Philip Vera Cruz: Giving a Voice to the Manong Generation in Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History of Filipino Immigrants and the Farmworkers Movement

Philip Vera Cruz exemplified the experiences of the manong generation from the 1900s-1960s and the challenges and obstacles they faced upon entering the United States. Vera Cruz was the co-founder of the AWOC (Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee), a primarily Filipino organization, which later  merged into the National Farm Workers Association, a primarily Mexican-American organization, to become the United Farm Workers. As a prominent figure in these organizations, Vera Cruz helped organize the 1965 Delano Grape Strike, which by 1970 attained a collective bargainning power of over 10,000 workers. Vera Cruz's devotion to the cause of fair labor helped propel the efforts of striking Filipino/Mexican farmworkers to a national spotlight.

In his memoir, Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History of Filipino Immigrants and the Farmworkers Movement, Vera Cruz recounts in straightforward and honest terms, his experience working as a laborer and labor leader during the 1960s-1970s. In the book, he highlights the unfairness of the white farm owners towards labor, the detrimental politics that existed within farm labor organizations, the sense of connection towards a distant but still pertinent homeland and most importantly, the unsung role of Filipino laborers in the creation of the farmworkers labor movement of the 1960s. Vera Cruz’s book is overall, an attempt to give a voice that was previously not accorded to these now aging/deceased men.



When speaking of the creation and maintenance of the United Farm Workers, Vera Cruz gives great insight into the difficulties posed not just by interracial labor organization but by extension, any sort of interracial activism. In the book, Vera Cruz complains how despite their labor experience and status as old-timers, Filipino farmworkers were poorly accommodated in the UFW as they had little voice in many union meetings, were faced with unfair hiring hall practices and were allocated little financial aid. Vera Cruz’s complaints illustrate the issues, which occur once a “majority within a minority” becomes dominant enough to assert their own power for their own purposes. Indeed, Vera Cruz’s bitter recounting of Chavez’s praise of the Marcos regime after visiting the Philippines in 1977 very much illustrates the disconnection such a significant labor leader had with the Filipinos as a whole. In order to preserve his political image within the UFW, Chavez would ignore/deny the crimes of the Marcos regime.

As Vera Cruz also states in the book, while it can’t truly be stated that Caesar Chavez cared less about addressing the issues of the Filipinos within the UFW, it could be said that the organizational structure of the union meant that the dominant Mexican interests would be in control of much of the union. Vera Cruz also points out how as more and more Mexicans entered the UFW, the organization became more “ethnocentric,” that is, members considered it to be a Latino organization, thus ignoring the past efforts of Filipino laborers. Through his account, it can be seen how as activist movements become more and more ethnocentric in nature, exclusions can occur which render the efforts of other ethnic groups invisible. It is little wonder that the history of the farm labor movement of the 1960s is one that was told, and frequently is still told today to be a product of solely Hispanic efforts. Philip Vera Cruz's work offers a counter-narrative, which addresses the shared struggles of both Filipino and Mexican laborers.

Brian Ascalon Roley: Deviant Identities in American Son

Brian Ascalon Roley's American Son brings to the foreground the issues of post colonialism, ethnic invisibility/racism, masculinity and social deviance in a manner that highlights not only the Filipino American but also the American immigrant experience as well. The novel details the story of two Filipino Hapas living alone with their Filipina mother, the older brother Tomas, who embraces Mexican gang culture and his younger brother Gabe who remains insecure in regards to his ethnic identity yet "asserts" different ethnicities in different occasions due to his fear of discrimination.

            Post colonialism is a major theme within American Son, Gabe and Tomas live in an American social landscape where they cannot quite find themselves ethnically. In the “post colonial” ethnic landscape of America, the brothers and their mother find themselves within a structure of racial triangulation where their Hapa identities position them at times as vicious Latino gangsters and at other times as White. Due to their physical appearance, the brothers are able to masquerade as either White or Latino. Roley’s novel details the story of Tomas, who decides to entrench himself ethnically within the cultural sphere of Latino gangster machismo and his younger brother Gabe, who finds himself pulled back and forth between considering himself “White” or falling into the same ethnic identity as his brother. Never in the novel do either of the brothers attempt to embrace their Filipino ethnic identities, instead trying to establish themselves in others.

I believe that Roley makes it a point to exclude the Filipino American identity as an “option” for these brothers in order to highlight the issue of invisibility. In a cultural spectrum in which one end of the spectrum consists of deviant/impoverished minorities such as Latinos/African Americans and the other end consists of the empowered White majority, there is no room for a Filipino American identity. Tomas, who earlier in his life “switched” back and forth from different identities, decides to choose a deviant one perhaps due to his anger towards the White majority, while Gabe out of fear of the dominance of this majority, remains indecisive. Tomas adopts an ethnic hypermasculine identity perhaps to combat a society that marginalizes his Filipino identity, yet nonetheless discriminates him as part of the deviant minority. In this manner, American Son is also a story about social deviance and its relation to racism; by excluding certain identities and histories from being known, the white majority is creating deviants such as Tomas and later in the novel, Gabe.

            The end of the novel is bleak in its outlook, Gabe and Tomas never truly attempt to embrace their ethnic roots, seeking instead to be part of a culture of violence which itself weakens the status of minorities in America by setting them against each other. American Son is in my opinion, an attempt by Roley to encourage an awareness of Filipino culture within the Filipino American community today, especially in relation to youths. It is the hate and confusion that both brothers in the story feel toward their marginalized ethnic statuses that leads to their violence and deviance. Roley’s novel thus highlights the status of Filipino Americans as culturally visible, yet at the same time invisible and how such a state of being can result in negative consequences.

Modernismo

Modernismo was a prominent literary style in the Philippines between 1898 and the 1930's. This age is referred to as "Edad de Oro del Castellanos en Filipinas", which translates to "Golden Age of the Spanish in the Philippines", because a majority of Filipino literature was Spanish-influenced. Although the U.S. had replaced Spain as the colonizing power in the Philippines during this time, it is referred to as the golden age of the Spanish because of the great amount of pro-Spanish literature that was written by the Filipino elite. Since this intellectual upper class of Filipinos had been educated by the Spaniards, their principles conflicted American cultural inclinations. In addition, Filipino writers' style mimicked that of Spaniards scholars, poets, and authors. Modernismo was characterized by inner passions and visions, representing a combination of three prominent European currents: Romanticism, Symbolism, and Parnassianism. Thus, this style of writing blends these three contrasting trends through structured prose and poetry that was still able to emanate the writers emotions and innermost thoughts. Some prominent writers of this movement include Claro Mayo Recto(pictured below) and Fernando Maria Guerrero, both politicians and part of that elite group. Typical themes or subjects that Filipino modernist writers implemented were political satire, colonization and love and allegiance to Spain.

This movement was critical to Filipino literature because it allowed for Filipinos - despite exclusivity to the educated elite - to become more politically involved. Writing was a means for them to express their thoughts about American occupation in their state. Modernismo was not only a literary style but an artistic movement that originated in Europe ("modernismo" is Spanish for "modernism"). It was meant to express moral progress and change, dismissing old tradition and structure. Hence, modernismo complemented Filipino literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because writers could express their sentiments of distaste from being designated as the inferior race compared to the Americas; they were able to convey the injustices they experienced from American reign in the Philippines, displaying moral progress. Also, these modernist writings exhibit a yearning for change and overthrowing of the old structure where the colonists are seen as suboordiate to their colonizer. Very expressive books, short stories, and poems reiterated their message that Filipinos were actually mindful of the social and racial impositions cast upon them, as well as another message that they were not inferior to Americans as human beings because they felt the same emotions as their colonizers. Modernismo was not the first literary movement in the Philippines to promote nationalism and independence. However, its encouragement of passionate expression in literature gave Filipino writers the opportunity to connect more emotionally with their readers, whether they be other Filipinos or Americas, to strengthen their morale in finally gaining their independence.

Carlos Bulosan: "Filipino Americans' Most Articulate Spokesman"

Carlos Bulosan was born and raised in the farming village Mangusmana on the island of Luzon. Records say that he was born in 1911, although this year is questionable since Bulosan himself claimed several different birthdates. Because his family suffered greatly from poverty, he decided to travel to the U.S. at the age of 17 to help alleviate their economic situation. However, upon arriving in America with no money and barely knowing any English, he faced economic and racial hardships of his own, such as being “shanghaied” and sold for $5 to work at an Alaskan cannery. After working various jobs along the West Coast like many Filipino immigrants, Bulosan became involved in the labor movement between 1935 and 1941, organizing unions to protect fellow workers. His first publications about fighting against racial discrimination were featured in a radical Filipino literary magazine called The New Tide. He continued writing even after being kept in the hospital for tuberculosis for two years. Although his health continued to deteriorate, he perpetuated in his writings, and in 1946, published America is in the Heart, based on his brothers’ and friends’ experiences as Filipino immigrants in the 1930’s and 40’s. A decade later, Carlos Bulosan died of tuberculosis. He is currently buried in Seattle, remembered as Filipino Americans’ most articulate spokesman.

Carlos Bulosan aided the Filipino labor movement through his writing. He wrote many poems and articles that exposed the racism and other injustices that Filipinos faced in the U.S. His most famous work, America is in the Heart, Bulosan narrates the struggles that Filipino migrant workers faced in the U.S. Nevertheless, he expresses that despite all the suffering, no one could ever destroy his faith in America, and that the country ultimately leaves us with a feeling of hope for the future. Thus, Carlos Bulosan’s greatest contribution to the Filipino racial and labor struggles was his literature. He uncovered the injustices that Filipinos encountered, but also, he restored Filipino immigrants’ faith in the country by showing them that despite these social impediments, America is still full of opportunities for them to chase. Consequently, Bulosan was an essential figure in Filipino American literature because he portrayed America as it was realistically. His writings both warned and encouraged Filipinos that had aspired to come to the new country of the experiences that were waiting for them so that they would be more aware of the struggles they would have to endure but also have a reminder of why they came to country. Moreover, these documented non-fictional and fictional experiences would show later generations of Filipinos, Filipino Americans, and Americans the vast contributions that the first Filipino immigrants gave to the country.

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