mexican musician Ritchie Valens.

In recent years, several artists, such as Chad Hugo of the Neptunes and Apl.D. Ap (Allan Pineda Lindo) of the Black Eyed Peas, have chosen to represent their ethnic background openly and are proud to be Pinoy. Steve Slaton, running back for the Houston Texans, and David Batista, former world heavyweight champion of World Wrestling Entertainment, and Tim Lincecum, pitcher for the San Francisco Giants, have also proclaimed their pride in their Filipino heritage.

Hopefully, with the increase of visibility and representation of Filipino American role models in the wider community and media, Filipino Americans will have more political power and representation and overcome the label of being an “invisible minority.”