Tomorrow's Stories: An Ocean and a Dream Away

By Nieves Catahan Villamin, Rosalie Salutan Marquez and Joe T. Talaugon

FILIPINO AMERICAN HISTORY
In 1763 Filipino Seamen established a settlement in what is now known as Louisiana. The Spanish American War made American “national” of Filipinos and from the early 1900’s through 1935 they were free to enter the United States as long as they had the price of a boat ticket.
Waiting to be told are the stories of the descendants of those “Spanish colonial” seamen, early workers in sugar plantations of Hawaii, men who served in the U.S. Navy since World War I, women who came in the 1920”s and 1930’s ambitious and aspiring college students, eager young workers who toiled in Alaska canneries, farms in California, Arizona, Washington and Montana, the railroads, kitchens and restaurants, as postal workers or houseboys, the American-born second generation of pre-World War II days, war brides, and countless others who constitute the subsequent groups of immigrants from the Philippines.
Stories of Depression, riots and discrimination, vignettes of dance halls, gambling and the other “leisure time” activities, the lodges, churches and organized Filipino communities, the process of acculturation, and the value of family are some of the information

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Sep 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728359113

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© 2020 Nieves Catahan Villamin. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-7283-5910-6 (sc)

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Mission Statement

The mission of the Filipino American National Historical Society shall be to promote understanding education, enlightenment appreciation, and enrichment through the identification, gathering, preservation, and dissemination of the history and culture of Filipino Americans in the United States.

DEDICATION

In Memory:

Margie Talaugon

Thelma Mina

Lily Soriano

Trinidad M. Bagoyo

and all those who had left before them.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Periods of Philippine Colonization

Filipino Migrant Workers in California: 1906 to 1946

Part One

Mail-order Bride: A Path to a Green Card

Love and Marriage

Mary Olvera and Jimmy Salutan

Jack and Aurora Plaza

Rosario Medina Catayas

Crispin dela Cruz

Fay Pepito Gagarin

Part Two

Dr. Joseph Cruz and Rancho Bulakenyo

Cabanatuan City

Nieves Catahan Villamin

AQUILIZAN, PESTANO, and SORIANO FAMILY

Linda Pestano Ruiz

Evangeline Pestano Aquilizan

Angelito Aquilizan

Socorro Maniquiz Painter

Norberto (Jun) Tagunan, Jr

Pangasinan

Marina E. Perez

Camilo Soriano

Flor and Thelma Mina

Veronica and Rodolfo Pacaoan

Clarito De Francia, Ph.D.

Albert R. Calizo

Zambales

Nestor Arguila

Fe Afalla-Cabanting

Trinidad M. Bagoyo

Abraham Garces

Clark Air Base

Sagisi and Reyes Family

Aurea Lida Panlilio Steele

Deacons Liza and Romeo Mabansag

Lori and Saturn David

The First Beauty Pageant in the Philippines – By Nieves C. Villamin

Rosemarie Dumadara

Serafin Villarette

John Leo Opindo Dato

Farming and HUK BALAHAP revolution in the Philippines

The Spanish Influence on Family Dynamics and Eloping

MANIFEST DESTINY

Reflections

Alex Fabros, Jr.

Nieves Catahan Villamin

Leandro Lucas

Tikbalang

Sid A. Valledor

FANHS Member Organizations

History of the Fil-Am Seniors

Filipino Community Of San Luis Obispo County & Vicinity, Inc.

A Brief History of the Lompoc Filipino American Club 1968-2018

About the Authors

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To Rosalie Salutan Marquez, you are my saving grace. I am so fortunate to have you on my team. I took on a gargantuan project that I thought would be a piece of cake because I had done it before. But writing a book about other people proved to be a much more challenging and daunting endeavor. I didn’t have much firsthand information about our Manongs* who made the Central Coast their homes from 1902 up to late 1960. Except for those which stories I have read in prints. I am very thankful that you stepped up on the plate (we’re going to hit home runs) without me asking.

To my mentor Manong¹ Camilo Soriano. You learned the Japanese language; you got the girl, but home beckoned, and you heeded to the call. Thank you for sharing that nugget of your life when you were in the service. An officer of the peace, you are also a gentleman and a man of considerable talent.

To Joe and Margie Talaugon, Karen Evangelista, and the rest of the Talaugon clan. Thank you for your dedication and passion in promoting Filipino history and culture. Your efforts will forever remain in the hearts and minds of the generations to come.

To all contributors, please accept our profound thanks. Special thanks to my EKA Facebook buddies. You probably thought I was pulling your legs. Here are your stories in print!

To Sid Valledor, your passion for preserving today’s stories for the children of tomorrow is very infectious. Thank you for sharing with us your wisdom in biblical proportions about our colonial past. The people we met along from your stories, their challenges, and sacrifices so the younger generations may live without prejudice and roam free from sea to shining sea. Bringing all those stories even to our dining table as the light flickered through the wee hours of the morning was our special moments with you.

By: Nieves C. Villamin

PREFACE

Children who are Left Behind

I find it nearly impossible to choke back my sadness every time I read a story about children who were left behind because their parents had to work overseas. Although overseas employment often brought significant economic benefits to the families left behind, frequently, the consequences on children’s psychological and emotional development were found to be devastating, especially if the child was between the ages of 4 to 10 at the time of separation.

Articles written by Psychologists suggest that maternal and paternal deprivation by children who were left behind at a young age causes pain, anxiety, depression, loneliness that lasts into their adult lives. The first three years of life is when a child’s brain is developed. Deprivation of nourishment and love during those years will result in persistent deficits in cognitive, emotional, and even physical health. Says the Centre for Educational Neuroscience University College London – Birkbeck University of London-UCL Institute of Education.

I watched my darling granddaughter Isabelle, through these stages. From an almost entirely dependent newborn to independent, communicating individual who can dance, sing, and tell stories. I am very thankful that I was able to relive that one-year of missed laughter with my daughter when I immigrated to the US through my darling granddaughter.

The consequence of leaving my homeland and a three-year old child in 1972 for a greener pasture in the US was beyond my expectation. Being a sensitive period, yes, the first three years are most important, something I am now familiar with. My daughter just turned 3 when I left her. The separation traumatized her in such a way that she still blames me for it at times when her separation anxiety gets the worst of her.

How I wish time travel exists so I could right the wrongs I had done unintentionally in the past. Wrongs I didn’t realize broke my daughters’ young spirit, created a wedge between us, and wounded us both. The wound that healed superficially occasionally freshens as time goes by. It was Friday, October 13, 1972, when my husband and I entrusted our three-year-old daughter to one of my siblings as we sought a safer and brighter life in the USA. The reasons for leaving her at that time we thought would justify the cause.

Total Number of OFWs Estimated at 2.3 Million

(Results from the 2018 Survey on Overseas Filipinos)

The number of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) at any time during the period of April to September 2018 was estimated at 2.3 million. Overseas contract workers (OFWs) with existing work contracts comprised 96.2 percent of the total OFWs during the period April to September 2018. The rest (3.8%) worked overseas without a contract (Table 1).

There were more females than males among the OFWs, with the female OFWs comprising 55.8 percent of the total OFWs. Female OFWs were generally younger than male OFWs, with about half (47.5%) of the female OFWs belonging to the age group 25 to 34 years. In comparison, male OFWs in this age group made up 38.9 percent. Male OFWs aged 45 years and older accounted for 21.2 percent of all male OFWs while their female counterparts in this age group made up 14.5 percent (Table 1).

Among occupation groups, elementary occupations (37.1%) were the biggest group of OFWs. Other large occupation groups were the service and sales workers (18.8%) and plant and machine operators and assemblers (13.8%). More than half of the female OFWs were in elementary occupations (58.7%). Among the male OFWs, the largest groups were plant and machine operators and assemblers’ workers (27.8%) (Table 2).

CALABARZON¹² reported the most significant share of OFWs with 17.9%, followed by Central Luzon³² with 14.3 percent, and the National Capital Region⁴³ and Ilocos Region⁵⁴, each with a 9.7 percent share. Fifty percent of the total OFWs came from these four regions⁶⁵ (Table 2).

One out of four or 24.3% of the OFWs worked in Saudi Arabia, which remained to be the top destination of OFWs from April to September 2018. The OFWs who worked in the United Arab Emirates comprised 15.7%; Hong Kong (6.3%); Kuwait (5.7%); and Taiwan (5.5%) and Qatar (5.2%) were the other popular destinations of OFWs (Table 3).

The total remittance sent by OFWs during the period April to September 2018 was estimated at 235.9 billion pesos. These remittances included cash sent home (169.4 billion pesos), money brought home (55.2 billion pesos), and remittances in kind (11.2 billion pesos). The majority of OFWs sent their remittance through banks (52.8%) while the rest through money transfer services (45.0%), agencies or local offices (2.0%), and the rest at 0.1 percent, respectively (Tables 4 and 5).

The remittances sent by OFWs to their respective families may just be a part of the total salary received by the OFWs. Data on remittances in this report are based on the answers given by the survey respondents to the questions on how much cash remittance was received by the family during the period April to September 2018 from a family member who is an OFW and how much cash did this member bring home during the reference period, if any. Further, if the family received goods and products sent by this OFW during the reference period, then the imputed value of such goods was included in his/her total remittance (Tables 4 and 5).

JOSIE B. PEREZ (Sgd.)

Assistant Secretary, Officer-In-Charge

Reference Number: 2019-066

Release Date: April 30, 2019

FOREWORD

Foreword.jpeg

Margie Talaugon – co-

founder of the Guadalupe

Cultural Arts Center.

To the first Filipino immigrants, the price of leaving their homeland was beyond their expectations. Their memories of growing up with family and the warmth of their culture and traditions that bound them together were things they would always remember for the rest of their lives. My father, Serapio (Apiong) Cabatuan, like many of our manongs, could never return home. Until he married my mother, he had lived a life of desperation in California and Alaska.

The promises of equality, education, and freedom never came to be. At the turn of the twentieth century, Filipinos were already considered nationals of the United States. In spite of these hardships, a campaign to recruit the new work force to America—via Hawaii—was successful.

Like the farmer tenants in the Philippines, the manongs had no rights. Worse, they lived in an all-male society of their own, segregated from the larger population—so different from the society where they grew up. As monolingual residents—in their different regional dialects—only a very few became educated in the American language. They became agricultural toilers, farm hands, and domestic workers in America. Laws were used against them—to the extent that any other nationality that chose to marry a Filipino were threatened to lose their citizenship as American.

My mother Margaret Lopez was fortunate to arrive in the United States with her family in 1924. Grandpa Lopez was a cement finisher who was contracted and sponsored to work in America by an American cement company. Mom was educated in Stockton, California. At home, they observed Filipino customs and traditions; it was punctuated with Grandpa Lopez’s Hispanic ways, particularly his style of enforcing discipline. He always reminded his family that he was to be respected and his word was law.

I was born in America and so were my four siblings. As Filipino Americans, we grew up hearing our parents speak Filipino, seeing them comfort themselves following the Filipino ways, and listening to their stories that had anywise transmitted to us Filipino culture. My father became a naturalized citizen after World War II but never was Americanized. My husband Joe and I feel our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will benefit from our Filipino culture and traditions.

My Father and all the other Filipinos immigrants had given a poignant description of their family and the strength of family in celebrating their culture and traditions—through adversity and their struggles in life. Their stories are an absolute narrative of family, tradition, and culture. It bolsters the creed that says that one’s homeland will always be in the heart and is never lost in memory. My husband Joe and I feel our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will benefit from our Filipino culture and traditions.

manong – Ilocano word for an uncle

INTRODUCTION

Periods of Philippine Colonization

First, there was Spain, the country that colonized the Philippines for 333 years. Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who led the Spanish expedition to the East Indies from 1519 to 1522. On March 31, 1521, fifteen days after reaching the Philippine shores, he planted a cross on the island of Limasawa’s highest hill and celebrated the first mass with the natives. Fast forward, the Industrial Revolution (1720 to 1860) brought the United States economic boom and power. For political and economic reasons, the U.S. went to war with Spain on April 25, 1898, and won, ending the war on August 12, 1898. Through an agreement called The Treaty of Paris of 1898, signed on December 10, 1898, Spain relinquished all claim of sovereignty over and title to Cuba and ceded Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The cession of the Philippines involved a compensation of $20 million from the United States to Spain.

Second, the USA. After Spain left the Philippines in 1898, nationalist Filipinos fought with the Americans to rebuff another colonization. That year the Filipino American War began. It ended in 1902, with the U.S. claiming victory over the nationalist Filipinos. The U.S. government installed a military government and adapted the American-style school curriculum with soldiers as the initial teachers. The U.S. also set up a court system and established local governments in towns and provinces. The Tydings-McDuffie Act, established on March 24, 1934, began the process for the Philippines to become an independent country after a ten-year transition period called the Commonwealth era, from 1939 to 1945.

Third, the Japanese invasion. When Japan began modernization in 1854, it hired Prussian and German advisors which militaristic approach to modernization in their own countries prior, were met with efficiency and success. They nurtured a friendly relation but ended after both nations joined other major powers’ race for dominion of continents. When WWI broke out in 1914, Japan allied with Britain. After the Allies won the war, Japan was quick to take over the former German colonies in Asia. Japan’s pursuit of more land in China and its multilateral pact with Germany and Italy led to the Second World War. Aiming to destroy United States Naval Force so they could conquer Southeast Asia without interference Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941. Just ten hours after their attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan launched an attack on the Philippines, still a U.S. colony on December 8, 1941.

The Japanese soldiers created hell on earth for many Filipino families. They made friendly neighbors turned into enemies by organizing the Makabayang Katipunan ng mga Pilipino or MAKAPILI. Formed in 1944 to give military aid, MAKAPILIs were given an equal basis with the Imperial Japanese army.

The atrocious Japanese with political prisoner Korean soldiers killed babies with their bayonets some for no reason at all. They raped Filipino women, forced many young girls to be comfort women (sex slaves used by as many as 70 soldiers each day). The Japanese government’s continued refusal to take part or even just acknowledge their plight is a nightmare that continues to hunt the victims who are dying of old age already without seeing justice.

The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities and alliances among Great Britain, China, and the Soviet Union, forced Japan to surrender on August 15, 1945. The documents officially ending WW11 were signed on September 2, 1945.

Fourth, and finally, Happy Days came when on July 5, 1945, Douglas MacArthur announced the liberation of the Philippines. The friendly Americans introduced chocolates, blue seal cigarettes, chewing gum, and Libby’s Corned Beef to the Filipinos. Every Filipino offered the V sign and called every American soldier Joe. Victory Joe was the standard greeting between an American soldier and a Filipino of all age groups on the streets.

With the American forward-thinking government and society merged through the enactment of different laws and acts (migration or integration) with the dreamy Filipino culture. Perhaps a community that lived for almost 400 years old could end up deep in the archives if not lost in translation if stories such as those compiled in this book hadn’t been recorded.

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By: Nieves C. Villamin

References:

The Makabayang Katipunan ng mga Pilipino (Patriotic Association of Filipinos), better known as the MAKAPILI, was a militant group formed in the Philippines in 1944 during World War II to give military aid to the Imperial Japanese Army. The group was meant to be on equal basis with the Japanese Army and its leaders were appointed with ranks that are equal to their Japanese counterparts. WIKIPEDIA

Treaty of Peace between the United States and Spain, December 10, 1898. The Avalon Project New Haven

Connecticut Lilian Goldman Law Library. Yale Law School in 2008. Retrieved June 15, 2014.

a b Wilmott 1983

"Fukudome, Shigeru Shikan: Shinjuan Kogeki (Tokyo, 1955).

Filipino Migrant Workers in

California: 1906 to 1946

While Hawaii’s economy was essentially sugar plantations, which demanded fixed or tied labor, California’s agricultural economy was seasonal and thus encouraged workers to move from farm to farm in response to seasons and crops. In response to the need for a steady supply of fluid labor, Filipinos arrived in California in huge numbers starting in the 1920s.

Previously, Filipinos in California were mostly students sent by the Philippine government to study under the pensionado system. In the 1920s, there was a new demand for laborers on the West Coast, particularly in California. Many Filipinos who came to California were sakadas.

Sakadas were Filipino men imported by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association to Hawaii as skilled laborers from 1906 to 1946, mainly from the Visayas and Ilocos regions of the Philippines who later broke their three-year contract with the Hawai’i Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA).

In California, they worked under the contract system, i.e., a labor contractor entered into an agreement with growers to provide the necessary workers upon payment of a fee. The grower would then be responsible for paying the wages of the laborers.

In 1920, there were 5,693 Filipinos living in the US, around 3,300 in California. By 1930, 45,208 Filipinos were living in the US with 30,000 toiling in California and approximately 4,000 more arriving yearly. The Filipinos contributed to the creation of an excess labor supply which growers used against organized labor.

Like in Hawaii, many Filipinos were brought in as strike breakers. The growers also employed a divide-and-rule tactic, which resulted in racial conflicts. It created animosity between the Filipinos and the Mexicans as well as between Whites and Filipinos since they competed for the same jobs.

As agricultural laborers, the Filipinos picked and washed asparagus and a variety of fruits, such as peaches, melons, grapes, pears, apricots, apples, and citrus fruits. Others were engaged in rice harvesting, beet hoeing and topping, tomato and lettuce harvesting, and other jobs classifiable as ranch labor. Stockton, Salinas, and Watsonville absorbed much of the Filipinos, but a huge number of Filipinos also worked as agricultural farm hands in the counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Glenn, Kern, Monterey, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Santa Barbara, and Sonoma.

Like the HSPA, California growers preferred Filipinos as agricultural laborers because they were perceived as good and fast workers, quick learners, and willing to work for low wages. But like the sakadas, the Filipinos in California intended to only save money and return home and live comfortably. They saw themselves as merely sojourners and there was no serious effort towards assimilation during this early period. Besides, the divide-and-rule tactic of the growers precluded any inter-ethnic association.

Despite the differences in the nature of employment, the Filipino workers in California, like the sakadas, labored in pitiful working and living conditions. They stayed in camps with run-down bunkhouses and shacks, which looked like chicken coops.

They worked long hours, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., six days a week. Work was extremely hard since they stooped most of the time, and by the end of the day their backs ached and they were itchy and sweating. Carlos Bulosan, a migrant worker himself, movingly captured the experiences of the workers in his novel America Is in the Heart.

(Printed with permission from the Philippine History Site of the Filipino-American National Historical Society)

The First Filipino Footprints in Morro Bay, Ca. USA

In Morro Bay, a unique rock marks the original landing of Filipinos to America on October 18, 1587, some 33 years before the Pilgrims landed.

Captain Pedro De Unamuno, who sailed for Spain, recruited Filipinos because they were trustworthy and good seamen. He landed on Morro Bay, close to San Luis Obispo on the Central Coast of California. One of our chapter members, Sid Valledor, researched this and even went to Morro Bay around the same time to figure out the climate. Amidst the heavily fogged, Sid estimated at what point they landed by checking the latitude, etc. He determined that the place where they landed was about 2 miles south of the discovery museum’s current location.

The turning point in all this has been the original research of Unamuno’s logs, which was published by Eloisa Gomez Borah in 1886 in Amerasia Journal of the UCLA (University of California). Borah, a librarian and a trustee of FANHS, makes a case for a Filipino presence, telling the story of how Unamuno was part of a Spanish expedition led by Francisco Gali in 1584. When Gali died, Unamuno lost command of the two ships he inherited after taking a side trip to Macao. Stranded in Asia, Unamuno was finally able to buy another boat, described by Borah as a their single-deck three-masted vessel named Nuestra Señora de Buena Esperanza. And the deckhands were mostly from the Philippines.

On July 12, 1587, Unamuno headed for points east and was at sea until the end of his voyage on November 22, 1587, in Acapulco, Mexico.

But there was a brief three-day land excursion between October 18-20 that turned out to be their foray onto California’s central coast.

Unamuno sailed with the Franciscan Father Martin Ignacio de Loyola, nephew of the founder of the Jesuit order, a few priests, and soldiers.

The logs also reveal the presence of at least eight Filipinos identified as Yndios Luzones. They were jacks-of-all-trade seamen, seen as the strong workforce of the ship. In an email exchange, Borah told me too often they were left off the logs.

Filipinos present on these early explorations and trade ships were overlooked in captains’ logs, Borah said. Even in Captain Unamuno’s log, which I chose because he did mention Indios Luzones (it was spelled both with an I and a Y), documenting the presence of Filipino natives was inconsistent, as my count in the article provides the proof.

Borah counted Yndios appearing in the logs 42 times total. Twenty-three times, it was a reference to the native Californians encountered, but 19 times it described the crew.

But they mattered on Sunday, October 18. That was when Unamuno, after anchoring off the California coast in a place he called Puerto San Lucas, formed a landing party.

It was 12-armed soldiers led by Father Martin Ignacio de Loyola, cross in hand. But even before the cross, up ahead of them, all were two Filipinos armed with swords and shields.

It was their typical formation.

But note: The Filipinos were first.

On Day one, the expedition climbed two hills, saw no settlements or people, and took possession of the land for the King of Spain.

On the second day, October 19, eight Filipino scouts led a priest and 12 soldiers for further exploration.

It was on the third day, October 20, that the expedition encountered violence. But not before, there was an effort from the ship’s barber and some Filipinos to make a peace offering of food and clothing.

Mr. Guillermo was assuming they needed clothes, a meal, and a haircut?

Borah said it was fine until the Indians tried to kidnap the barber, and that was when a violent exchange ensued. The log noted one soldier was killed, but so was one unnamed Filipino, by a spear, his blood spilled on American soil.

Unamuno didn’t stay long. He left by daybreak on October 21 for Acapulco.

These were the significance of three days?

Borah calls it the unique evidence of a Filipino presence that is too often obscured when chroniclers fail to identify or differentiate among non-Europeans in their crew.

(She was adamant. Quote from Eloise.)

Filipino natives, among the non-white Indios of that era, did not write the logs or the letters to the king or any other contemporary documents, Borah wrote me in an email exchange. However, Filipino Indios were four out of five who worked the Spanish galleons (Schurz, 1939) in crossing the Pacific for 250 years, and they were the advance guard in the land expeditions and provided the information evidenced in Captain Unamuno’s log.

She further stated, What needs to be done now is the championing of our history because while Filipino ‘crabs’ snipe at our history that is documented by academic research, the Chinese was championing fable in 1421: The Year China Discovered America by a former British Navy officer Gavin Menzies.

Borah was referring to a much-discredited story that suggests China discovered America before Columbus.

According to Emil Guillermo, So it’s interesting that Filipinos are still forgotten, unremarked upon, and ignored, even as they exist as nearly a quarter of the more than 20 million Asian Americans today.

And yet of all the Asian Americans, Filipinos were here first. They even spilled blood, yet left empty-handed after three October days in California, 1587.

That was why the Filipino American National Historical Society is championing the cause. And why not? Columbus was in the West Indies, not on the continent. Unamuno and the Filipinos were before the Pilgrims, before Jamestown.

But most of us know of the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, the boats of Columbus, the Italian who sailed for Spain and landed somewhere other than America.

Thanks to the Filipinos for this history. Let us savor history and celebrate with a big Filipino meal in honor of the first Filipinos to America, 430 years ago, October 18, 1587.

(The Amok Monologues, written and performed by Emil Guillermo, comes on Oct. 18, 2017, to UOP Stockton, 7 pm, Wendell Phillips Center Room 140. The College of the Pacific sponsored the free presentation.)

Through these findings, Joe and Margie Talaugon and Ernie Cabreana were contacted since our chapter was chartered in 1992. That year our chapter received a resolution proclaiming October Filipino American History Month. It was the priority of FANHS to encourage each chapter to submit to the trustees a proper historical site in the development of Filipino American History up to 1945.

Our chapter received the approval to proceed with the marker in Morro Bay of these findings. The chapter’s co-founders contacted the officials in the Morro Bay meeting with the City Administrator and the Mayor at that time. They then met with the director of Park and Recreation to local a site for the monument.

They agreed upon a dedication date; on Saturday, October 21, 1995, and all the chapters were contacted of this project and dedication. Margie Talaugon was the emcee, welcoming everyone and dignitaries. About 500 people attended this dedication.

The guest speaker was an SLO County Supervisor Bud Laurant, who said, This memorial is long overdue in recognizing the many contributions of the Filipino Americans not only in this county, not in this state but throughout the nation. This rock (marker) you have chosen will be a symbol of the abiding strength of the Filipino American community in this country.

Dr. Virgilio Pilapil, FANHS President, emphasized, In today’s installation of the historical marker, we have begun to acknowledge the beginning of an on-going role of Filipino Americans towards the pursuit of our country’s evolution and towards what it is today. I thank the members of the California Central Coast Chapter for initiating this worthy project.

Dorothy Cordova indicated that We the Filipino people are sleeping giants politically, economically and historically. Founding President Emeritus Fred Cordova added, We are always talking about unity, and today we should hold hands because this landmark is Unity.

Peter Jamero, FANHS Vice President and Joe Talaugon, chapter member a Filipino-Chumash Indian descent, both thanked everyone for their support and attending the ceremonies. Joe thanked everyone on behalf of the Chumash Indians.

There was an introduction of two Filipino American officials from the City of Guadalupe, Mayor Renee Pili, and city councilman Ariston Julian, both from pioneer families.

The entertainment was fantastic at the Morro Bay community center. The Little Rondallas from Santa Maria playing the native Filipino songs with string instruments.

The Central Coast Filipino Coalition