by: Gabriel “Jay” Catanus
In October of 1587, Filipinos landed in what we now call Morro Bay, CA. They were either sailors or slaves on board a Spanish trading ship Nuestra Seniora de Buena Esperanza that sailed between Manila and Acapulco. A similar arrival is recorded in 1595.
Many years later, in 1763, Filipino sailors and fishermen settled in St. Malo, Louisiana, in more sizable numbers. The men were also on Spanish ships, but they jumped overboard to escape their slavery. This was thirteen years before the Declaration of Independence.
This history matters for several reasons. Filipino arrival in the U.S. predates the Pilgrims’ arrival at Plymouth Rock by 30 years. Filipinos were in America before it was called America.
This reminds us that people have always been migrating. In scripture and in history, migration is a human reality. Related to this, we remember that countries and borders are not fixed. Just like people move, so do the borders they create.
After the U.S. takeover of the Philippines in 1898 and the bloody Philippine-American War from 1899-1902, Filipino migration to the U.S. exemplified a colonial migration pattern, where resources and people on the periphery of the empire are moved towards the metropole, the parent or controlling state.
This is how waves of Filipino immigration to the U.S. began—from the sakadas to the pensionados to the medical professionals who came after 1965.
Due to this colonial history, there are now approximately 150,000 Filipino American nurses in the United States.1 This is why we say, “We didn’t simply go to America. America came to us.”
From “jumping ship” to “overstaying a visa”
Acknowledging these events recenters attention and responsibility to the power and reach of empires like the U.S. It also helps us to see our undocumented kababayan as caught up in a tragic, violent history.
They do not have the same agency as other immigrants to this country; instead, they face the longest visa wait times. For them, migrating “the right way” is not so simple, because if we understand history properly, we see that many of our people begin from a place of being wronged.
If approximately 169,000 Filipino Americans are living in Illinois (mostly in Chicagoland),2 more than 13,000 of them could be undocumented.3 Of course, we have many more vulnerable and needy neighbors beyond our own ethnic group.
As people of faith and community leaders, we must discern what is ours to do and decide how history will be written. It is not clear when the attacks on our immigrant communities will end, but it is clear we can’t do nothing.
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1 Allison Herries, DO, “How Many Filipino Nurses in the US?”, International Center for Global Health Information (ICGI), June 9, 2025, https://www.icgi.org/how-many-filipino-nurses-in-the-us/
2 Katrina Pham, “The Revival of Chicago’s Filipino American Rizal Center” Borderless Magazine, April 8, 2024, https://bit.ly/3JF3J60
3 Mekahlo Medina, “Undocumented Filipino immigrants ‘afraid’ of mass deportation threats,” NBC Los Angeles, Nov. 21, 2024, https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/undocumented-filipino-immigrants-afraid-of-mass-deportation-threats/3565538/.
Gabriel J. Catanus is the Director of the Filipino American Ministry Initiative (FAMI) at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he teaches theology and ethics. He is also the pastor of Garden City Covenant Church, a congregation serving immigrant families and young professionals. He received his PhD from Loyola University in Chicago, where he lives with his wife and two children.
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