Curricular Resources > 1996 Volume IV > Unit 5 (96.04.05) > Section 3

Remaking America: Contemporary U.S. Immigration

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 96.04.05

Unit Guide

The Diversity of Filipinos in the United States

Daisy C. S. Catalan

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Lesson Plan 3

Teaching time 1 class period

I. Objective
At the conclusion of this activity the students will be able to:

Write case histories of migrant or immigrant experience.

II. Materials:
Reproduced copies of Filipino case histories

Lined paper or composition notebook; pen

III. Procedure

1. Teacher distributes copies of Filipino immigrants’ case histories. Allow students to skim the stories. Students will find meanings of unfamiliar words in their bilingual dictionaries.
2. Teacher reads aloud one case history. Students follow the reading silently. Teacher encourages students to visualize events and places as they read together.
3. Teacher starts the discussion and allow students to relate some of his / her personal experience orally.
4. Have students write their experience or any member of their family. The teacher will remind the students to refer some of their family’s stories to their previous assignment when they were doing their time lines. Some guide questions the students could use when writing their case studies are:
What are the reasons why the immigrant choose to come to America?
How did he/she come here? Does he / she have relatives in the United States ?
What hardships did he/she experience when he/she relocated to the new country
Where did he/she reside before coming to New Haven?
How does it feel to go to school in a foreign country not knowing the language well?
What was his/her occupation before coming to the United States?
What are some of the skills he/she brought with him/her?
What kind of work is the immigrant currently doing?
How is the immigrant received as a newcomer here?
Is he/she planning to go back home?
If he/she returns home , how is he/she received by his/her compatriots?

Different Phases of Filipino Immigration in the United States

1898 Commodore Dewey sailed to Manila as war broke out between United States and Spain. Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States at the Treaty of Paris on December 10th.
1900-1945 First Phase of Filipino Immigration to the United States
1900 First Filipino immigrants came to the mainland United States. They were made up of students called “pensionados”. They were sons and daughters of rich influential Filipinos often friends of United States officials. They were sent to study at the expense of the United States government. They were often “mestizos” a mixture of Spanish and Filipino blood. There were also volunteers for services in the U.S. army, navy, and merchant marines during World War I. Most of these Filipinos stayed in the United States after the war.
1906 First group of 15 Filipino men arrived in Hawaii to work in the sugar plantations. They were recruited by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association from rural areas in Northern and Central Philippines. They were called “sacadas” . Several years earlier the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Portuguese and others had already started working in the plantations.
1922 Filipino laborers in Hawaii were recruited to work for higher wages in the United States mainland as canners in Alaska, fruit and vegetable farmers in the state of Washington and California. Some laborers whose contracts had expired in Hawaii opted to go to the mainland rather than returning home. Likewise, Filipino students rich or poor came to the mainland United States with plans to complete their education. Most of these students were on their teens or early twenties. Many had only a few dollars in their pockets having used most of the money from the mortgage of their parents’ lands or sale of their animals to pay their fares. Although they were eager to continue their education they discovered that they could not earn enough money to support themselves and go to school at the same time. Many of these Filipinos limited their job opportunities to the lowest paying menial occupations.
1930 Approximately at this time 150 thousand (PedrazaRumbaut,1996:296) had been contract workers in the sugar and pineapple plantations in Hawaii. After their contracts expired more than 50 thousand (Teodoro, 1981:4)either returned to the Philippines or went on to the mainland. At this time being the aftermath of the great depression 7,300 Filipinos (Teodoro,1981:4) were repatriated to the Philippines because of lack of work.
1934 U.S. Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Independence Act which established the Commonwealth of the Philippines. It set a ten-year transition period for which the United States would withdraw all rights of possession over the Philippines.
1934-1945 Aftermath of depression and World War II years. A quota of 50 Filipinos a year could emigrate to the United States as permanent residents.
1946 Philippine Independence from the United States
1946-1965 Second Phase of Filipino Immigration
The majority of immigrants at this time were war brides or wives of Filipino service men. Immigration quota was raised to 100 Filipinos per year immediately after independence. President Truman signed the Immigration and Nationality Act which enabled many Asian residents in the United States to apply for citizenship. Filipinos who had served honorably for three years in the United States Armed Forces were eligible for naturalization as U.S. citizens. The law likewise gave the Filipinos the opportunity to request or petition members of their family who were entitled to non-quota or high preference status to join them. The recruitment of plantation workers to Hawaii continued . Some established workers requested recruitment of younger male relatives. During the two decades from 1946 to 1965 over 34,000 Filipinos (Pedraza-Rumbaut,1996:295) came to the United States.
1965 Present Third Phase of Filipino Immigration
1965 Liberalization of immigration laws. This increased the Filipino immigration to the United States. The guiding philosophy behind the new policy was the admission of relatives, the reunification of families and the recruitment of needed skilled professional workers. The number of immigrants allowed to enter by quota in each country from the eastern hemisphere was 20,000. Those allowed to enter fell under preference categories. Exempted from the quota were minor children, spouses and parents of adult U.S. citizens. Also exempted from the quota were admissions of refugees. The influx of Filipino immigrant professionals such as doctors, nurses, medical technologist, teachers etc. began.
1980’s More than half of the Filipino American population in the United States were foreign born.
1990’s The Immigration and Naturalization Service(INS) reported 1 million (Pedraza-Rumbaut,1996:295) Filipino admissions to the United States.

Different Phases of Puerto Rican Migration to the United States

1898 Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States as a result of the Treaty of Paris which ended the Spanish-Cuban-American War.
19001945 First Phase of Puerto Rican Migration
Most of these immigrants came from the rural areas. They were displaced farmers who were victims of the colonial transition (from Spanish to American regime) and the devastation of the 1899 San Ciriaco hurricane. Some immigrants were contracted industrial and agricultural labor who traveled as far as Hawaii to work in the sugar plantations. Those who came to the mainland were called “pioneros” or pioneers. They came and settled in New York in Brooklyn, East Harlem and in some sections of Manhattan.
1903 539 Puerto Rican children (Pedraza-Rumbaut,1996:100) were already enrolled in Hawaiian schools.
1922 There were 1,715 Puerto Ricans (Teodoro,1981:4) sugar plantation workers in Hawaii.
1930Puerto Ricans came to reside in the United States practically in every state of the nation
1940 70 thousand (Pedraza-Rumbaut,1996:102) lived in New York metropolitan area. Studies have found that those living in the United States at this time had twice the average years of schooling of those in Puerto Rico (Rodriguez,1989:5). The migrants at this time were predominantly skilled and semiskilled and they were mostly born and raised in the big cities in the island. Also, most of them were employed in the island before migration. There was a predominance of women who came during this time.
1942 Puerto Rican plantation workers in Hawaii were 648 (Teodoro,1981:24)
19461964 The Second Phase of Puerto Rican migration also known as “the Great Migration”. This is the period of the largest numbers of Puerto Ricans that arrived in the United States. The immigrants at this time were mostly male, unskilled and came from rural areas. These men came hoping to get jobs, but since World War II just ended they became jobless because there was no work available.
1960 Peak of Puerto Rican immigration
1965 Present Third Phase of Puerto Rican Migration
This period is called the “revolving door migration”. It is the fluctuating pattern of migration as well as the moving out of Puerto Ricans from New York state to other parts of the nation.
1970’s Puerto Rican household mostly headed by women who
worked in low paying jobs. 1.5 million Puerto Ricans (Pedraza-Rumbaut,1996:102) are in the United States mainland.
1990 2.7 million Puerto Ricans (Pedraza-Rumbaut,1996:102) reside in the United States today.

Background Information

The Philippines is an independent nation located in the western Pacific 500 miles off the coast of Southeast Asia with Taiwan on the north and Borneo on the south. It has a land area of 115,600 square miles divided among its 7,100 islands. Although only 2,000 more or less islands are named some smaller islets appear and disappear with the tide. The first inhabitants of the islands were the “aetas” a small negroid race, then later peopled chiefly by waves of Indonesian and Malay migrants. Traders from various parts of Asia had visited the islands long before the Europeans came. Islam was introduced to the southern part of the islands during the 15th century. Ferdinand Magellan, a Spanish explorer claimed the islands for Spain in 1521. Then began a 300-year colonial history which ended in a revolution and a declaration of Philippine independence on June 12, 1898. However, the United States occupied the country and claimed it as a territory after the Treaty of Paris was signed to end the Spanish-Cuban-American War in 1898. An American military, then civilian government ruled until the creation of the ten-year Philippine Commonwealth in 1935. The Philippines was granted independence on July 4, 1946 after the devastating Second World War. Many historians have mentioned that one important peculiarity of Philippine history is the emergence of a nation whose cultural source is a fusion of Asian, Spanish and American. The colonial experience of the Philippines with Spain was the predominance of Catholicism in the islands. Likewise Carino mentioned that Spain’s other legacy was “ the Filipinos’ subordination to the dominant economic and political interests of the colonizers which will help explain Filipino-American’s acceptance of similarly dominant interests in the United States.”(Carino,1996:294).

The colonial experience of the Philippines with the United States has a tremendous impact on Philippine immigration. The linkage between these two countries was established economically (even after decolonization ) politically and socially so that within a span of four decades the Filipinos became highly Americanized. This was enhanced when the Philippine educational system was patterned after the United States and English was used as the medium of instruction in the school system. English became very useful because of the linguistic diversity of the islands. There are more of less 80 languages and dialects throughout the country although linguists have grouped them into eight major languages. The similarity of the Philippine and American educational system enabled Filipino professionals to be easily absorbed in the United States workforce.

Meanwhile, during the colonial and post colonial period the United States maintained the two largest military naval and air bases in the country (considered the largest in the Asian Pacific region) which facilitated marriages between American military personnel and Filipino women and eventually the migration of their families to the United States. In addition, there was also a vast recruitment of Filipinos to the United States navy that at one point “there were more Filipinos serving in the U.S. navy than in the entire Philippine navy”(Carino,1996:294).

The Current Situation

The Filipinos are the second largest Asian immigrant group in the United States today behind the Chinese. They have settled in all the fifty states with the largest concentration in California, Hawaii, Illinois and the New York/New Jersey areas. There are other large communities in the state of Washington, the Midwest and the eastern states in Pennsylvania and New England states. Since the 1960’s the Philippines has sent the largest number of immigrant professionals to the United States particularly nurses, doctors, and medical technologists. Similarly, there was also a high proportion of international students (Pedraza-Rumbaut,1996:30) enrolled in American universities. The majority of these students chose not to return home.

During the 70’s the Philippine government under the Marcos administration formed the Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB) an agency that supported overseas employment of Filipinos. The government’s objectives were to address domestic unemployment pressure and to stimulate economic growth. The program was widely accepted with the assumption that individual families would benefit from higher incomes and that the workers would stimulate savings; invest their money in productive enterprise and that these investments would in turn bring new employment opportunities and higher wages to the sending communities. The program was also thought to be temporary and tightly monitored. Indeed, since the inception of this policy the Philippines became one of the leading source of international labor migration first in construction jobs in Africa, the Middle East and Europe then later to service oriented jobs in Europe, United States and the developed countries in Asia. In fact Philippine officials reported U.S.$800 million (Lindquist, Asian Pacific Migration Journal,Vol2,1993:78) overseas earnings remitted back into the Philippine economy during the peak years.

Recent studies have shown however, that although some migrant workers returned home and started recruiting kin to follow them, most of these workers stayed after their contracts expired and worked illegally or moved on to another developed country and entered as tourists. The most preferred country of destination for these workers was the United States. Other interesting findings show little of the earnings of migrant workers were directed toward productive enterprise. Instead, the earnings were used as “debt repayments, subsistence living, land purchase, house construction, and consumption of imported items.” (Lindquist,1993:78). Many observers speculate that remittances fueled inflation and emphasized the disparities between the wealthy and the poor. During the 80’s when the Philippines was in deep economic and political crises due to the turbulent waning years of the Marcos regime, then followed by the unstable Aquino administration, there was a massive exodus of Filipinos abroad. Although the initial destination may not have been the United States (pre-departure immigrants to the U.S. will usually take a “lifetime” to wait for a visa without an immediate family member who is a citizen or a resident; non-immigrant visa is very tedious and costly See Pessar,1995:6-10) joining the migrant workers was a stepping stone to ones final destination -the United States. Most workers however depart without legal work contracts and the quickest way to leave the country would be under the tourist visa. Since there was no scarcity of workers willing to go abroad, recruiters began to extract fees from aspiring contract workers. The gatekeepers took advantage of those willing to pay large sums of money for the chance to go abroad. A lot of new graduate nurses and other health service professionals who are now residing in the United States were victimized under these conditions. There was also numerous Filipino professionals with stable jobs in the country mostly in the middle class sector such as teachers, bank employees, government employees who left as tourists. Most ended up as domestic helpers or in other menial jobs in their host countries.

Needless to say the diversity of Filipinos in the United States today cannot be overemphasized. They may be grouped as the “old timers” or plantationbased Filipinos and their second or third generation descendants; the pre-World War II Filipino immigrants mostly single men; the war brides who came immediately after the war and those that came after independence; the professional Filipinos and their families in the post 1965 period; the Filipino-American military personnel and their families; the spouses of the American military personnel and their families; and the current flow of pre-departure immigrants with different category visas. They include the immediate families of U.S. citizens and residents; and occupational based immigrants. There are also non-immigrant category admissions that include students, tourists, delegates to conventions, Filipino war veterans, household members of the diplomatic corps, businessmen, contract workers, fiancees of U.S. citizens and others. The latter category who chose to stay in the United States will find a way to adjust their status, hence they are called status adjusters.

In view of the fact that the Filipino immigration population contains a higher proportion of professionals (Carino;1996;297) “they tend to be less clustered and “visible”. Their integration is not problematic due to the fact that they have the English proficiency to interact with the host society. Carino adds that Filipino Americans have high levels of educational attainment relative both to the U.S. and Philippine population. The socio-economic position of American Filipinos is varied. Those who were born here and raised in the United States and have attained higher education receive higher incomes compared to foreign-born Filipinos. This may be attributed to the fact that being reared in the American culture they are more familiar with the intricacies of American economy. A number of Filipino Americans have excelled in their own respective fields. They have made strides in business, industry, in the military, in all trades and professions. But it is in politics and government that they had their earliest and most significant gains. Take for example Benjamin Cayetano Jr., who is the present governor in the state of Hawaii. He is a second generation son of a Filipino plantation worker. Likewise , in the states of California and Hawaii, there are numerous state judges and elected officials of Filipino ancestry in both of these states’ congress. Another very successful Filipino-American is Loida Nicolas Smith, a foreign born Filipino and lawyer by profession who is now the Chairman and CEO of TLC Beatrice the largest African-American owned company in the United States. She assumed the position when her husband died .

There are also socio-economic disparities between the recent Filipino immigrants. Those who come on the basis of occupational skills are women in their prime working age, more professional with higher educational attainment. The family based immigrant group on the other hand, are much older, less professional in occupational background and less likely to be absorbed in the American labor market. If ever they get jobs, they end up in sweat shops, jobs without benefits, domestic services, or any odd jobs with internal arrangements of wages that don’t require deductions for income taxes. Also, this is the group that most often would claim government assistance. Social interaction between Filipinos usually takes place in Filipino American ethnic associations. These associations will usually celebrate independence day and other Philippine holidays including religious holidays. Social interaction also takes place frequently among those who share hometown origins. Hometown ties become important because one’s townmate is a peer whom one can trust and depend on. It is not surprising to see two newly acquainted Filipinos who inevitably ask the question “Where do you come from in the Philippines?” This question will be followed by other questions seeking out acquaintances should it turn out that the other came from the same hometown. Families usually maintain clan networks on both maternal and paternal sides. These are kept separate from other social network such as friends, church associates and work associates. Families are involved in celebrations of family anniversaries, birthdays, graduations and weddings. Filipinos are not exempt from racism in the United States. Just like other minorities forms of racial discrimination directly or indirectly have affected the economic success of Filipinos as a whole in this country. It is for this reason that Filipino ethnic communities strongly persist because it is among compatriots that Filipinos fall back when they are subjected to institutional discrimination and anti-immigrant prejudices in the host society .

Case Studies

Example 1.

Name: Agnes Age: 48 Marital Status: single

Year arrived: 1970 Current Job: Asst. Director of Nursing

Agnes was born in one of the islands in Central Philippines. She comes from an upper middle class family, both parents are professionals and own some properties. She is one of the three siblings in the family. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing in 1970. She chose nursing as a profession knowing that she could go to America. She always looked at America with wonder and awe. Before nursing school America rolled across movie screens. It was a fantasy place filled with white skinned people who were free of daily concerns. The streets had sidewalks and were well paved without blemish and spotlessly clean. In nursing school her professors had been sent earlier to the United States for post graduate studies and then returned back to the Philippines to teach. The most successful and admired doctor practitioners were those trained in the United States. A few months before graduation she had already applied to work in one of the university teaching hospitals on the East coast. These teaching hospitals were recruiting new graduates to work in the United States. Agnes was accepted in one of the hospitals a month after her graduation. She left immediately with three classmates. They joined other nurses who were graduates from their nursing school and who came earlier. In due time she found out that American nurses received higher pay than her. She immediately prepared for the state board exams to become certified. When her contract expired with the hospital , she decided to stay rather than return back home to the Philippines. She passed the state board exams then applied and was accepted in another hospital. She managed to have her working visa adjusted to reside permanently and eventually became a U.S. citizen. Ever since her arrival she has only gone home twice since her parents also came and visited her.

Example 2.

Name: Jose Age: 50 Marital status: Married

Year arrived: 1983 Current Job: Project Engineer

Jose was born in one of the southwestern islands in the Philippines. He is the oldest of ten siblings born to parents who were government employees. The father was a World War II veteran , a member of the Philippine Scouts, who were part of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East(USAFFE). He went to Engineering school and graduated using his father’s Veteran’s Educational Benefits to pay for college. He graduated in 1966. Jose learned about America not only from Hollywood movies and History books in school but also from personal experiences of the members of his family. His father and uncles were all members of the Philippine Scouts during WWII. His oldest uncle died in the famous Bataan Death March together with other thousands of Americans and Filipinos when they surrendered to the Japanese. After the war his grandparents received his deceased uncle’s benefits that helped the family economically through tough times. Both his grandparents received lifetime pensions in U.S. dollars. Jose considered Americans his Big Brothers. General MacArthur was always an inspiration to his family, a man who represented America as a loyal and trusted friend. Jose applied to immigrate to the United States under the occupation preference category (P-3), in 1970. For the meantime he was working as an engineer in the Bureau of Public Highways, a stable job. He was helping out a younger sister and brothers going to college. In 1972, there was a recruitment of Filipino engineers, doctors and architects to work in West Africa. The offer was good and the benefits attractive for a young engineer like Jose who wanted some adventure. Jose applied as a contract engineer and was easily accepted. Before leaving for his new job he married his girlfriend. He left for Africa in the early part of 1973. Five months later his pregnant wife joined him. Soon after, Jose had a family. Jose requested the U.S. embassy in Africa to transfer his immigration papers from Manila. He was looking forward to its approval while he was working abroad. Eventually, in 1983 the U.S. embassy in Africa notified Jose that his third preference visa was approved. That was a span of thirteen (13) years since he applied in 1970. He left Africa and immigrated to the United States with his family. Jose was considered a pre-departure immigrant. (Pre-departure immigrant means that Jose had legal documents before he entered the United States). When he arrived in the United States, Jose and his family stayed with his wife’s sister while he was looking for jobs. He did not have a hard time getting a job as a Highway engineer because of his work experiences in the Philippines and in Africa. He prepared for the state board exams for engineers and after two years he got his professional engineers license.

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