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Program Four - Segment Four: Seeds of Citizenship

I

The Immigration Act of 1924 essentially cut off all immigration from Asia for 25 years.  By the end of World War II there were only about 1500 Sikhs left in the United States. The 1924 act also affected Filipinos who had been working in the U.S.  The U.S. annexed and took over the Philippines after the Spanish-American War in 1898.  Filipino bachelors easily entered the U.S. throughout the 1920s and 30s.  They filled the need for cheap labor; working on the sugar plantations in Hawaii, farms in California’s Central Valley and in hotels and restaurants of major cities.  But when the depression hit, jobs were scarce. In 1934, Congress passed the Tydings McDuffie Act limiting Filipino immigration to just 50 people a year. Then in 1935 came the Repatriation Act.  Filipinos who volunteered to leave the country were given one-way tickets back to the Philippines if they agreed never to return. It was tempting, but some did not take the ticket.

Acknowledgements:

Eudosia Juanitas, Max and Jean Lamar and Professor Dawn Mabalon.

Produced by Stephanie Loleng

Photos:

Filipino Exclusion Slideshow (opens in new window)

Music:

Shasta Taiko was started in 1985 by Russel Hisashi Baba and Jeanne Aiko Mercer, both recognized artists in traditional and contemporary Taiko, new music, and jazz. They have appeared in numerous concerts throughout the west coast and teach Taiko to all ages.
shastataiko.net

Purchase Spirit Drum CD

Further Internet Resources:

Bibliography:

Cordova, Fred. Filipinos: Forgotten Asian Americans. Dorothy Cordova, 1983.

Espiritu, Yen Le. Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Communities, and Countries. University of California Press, 2003.

Melendy, H. Brett.  Asians in America: Filipinos, Koreans, and East Indians.  1997.

Ngai, Mae M. "From Colonial Subject to Undesirable Alien: Filipino Migration, Exclusion, and Repatriation, 1920-1940," in Re/Collecting Early Asian America: Readings in Cultural History, ed. Josephine Lee, ImogeneLim, and Yuko Matsukawa, Temple Univ. Press, 2002.

Posadas, Barbara M. The Filipino Americans, Greenwood Press. 1999.

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