Filipino Immigration to the U.S. (Immigration Act of 1965) by Solana Rollolazo

Interviews

I interviewed three people who contributed to my research paper on Filipino immigration to the United States, which also narrowed in on the Immigration Act of 1965. Ricardo Farinas, my grandfather, gives us a point of view on the hardships endured by many Filipinos (economically, socially, politically) when coming to America. Marcela Duff is a prime example of the opportunities opened by the Immigration Act, because she immigrated in 1965 right when the chance presented itself. Lastly, I interviewed Jowell Rollolazo, my father, who grew up in America with strongly enforced roots of his parent’s homeland, and dealing with his hybrid identity.

Introduction: Ricardo Farinas is my grandfather. He is now 81 years old and first immigrated in 1956 to America, or Seattle more specifically, when he was 20 with hopes of going to the University of Washington.

Why did you first come to America?
I first came to America for the purpose of getting an education in 1950. At that time, I was 20, almost 21. I came here because my mom didn’t like the idea of me coming here because there are so many influences that could detour me from going to school. So she said “You better go to America and go to study”, so I said “Okay, fine with me”. So I did. My dad, your great grandfather, petitioned for me to come to go to school. I came to America on a student visa.
Tell me about when you first arrived.
When I first came, I went to the UW. I had to take the exam to qualify and was accepted 2 weeks later. I was enrolled in 1950 and stayed there until 1954 and finished school. I went to business administration and took marketing, then minored in political science. Even after graduation, I still couldn’t find a job here. They didn’t want to hire minorities because they didn’t think we could do any other work than washing dishes, mowing lawns, or work in the farm. I didn’t want to do menial work for a living. I went to work in the salmon canneries in Alaska to make money and also worked on the farm with your great grandpa.
When were you able to find a job?
I looked for a job after your grandmother and I got married, and was hired at the steel company. I did some work there, working outside in the plants and worked in the steel warehouse. Then I got sick because of the steel dust and developed problems breathing. I began to work for Boeing after that.
Was it hard for you to find jobs?
I was hard to find a job. It was difficult because they still didn’t offer opportunities to minorities at that time in the 1950’s. That’s why I had problems. I left Boeing because I couldn’t find a promotion. I was taking care of the supplies store, but they wouldn’t elevate me any more. So I took a civil service exam in 1968, and passed. I ended up being hired as an investigator for the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Before you came to America, what did you expect in coming here?
Before I got here, I thought it was going to be easy to make a living. They wanted people to work, and I wanted to work but they wouldn’t hire me. What I had to do is go pick apples and that was the only kind of work they would hire me and other Filipinos to do at that time. That’s why some of them didn’t get a job. You had to be a hard worker to make a lot of money. After passing the civil service exam, they hired me as an investigator for the government in 1969 and set me to San Francisco. But I had to retire because I got sick from the steel dust at my other job.
Was there a big Filipino community here during the 1950’s?
There was a big community and organization. As a matter of fact, your great grandfather was one of the officers at that time. In 1954 he was the president of the Filipino Community.
How did the Filipino community help newcomers from the Philippines?
Because of lack of money and opportunities, some people in the community would tell people of available jobs by word of mouth. But in the 1950’s, all we could do is be a busboy, gardener, field worker, and all those menial jobs. The guys would help me a lot to make a little bit of money. They hired me for 2 months a year and paid us around $800. But at the same time, I still worked on the weekends to earn spending money for my shoes, clothes and food. I kept on working in order to support myself. I was a self supporting student. It was hard.
How did those in the Filipino community help you get opportunities?
Almost all of those men in the community were doing menial jobs just like me. They would help us find paying jobs. It was nice when we worked for hotels because the food was free. We got paid around 50 cents a day. Some newer immigrants had families to stay with but my dad lived in Wapato, Alaska so I had to live on my own. I lived at the student dorm which helped me a lot.
How big was the community in 1950?
I first became a member in 1951, and at that time there were 250 members. The community kept growing larger and larger over time. The early Filipino community members were very close to the young ones. When I first came from the Philippines I was the youngest one, so they used to call at me saying “boy!”. But not in a derogatory way. They were very helpful and kind.

How did you get involved with the Filipino community?
In 1951 I became a member of the Filipino community when I went to Alaska. In 1954, I became first of all a member of UW Filipino Association. They also helped me. From there, I began making myself available to the community for whatever they needed me to do. In the 60’s, I became a member of the Filipino Community council and in 1965, I was Vice President of the community. I remained the Vice President for 16 years! Until now I’m still doing anything I can for the community.
How did people first treat you when you came here?
The Filipinos were very nice to me. They loved the young ones that came here. At that time in America, Filipinos were very close to exile. When I was at the university, I got involved with these young republicans in the community in 1953. We used to go out at night and pick up yard signs. That was my job, and at that time I didn’t know it was unlawful. Some of these guys, I realize now, would use me. Whenever there was the hard job like picking up signs at houses at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, those were the jobs that they gave me. Sometimes, they would call at me saying “Hey chimp, come here!”. They were calling me a monkey, these white people.
How did whites in the community treat Filipinos?
At that time, they were hostile towards Filipinos in the 1950’s. We were worth nothing to them. Even when I had my degrees, white people wouldn’t hire me. After graduation, I went to the placement office to look for a job. The National Bank of Commerce was looking for 24 new employees. 24 of us were picked to go, and I was the only brown person. The called us for interviews, but after hours and hours I was the only one who they hadn’t called for an interview. When I went up to the receptionist at the desk, she said I didn’t have any application in. But when I looked over, I saw my application stuffed into the waste basket. They had no intention of hiring me. They just threw my application away. The receptionist told me they’d call me, but they never called me back.
How were minorities in general treated by white people?
Starting in the 1950’s, there was a lot of prejudice and discrimination. But I didn’t know that’s how life was going to be in America. They didn’t care about minority people. They would come to me and say “I hate those black niggers.” They were saying that to me! And I thought, “I wonder if they say that about me.” Others would sometimes call us brown monkeys.
How did all the minorities treat each other?
We were all okay. The Chinese were the ones who were the most prejudice people against blacks, Filipinos and any other people of color. The only whites that treated us well and were good to us were those who came from Europe as students. We got along because we were all strangers to here, all foreigners. But those born here never treated us well, no way.
Did you meet a lot of others who emigrated from other places?
My room mate in college was actually Japanese. At first, he was very good to me and very friendly. But you know, the war the Philippines during the WWII, the Japanese were the ones who invaded us. I still had a strange feeling of hatred towards him. But then all of a sudden, I thought to myself and realized he had nothing to do with the war. We were good friends.




Introduction: Jowell Rollolazo is my father. He is a second generation Filipino-American, born in Hawaii in 1956 and moved to mainland America in that same year with his parents and 5 other siblings. He grew up in the Central District of Seattle. (When we refer to “Nanay” and “Tatay”, that is referring to my grandma and granda.)

Give me a brief overview of how Nanay and Tatay came to America, and the sequence of events.
Back in the 1940’s, when Nanay and Tatay already have five children, Tatay left nanay and their children in the Philippines with extended family while we went to the island of Kauaii to work in the pineapple fields. After 10 long years of separation and they saved up enough money, Tatay sent for Nanay and the family. They rode a ship, the U.S.S. Cleveland in 1954, to rejoin Tatay. About a year after they were reunited, I was born in 1956. Nine months later after I was born, we moved here to Seattle and lived in the Central District.

How was it growing up here in terms of the social dynamics?
It was hard. Your grandparents had no formal education, so they had to work manual labor jobs. Tatay worked two jobs as a custodian, and in the early 60’s he finally decided to launch his own gardening business. That became the wealth of our family. But we were very successful from that point forward. And then a couple of decades after, Nanay and Tatay got into the real estate business and bought a bunch of rental homes. Growing up, we may not have been rich but I never knew poverty. I had a wonderful childhood.

Was it easy for you to get an education?
When I was in grade school living in the Central District, it was a predominantly black neighborhood in the 60’s. Back in the 50’s, it was a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. But when the black population grew, the Jewish population moved east towards Seward Park. I identified culturally with African Americans. I went to the local elementary school, Horrace Man, while it was a primarily black school. Then I was bused out to Loyal Heights Elementary school, an all white school up north in Ballard. Even as a child, I saw the disparity in our education system.

How were Nanay and Tatay treated while they attempted to find jobs? Especially when they first arrived here?
They had to take menial jobs. They had no education and they could speak no English, and they were treated like second-class citizens.

How were they treated just out in public?
I think Seattle has always been progressive compared to other parts of the country. It was rare that I experienced overt racism, but then again Nanay and Tatay’s range of business was very limited. We never ventured far out of our community. We never went out to all white communities like Bellevue or north end Seattle. Our neighborhood ranged from the Central District to Beacon Hill to Rainier Valley. So occasionally we’d experience racism but not often, because we didn’t venture out of our community. But when I helped your Tatay and worked with him in landscaping when I was young, I experienced it.




Introduction: Marcela Duff first came to America with her family in the year 1965, right after the Immigration Act of 1965.

Tell me about when you first came to America.
I left the Philippines the exact same year as the Immigration Act was passed here in America. My husband had already successfully come to this country a few years before that, while me and our 5 children had to stay back in the Philippines. In order for me to come here, my husband had to sponsor me. There wasn’t enough money to get our whole family over, so I had to leave them behind with their grandmother and come to America on my own. As soon as I was reunited with my husband, we began immediately working any job we could to get the money we needed for our children to join us. Once we had the means, me and my husband were finally able to sponsor each and all of our kids to come to America as well. We lived together in San Francisco, around the Bay Area.

Why did you come to America when you did?
Like I had said before, I came the same year as when the Immigration Act was passed in 1965. My husband was thrilled to find that it was going to be easier for us to come to America and immediately sponsored me. The act made it easier for us to come and made us Filipinos feel more welcome. It was also easy since my husband was able to sponsor us, his family members.

How were you treated when you first arrived?
Many people, mostly white people, treated us badly. They thought that we were stupid people who were only good for manual labor, like working in the fields, landscaping, or doing other low-skilled jobs. Sometimes when I would go out, people would look at me funny. Whether it be the grocery store or any other public place, white people would stare at us like something was wrong with us. They wouldn’t give us jobs because we were brown and also thought we were incompetent. There are famous pictures now of a sign on a door that said “Positively No Filipinos Allowed”. That’s how it really was back then, we were shunned in our own community.

How did you and your family deal with the discrimination?
Well fortunately, there were a lot of other Filipinos just like us where we immigrated to. We lived in the San Francisco around the Bay Area, in a place called Daly City. It was like a homeland away from home because it was a place where we could connect with other Filipinos who we could relate to. There were lots of Filipinos in Daly City. We felt comfortable there because it felt somewhat like the Philippines. Everyone spoke Tagalog, Ilocano or some other Filipino dialects. A lot of the stores and public places were run by Filipinos. We were fortunate enough to live there because there, we didn’t have to worry about being the minority. We already fit in.

How did that tight-knit Filipino community affect your family and the whole new American life?
Like I said, we were very fortunate. There I was able to find a job and make more than enough money to raise our child and let them live a comfortable life. I didn’t feel like an alien to America because there were so many Filipino people around us who were just like us, and we could all relate. The Filipino community was strong, so even though I lived in America and me and my husband raised our 5 kids here, we were still able to live comfortably while we were completely knew to the country. Thankfully, we were able to get the benefits and opportunities of living here in America but also were also able to hold on to our Filipino roots.