Pilipino Ka Ba?

by Almira Astudillo Gilles

October is Filipino American History Month, which commemorates the arrival of the first Filipinos in Morro Bay, California on October 18, 1587. A galleon trade route  operated between 1565 and 1815, connecting Asia, the Americas, and Europe. Manila was at the center of one of these routes, transporting goods from China to Latin America, the U.S. West Coast, and Louisiana.

Filipino sailors, called Indios Luzones, were the first Asians to step foot in the Americas, arriving aboard the Nuestra Senora de Buena Esperanza, which had sailed from Portugese Macau. These Filipinos preceded the first colony in the U.S. at Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, founded by English settlers. However, violence broke out between the crew and the Chumash people, and the crew returned to their ship and left. The next documented landing of Filipinos in the U.S. was in November 1595, when the Manila galleon San Agustin was wrecked on the California Coast at Point Reyes. The crew departed in a salvaged launch and reached Acapulco.

But in 1763, Filipino sailors, tired of the abuse from the Spanish, deserted their ships and escaped into the marshlands of Louisiana. They settled in a bayou on the shore of Lake Borgne and became the first Filipinos to settle in the U.S. Called Manilamen, these immigrants, along with other people of color, built a fishing village called Saint Malo. Isolated and mosquit-infested, the place was a convenient place to hide from Spanish officials. With houses built on stilts, netting to keep out critters, and beds stuffed with dried Spanish moss, they thrived. They revolutionized the shrimp industry with their methods of drying fish and peeling shrimp shells. They fought for the U.S. during the War of 1812 under General Andrew Jackson.

A strong hurricane destroyed the village in 1915, and many relocated to New Orleans. Many married into Isleno, Cajun, and indigenous communities, securing the legacy of Filipino Americans.

Spain controlled the Philippines until the end of the Spanish American war in 1898, when the U.S. annexed the islands. Large-scale immigration began in 1906 and by 1932, over 150,000 Filipinos migrated, mostly to Hawaii and California, to work as agricultural workers. Filipinos then were treated as U.S. nationals. The U.S. then began the process of recognizing Philippine independence and in 1935, Filipinos were no longer U.S. nationals. After 1965, when discrimination based on country of origin was eliminated, Filipino immigration swelled, due to petitions of family members already in the U.S. According to the latest Census survey, 4.1 million Filipinos were living in the U.S. in 2022, which accounts for 17% of the total Asian population in the country.

They took Polaroids of workshop participants

I was at the National Museum of Mexican Art (NMMA) for a poetry workshop on ethnicity. The exhibit called Contemporary Casta Portraiture: Nuestra”Calidad” featured family portraits by Delilah Montoya. Using a DNA kit, she was able to trace the migration route of all the individuals in each photograph. Just like in the Philippines, when Spain ruled Mexico, Spain used racial classifications to describe ethnicity, such as “mestiza” for mixed marriages.

Kit used to collect DNA samples.
Vials below portrait contain different colors of sand, to indicate mix of Mediterranean, Native American, Northern European, Northeast Asian, and Southeast Asian ancestry.

While it is helpful to know the progression of Filipino migration to the U.S., what I found just as interesting were the results of Pew Research Center (https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/08/06/filipino-americans-a-survey-data-snapshot/) conducted in 2022 and 2023. Although the 1,051 Filipinos who participated is a fraction of the Filipino American population, the results are revealing.

Identity: 61% describe themselves either as Filipino or Filipino American, 20% identify as Asian American, and 13% call themselves as American. 16% hid a part of their heritage (such as cultural or religious practices) from people who are not Asian.

View of the U.S. and Philippines: 76% viewed the U.S. favorably. In spite of 72% having a favorable view of the Philippines, only 31% said they would move there, and that willingness depends on where they were born (Filipino immigrants at 43%  and U.S.-born Filipinos at 10%).

Achieving the American Dream: 41% say they are on their way to achieving the American dream, and 29% say they have achieved it. For 29%

Quoting the NMMA, it is true that “race, like culture, is a social construct.” How Filipino we are will be defined by what is in our veins and what is in our heart and mind. The U.S. government will give us parameters for identification but nobody can change what we feel. This Filipino American History Month, only we can decide for ourselves if the emphasis is on “Filipino” or “American.”

We were given 15 minutes to write a poem about “the landscape of our personhood” and this is what I wrote, referencing Lake Michigan and the Pacific Ocean:

Where I Was and Am

The lake mimics the sea.

Cresting waves of turbulent indigo

rush the shore, dissolving in

hidden crevices in the sand.

Flashes of feathery white glide

across the orange-streaked sky

intoning presence with a clear

voice, calling to me.

But the sea is not the lake.

Its salt-infused breath reaches me here,

hiding in the crevices of memory

dissolving beyond recognition.

–Almira Astudillo Gilles 09/26/2024

Almira Astudillo Gilles describes her heart’s work as conservation in two areas: indigenous cultural heritage and natural resources. Her cultural heritage work includes a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant for Art and Anthropology Project: Portrait of the Object as Filipino, an international artist exchange. She was the founder of 10,000 Kwentos (“Stories”) at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, a model of direct community engagement with the museum’s Philippine ethnographic collection.


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