It was some kind of entertainment for them. My dad got girls from San Francisco, Los Angeles, (and) Sacramento: about 20-25 girls working there. But they were all Caucasian girls. And these pinoys, they were all young guys from the islands, they had never danced with a Caucasian woman. It was something for them.
And they'd come in the dance hall dressed up like peacocks. Taxi dance: you'd grab one girl, (and) go from one girl to another. It's like a taxi cab, and then here in Stockton we'd call 'em dime jigs . 10 cents a dance. A jig was the dance. They loved to dance. They would do the fox trot, the jitterbug, the swing, the tango, any of that, and they prided themselves in being dancers. I appreciated the role of the taxi dancers and the ladies of the evening, because they took the sexual drive of the Filipino men and kept it away from us. They (the Filipino men) treated us like relatives. They would feel that our family was their family. And so these gals did us a favor. They saved our souls from damnation. Because migrant farm working was not conducive to family life, Filipina women and children were not encouraged to immigrate. Limited to a ratio of 14 Filipino males to every 1 female, Filipino men instead often found relationships with women of other races. Though many states prohibited Filipinos from marrying whites, a new generation of mestizos, mixed-race Filipinos, was born. My father came from Luzon, and my mother is white. So they were not able to get married in Arizona, 'cause in 1931 Arizona had an anti-miscegenation law. My mother and father had to go to Lordsburg, New Mexico to get married, because they allowed Filipinos to marry whites. On my mom's side it's black, Irish and native American. And on my father's side it's Ilocano from the Philippines. When I stop to think about it, at our family reunions and different family gatherings, it's every color of the rainbow. Whites in Stockton are absolutely shocked and angered that Filipinos would dare date white women. My god, the affront these young Filipino men wearing these incredible suits that they worked so hard in the fields to buy. You know, walking around downtown Stockton with these white women on their arms, really incited a lot of racist anger. These boiling racial tensions along with fierce competition for jobs during the Depression culminated into race riots and clashes between whites and Filipinos all over the West Coast. On January 29th, 1930, a bomb shattered the front of the Filipino Federation Building in Stockton. Well, during those days that (type of) racism was something that wasn't against the law. We were never allowed to go beyond Main Street, north of Main Street, where you could be spotted because you were dark skinned. My father would never go into town unless he had his brother or his cousin or some of his town mates with him. And that was mainly for protection. If anybody wanted to come up to you and just make a derogatory remark, then they would do it, and there was no recourse. It would only make things worse. Back in the 30's early 40's there was a feeling of discrimination back then. I remember one time this guy, Johnny Mokado, and I we went to some hotel. And right there on the steps: No Filipinos Allowed . Man, I was shocked to see that. That really amazed me. But it just didn't dawn on me at that time of being discrimination. We just said you don't want us, you don't want us. So we just took off.
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AuthorMike created this blog to help people in finding a good job. Mike is a guest writer and online gambler player at Crasinoslots https://casinoslots-sa.co.za/ . He likes hunting, hiking and extreme sports, esport, poker. Archives
August 2019
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