Although a majority of Filipinos have come to the United States only since the liberalization of immigration laws in 1965, the history of Filipinos in this country dates back to the middle of the 1700s. As early as 1765, Filipinos lived along the southeastern coast of Louisiana. Congregated in the marsh-lands of Louisiana’s Barataria Bay (about thirty miles south of New Orleans), these Filipinos were believed to be descendants of Filipino seamen who had escaped Spanish galleons—ships that carried cargoes of luxury goods between the Philippines and Mexico from 1565 to 1815.¹ Today, with a total population of more...

I hate to tell you how old I am because I am a very old man. I was born December 26, 1907, in Saint Nicholas in the province of Ilocos Norte. My mother was a housekeeper. My father was a traveling merchant. He was killed during World War II by the Japanese.

My grandfather was a really devoted Catholic. To show you how really devoted he was, he had five children, and when he harvested barley, rice, and other things, instead of dividing it into five portions, he made it six because he included the church. We all lived in...

I was born in Piat, Cagayan, on September 23, 1911. My father was an American born in Lexington, Kentucky. He was a captain in the Cavalry during the Spanish American War. This was in the 1900s [sic] when the Americans sent the Spaniards away and occupied the Philippines. When we were born, my father registered all of his children as American citizens.

My father met my mother in Cagayan. My mother couldn’t speak English; all she knew was Spanish and our dialects—Itawas and Ibanag. My father could not speak the dialects, so he learned Spanish. After my father got...

My parents were recruited to Hawaii as laborers sometime between 1920 and 1926. My father was from Aklan province in western Visayas. He stopped attending school after the seventh grade. I remember him telling me that he had to give up his education because he had to work to send his brothers and sisters through school. He joined the Philippine Scouts. For him, it was an adventure because of the chance to meet the American officers. He wanted to learn more about the United States.

My mother lived a very sheltered life. At that time, women were taught to stay...

I was born in 1934 in Manila. I know a lot of people who would not admit to their ages but I do. I will be sixty this year [1994], and I am proud of it. I am a city girl, and I am a Tagalog by birth. My ancestors are all Tagalog. They are all from Manila and the surrounding areas.

My mother was a housewife and an embroidery designer. In our town, Santa Ana, the only industry that was there was an embroidery industry. It was huge. They produced baby dresses with all these intricate designs. All of...

I was born in Manila in 1940, but I grew up and I had my elementary school and high school days in Davao, Mindanao. We went to Mindanao right after the war, because my mother felt that it was a good place to open up a private school. We had a private school and a bookstore. There were some stockholders, but it was mainly family owned. It was our money that was used to open up the school. So I was always in an environment of education, helping with the school.

Both my father and mother were among the first...

I was born in the Philippines in 1942 in the town of Santa Rita in the province of Pampanga. My mother and father were farmers. I remember once, when I was about five or six years old, my dad took me with him to harvest watermelons to be sold the next day at the market. I had so much fun going with him; the sky was bright blue and the moon was full.

I remember my dad as a six-footer gentleman. He was quite good looking, kind, and very soft-spoken. He used to bring me ripe sugar canes from the...

I was born in 1943 in Bulag Bantay, Ilocos Sur. My whole family, my father’s side and my mother’s side, came from there. My parents were farmers. I only finished first grade, and then I worked on the farms.

In the old days, whatever your parents wanted to do with you, like if they wanted you to marry somebody, whether you liked it or not, you got to marry these people. It was the old style for them. I guess they just wanted us to be somebody when we grew up. They didn’t know our feelings. So when my mother...

I was born in Cebu City, Central Visayas, in 1948, the second of nine children. Cebu was where the Spanish conquistadors, led by Ferdinand Magellan, first landed in 1521. It was also the island where Magellan was killed by the natives led by the first Filipino hero, Lapu-lapu. So the Spanish influence in Cebu is strong.

My father’s father was a Spanishhaciendero[landowner] from northern Spain, and his mother was a mestiza, or half-Filipina and half-Spanish. My mother’s father was a very successful businessman and the foremost importer of American-made products in the region. My wife Lucie’s family is...

I am Anamaria Labao Cabato. People call me Ana. I was born in San Diego in 1955. My parents are both immigrants from the Philippines. My dad is from Baliuag, Bulacan, and my mom is from Santa Ana, Manila.

My dad joined the U.S. Navy in 1930, when he was nineteen years old, and that’s how he came to the United States. I think he faced a lot of discrimination in the Navy, but he doesn’t really talk much about it other than to say that Filipinos could only be stewards. My dad was fortunate enough and had the wherewithal...

I was born on April 5, 1962, in Manila. My parents’ families were not from Manila. My maternal grandfather was from Guiguinto, Bulacan, and my grandmother was from Naic, Cavite. Both of my father’s parents were from Cavite province.

My father, Eduardo Gruta, joined the U.S. Navy in 1957 from Sangley Point Naval Station in Cavite City. Cavite City is across the bay from Manila City. Although we lived in Cavite City, I was born in Manila, in the University of Santo Tomas Hospital, because my mother did not trust the local hospital on the U.S. Naval Base. She said...

I was born in Manila in 1958. My father, Dante, is an Ilocano from Sarrat, Ilocos Norte. His father was a well-known teacher, and his mother was a homemaker. My mother, Estelita, is a Tagalog from Putlod, Jaen Nueva Ecija. Her parents were members of the small middle class in the Philippines. Her father was a school superintendent, and her mother was a farmer.

My parents met in college in Manila. I heard stories that when my father was courting my mother, there was bias against him because he is from the Ilocos—a “different nation.”

My father joined the...

I was born in Chicago, Illinois, in June of 1969. Both of my parents were from the Visayas, Philippines. My mother had immigrated to Chicago in 1965 to complete her studies to be a laboratory technologist. She was here on an exchange-visitor's program, and sponsored my father and two older brothers as her dependents. They came to the U.S. a few years later than she did. My father had graduated in the Philippines with a bachelor’s degree in criminology but couldn’t get a job as a police officer here because he was not a U.S. citizen. So he only worked...

I was born in San Clemente, California, in 1976. My dad is in the Marine Corps. He is a master sergeant. I think he went straight into the military at the age of seventeen. He was in Vietnam when he was eighteen years old.

My mom is Filipino, and my dad is American. My dad met my mom in a restaurant in Manila when he was stationed in the Philippines. She was a waitress there. They dated for a while, and when he came back to the States, they decided to get married. My mom was twenty-three years old, and...