Lil Sexy's Rants and Raves

Stopping Domestic Violence

It is a very appropriate time, in light of the 20/20 interview with Rihanna regarding her violent encounter with her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, to talk about a local resource for survivors of domestic violence—My Sister’s House (MSH).

MSH is special and unique because it exists to serve people in the Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in the central valley. It offers a 24-hour multilingual crisis line and a six-bed home for women and children escaping a violent environment. Beyond the home, MSH also has a Women at Work program and a New Beginnings program to help women regain financial and emotional independence. MSH also offers preemptive solutions, like culturally sensitive domestic violence intervention services and community educationals.

Domestic violence is an underreported crime, and a real issue in the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

One can learn more about MSH and how to aid in stopping domestic violence on the MSH Web site at http://www.my-sisters-house.org/

Filipino American History Month Update

While October has come and gone, the Filipino American History Month (FAHM) continues to generate a buzz.

On November 3, 2009, at 1:29 p.m. PT,  United States of America House of Representatives Resolution 780, which recognizes October as Filipino American History Month (FAHM) was passed. Its companion bill, U.S. Senate Resolution 298, passed on October 1, 2009.

Together, this means that for the first time in United States history, the U.S. federal government officially recognizes FAHM. You may view the presentation of the bill on the C-Span Web site at http://www.c-spanvideo.org/flash/player-time.html?start=2009-11-02%2016:22:31&stop=2009-11-02%2016:28:01&net=1.

This is a step forward toward recognizing the achievements and contributions of Filipinos and Filipino Americans to the United States of America.

The Filipino American National Historical Society

This thirty-first day of Filipino American History Month (FAHM) brings more detailed information on the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), which first celebrated FAHM.

Founded on November 16, 1982 by Fred and Dorothy Cordova, the FANHS is a community-based organization whose mission is “…to preserve, document, and present Filipino American history and to support scholarly research and artistic works which reflect that rich past…”

The FANHS commemorates the arrival of Luzones Indios in California on October 18, 1587 by celebrating FAHM in October every year. In 1987 the National Pinoy Archives was established by the FANHS in Seattle, Washington. The Archives is the world’s largest collection of Filipino American historical and cultural materials.

There are more than twenty-eight chapters across the United States of America which serve as the primary informational resource on Filipino Americans. For example, the FANHS produced the award winning video Filipino Americans: Discovering Their Past for the Future and the renowned book Filipinos: Forgotten Asian Americans, which was published in 1983. FANHS members publish and create new sources of Filipino American history every year.

Since 1987, FANHS has sponsored biennial national conferences where community folks of all ages and from all walks of life gather to share and present research, network with other Filipino Americans, and honor those who have produced ground-breaking innovative work in the field of historical research and analysis. The 2010 conference, “A Quest for Emergence: A Retrospective,” will be held in Seattle, Washington.

In addition, long range goals include the establishment of the National Pinoy Museum in Stockton, California, and the National Pinoy Library in Seattle, Washington.

Filipino and Filipino American Writing

This thirtieth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on the printed word of and about Filipinos and Filipino Americans.

As early as March 31, 1883, when the article of Lafcadio Hearn about Manila Men at St. Malo, Louisiana was published in Harper’s Weekly, the printed word has had a dramatic effect on Filipino Americans and their place in America.

Some of the most famous writings are those of Jose Rizal, who published Noli Me Tangere in 1887 and El Filibusterismo in 1891. These writings reinforced the ideologies of political independence and equality. Today, a translation of Noli Me Tangere can be found as part of the Penguin Classics collection.

The first issue of the Filipino Student Bulletin in Berkeley, California was published on April 1, 1905. In 1923, the Filipino Student Bulletin was the first to use the term “Pinay” to refer to a woman of Filipino descent in the United States of America. When, in 1990, maganda magazine began its publication at the University of California, Berkeley, it traced its origins back to the original Filipino Student Bulletin.

On January 22, 1921, the Philippine Independent News, the first Filipino American newspaper in the United States of America, was published in Salinas, California.

Filipino publications were also printed in other languages. For example, on February 2, 1924, Ti Silaw (The Light) was published in English and Ilocano in Honolulu.

On March 10, 1946, Carlos Bulosan’s semi-autobiographical novel America is in the Heart was published. Today, it is studied in most Asian American studies classes

On August 30, 1961, the first issue of Philippine News was published by Alex Esclamado. The paper became the longest-running Filipino American newspaper.

In June 1971, the first issue of the Kalayaan newspaper was published by the Kalayaan Collective of Filipino Activists in the bay area, leading to the establishment of the Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino in 1973. The publication ushered in an era of Filipino collectives and groups in San Jose, New York, San Diego, Seattle, and other cities and college campuses.

Around 1975, Liwanag, a collection of Filipino American art, photography, fiction, and poetry was published in San Francisco. The book represented the radical and passionate work produced by young Filipino American artists in California in the 1080s. Many formed the Kearny Street Writers Workshop and made music in bands like Dakila and drum groups like Ating Tao. Pioneering FIlipino American writers such as Jessica Hagedorn, Al Robles, Jeff Tagami, Jaime Jacinto, Virginia Cerenio, Oscar Penaranda, and Shirley Ancheta, among many, many others, emerged from the region and period.

In 1983, Fred and Dorothy Cordova’s landmark book, Filipinos: Forgotten Asian Americans was published. This too is a foundational book studied in Asian American Studies and Filipino American Studies courses.

The widely popular Filipinas Magazine was launched in May 1992 by Mona Lisa Yuchengco.

To house and showcase Filipino American literature, the Pilipino American Reading Room (PARRAL), now the Filipino American Library, was established in Los Angeles in 1994.

Filipino American writing also has received much acclaim. In 1997, Byron Achido and Alex Tizon of the Seattle Times won Pulitzer prizes for journalism. Other writers, like Jessica Hagedorn and Tess Uriza Holthe have also received awards for their writing. In the theatre realm, playwrights like Jeanne Barroga and Chris Millado have also received critical acclaim for their plays.

All over the country, local newspapers allow Filipinos and Filipino Americans to share stories, news, not only with one another but from the Philippines as well.

Each and every form of these writings comprise a vital niche in the Filipino American culture, history, and heritage.

September 11 and Filipino Americans

This twenty-ninth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on the effects of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Filipino American community.

In coordinated suicide attacks planned by Islamist fundamentalist group al-Qaeda, planes were hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center in New York, and into field in Pennsylvania. With almost 3,000 killed in the attacks, many Americans reacted with shock and distress; however, the attacks represented the first major terrorist attacks on American soil.

In reaction, President George Bush declared a “War on Terror.” The xenophobic atmosphere post-9/11 fueled extreme racism, backlash, violence, and suspicion. In the weeks after the attacks, hundreds of Filipino airport workers, many of them permanent residents, were laid off when the newly formed Transportation Security Administration overhauled airport security and replaced immigrant laborers with citizens.

Anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-South Asian sentiment and violence increased dramatically after the attacks. American witnessed an erosion of civil liberties (The Patriot Act). The Immigration and Naturalization Service, now housed in the newly formed Department of Homeland Security, increases deportations and harassment of political dissidents and radicals, Arab Americans, Muslims, South Asians, and Filipino Americans.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her administration became staunch allies of the Bush Administration’s War on Terror, and American troops were sent to the Southern Philippines, ostensibly for the purpose of “training” Philippine troops.

Today, these events continue to both positively and negatively affect Filipino Americans.

Filipino American Cultural Renaissance

This twenty-eighth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on the Filipino American Cultural Renaissance.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, a great many developments occurred for and by the Filipino American community, spurred by advanced research and creativity and the formation of a more distinct identity.

In the 1990s, a San Diego study found that Filipino girls had the highest rate of suicide and unwanted pregnancy among Asian ethnic groups. During the same time, Filipinos were found to have the highest rate of HIV/AIDS among Asian Americans.

In education, Filipinos eventually were found to have the lowest admission rate of any ethnic group in the UC system, and few Filipino American professors had tenure nationwide. Filipino undergraduates at colleges and universities nationwide rallied for the hiring and tenure of Filipino American professors, Filipino American Studies courses, higher admissions and retention for Filipino college students, and ethnic studies courses.

In the community, youth activists created summer camps and programs to develop Filipino American youth leadership in Sacramento and at Stanford University. Pilipino Youth Coalitions were created in Northern California cities. National Filipino American organizations such as the Filipino Civil Rights Advocates (FilCRA), the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NAFFAA), and the Filipina Women’s Network (FWN) were established.

With respect to politics, Daly City, Milpitas, Stockton, Vallejo, Union City, and Carson elected Filipino American city officials.

In fashion, clothing companies Downright Pinoy, Pinay, and Tribal Pinoy were established in Los Angeles around this time.

As far as arts, the San Francisco Bay Areas’ Represent and Los Angeles’ Our Path to Follow poetry and spoken word events bring Filipino American poets and performance artists to wide audiences. The Rock Steady Crew, composed of DJs Qbert, Apollo, and Mixmaster Mike, won the DMC World Championship three years in a row. Their crew, the Invisibl Skratch Picklz, continued to dominate and influence turntable jazz and hip=hop culture in general. In Los Angeles, the Beat Junkies formed.

The digital media revolution and the Internet allowed Filipino Americans to produce, publish, and disseminate their own books, magazines, zines, CDs, and independent films and documentaries, and to create their own independent record companies, film production companies, and music festivals.

All of this resulted in a unique and celebratory time of Filipino American history.

Great Boxers of Philippine Descent

This twenty-seventh day of Filipino American History Month brings more detailed information on great boxers of Philippine descent.

The most recognizable boxer of Philippine descent today is Manny Pacquiao. Other current boxing champions of Philippine descent are Nonito Donaire, Jr., Marvin Sonsona, Brian Viloria, and Donnie Nietes. Filipinos have a long and illustrious history with boxing. As far back as the early 1900s, when American soldiers first occupied, the Philippines, they taught boxing to young Filipinos in towns throughout the islands.

The natives had no problems understanding and accepting the rules of boxing, as handed down by the Marquis of Queensberry in 1865, but it was the style of boxing the Americans taught that the Filipinos could not or would not follow.

The American soldiers taught the Filipinos to “keep their dukes up,” describing the motion of their arms and their fists pointed upwards in the style of heavyweight boxing champion “Gentleman Jim” Corbett. The Filipinos, who grew up learning the Filipino self-defense art of Arnis de Mano (harness or armor of the hand), had other ideas, preferring to constantly move their bodies and weave their arms in angular and circular motions, thereby acquiring and mastering the flow.

A great many boxers of Philippines descent truly dominated boxing from 1920 to 1941. The greatest boxer was a pugilist from Negros Occidental, who was born on August 1, 1901, under the name Francisco Guilledo. He stood 5 foot 1 and weighed 114 pounds. Before he died at the age of 24, this fighter, who was better known as “Pancho Villa,” fought in 109 matches with an amazing record of 92 wins (24 KOs), 8 losses, 4 draws and 5 no-contests. This fighter was never knocked down in any of his fights and, like Manny, even went out of his class to fight featherweights and even lightweights.

After winning the Philippine flyweight title from Terrible Pondo in 1919, Villa received an offer in 1922 to fight in the United States, where he made a name for himself with victories over Abe Attel Goldstein, Frankie Mason and Young Montreal, which set the stage for a shot at the American Flyweight title against Johnny Buff. He defeated Buff via an 11th round TKO in 1923. By coincidence, Buff’s grandson, Jimmy Buffer (well known for his trademark “Let’s get ready to ruuuuumble” announcements in wrestling) was the ring announcer for the De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight. After defeating Buff, Villa’s next fight was with Jimmy Wilde, a hard-punching British boxer, who was the world flyweight champion.

On June 18, 1923, before 20,000 screaming fans at the Polo Grounds in New York, Villa knocked out Wilde in the 7th round with a single right that broke Wilde’s jaw to capture the World Flyweight title and cause Wilde to retire permanently from boxing.

Villa returned to the Philippines and received a hero’s welcome in Manila and a victory party in Malacanang Palace. He returned to the United States of America for a non-title fight with Jimmy McLarnin that was scheduled for July 4, 1925, at Ewing Field in Oakland, CA. Days before the fight, Villa’s face swelled due to an ulcerated tooth. Villa fought McLarnin, despite the swollen jaw and lost. The infection worsened and spread to his throat, which eventually caused him to die in a hospital on July 14, 1925.

Another great Pinoy boxer was Ceferino Garcia (August 26, 1912—January 1, 1981) who was born in Tondo, Manila, Philippines. He was renowned for his “bolo” punch, which was executed by winding up like an uppercut, hook, and cross. This helped him achieve 57 knockouts. Garcia also won another 24 bouts by decision. He won the middleweight title in 1939 by knocking out Fred Apostoli in seven rounds in New York. When Garcia was asked how he came to develop his “bolo” punch, he recounted that when he was young, he used to cut sugarcane with a bolo knife, which he wielded in a sweeping uppercut fashion.

After Garcia, the next great Filipino boxer was Gabriel “Flash” Elorde (March 25, 1935—January 2, 1985) who was the WBC junior lightweight/super featherweight champion from March 1960 until June 1967 and WBA super featherweight champion from February 1963 to June 1967—making him the longest-reigning world junior lightweight champion ever.

Elorde retired in 1974 with a record of 87 wins (33 KOs), 27 losses, and 2 draws and was named “the greatest world junior lightweight boxing champion in WBC history.” In 1993, he became the first Asian inducted into the New York-based International Boxing Hall of Fame. He was also enshrined in the World Boxing Hall of Fame.

Many of these fighters and their stories can be remembered and celebrated in the movies The Great Pinoy Boxing Era and World Champions of the Great Pinoy Boxing Era.

Filipinos and Filipino Americans in the Medical Fields

This twenty-sixth day of Filipino American History Month brings information on Filipinos and Filipino Americans in the medical fields.

In 1907, the American colonial government established the first nursing school in the Philippines. This school sparked the establishment of other institutions and laid the foundation of what would become a mass migration of Filipina nurses to the United States of America and around the globe through the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Most of these nurses would begin arriving in the U.S.A. after 1965, when a nursing shortage and reformed immigration laws facilitated their immigration.

Due to the strong American influence in the Philippine education system, first generation Filipino immigrants were at an advantage in gaining professional licensure in the U.S.A. According to a study conducted by the American Medical Association, Philippine-trained physicians comprise the second largest group of foreign-trained physicians in the U.S.A. (20,861 or 8.7 percent of all practicing international medical graduates in the U.S.). In addition, Filipino American dentists, who have received training in the Philippines, also comprise the second largest group of foreign-trained dentists in the U.S. In an article from the Journal of American Dental Association, 11 percent of all foreign-trained dentists licensed in the U.S. are from the Philippines; India is ranked first with 25.8 percent of all foreign dentists. The familiar trend of Filipino Americans and Filipino immigrants entering health care jobs is well observed in other allied health professional such as nursing, physical therapy, radiologic technology, and medical technology.

Similarities in quality and structure of the nursing curriculum in the Philippines and the U.S. had led to the migration of thousands of nurses from the Philippines to fill the shortfall of registered nurses (RNs) in the U.S. Since the 1970s and through the 1980s, the Philippines have been a source of medical professionals for U.S. medical facilities. The Vietnam War and AIDS epidemic of the 70s and 80s signaled the need of the American health care system for more foreign-trained professionals. In articles published in health and medical policy journals, Filipino nurses comprise the largest block of foreign-trained nurses working and entering the U.S., from 75 percent of all foreign nurses in the 1980s to 43 percent in 2000. Still, Philippine-trained nurses make up 52 percent of all foreigners taking the U.S. nursing licensure exam, well above the Canadian-trained nurses at 12 percent.

The significant drop in the percentage of Filipino nurses from the 1980s to 2000 is due to the increase in the number of countries recruiting Filipino nurses (European Union, the Middle East, Japan), as well as the increase in number of countries sending nurses to the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 60,000 Filipino nationals migrated to the U.S. every year in the 1990s to take advantage of such professional opportunities.

A wonderful study of the unique relationship between the professionalization of nursing and the twentieth-century migration of Filipinos to the U.S.A. can be found in Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History by Catherine Ceniza Choy. The book brings to light the complicated connections among nursing, American colonialism, and the racialization of Filipinos, as well as shows the challenges of the medical field, like the scapegoating of Filipino nurses during difficult political times, the absence of professional solidarity between Filipino and American nurses, and the exploitation of foreign-trained nurses through temporary work visas.

Fortunately, many examples of the medical community coming together exist, such as for medical missions to other parts of the world, free health clinics for the uninsured and underserved, and in response to racist remarks against the medical field, such as on Desperate Housewives in 2007.

The culture of American imperialism persists today, and continues to shape the reception of Filipino nurses in the U.S.A.

Filipino Americans and Anti-miscegenation Laws

This twenty-fifth day of Filipino American History Month brings more detailed information on Filipino American families and the discriminatory anti-miscegenation laws that kept them from forming.

Whether it is dating or marrying someone of a different race, interracial relationships are not a new phenomenon among Asian Americans. When Filipinos arrived en masse to the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, a major gender imbalance existed, at 14 Pinoys to 1 Pinay. This made marriage and family development difficult, if not impossible, for many Filipinos. A few of them eventually married women in the U.S. who were not Filipino. However, many people soon saw Asian intermarriage with Whites as a threat to American society. One action to stop this threat took place on January 26, 1930, when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled that Filipino/White marriages performed since 1921 were invalid.

One Congressperson wrote about miscegenation, “Intermarriage between Whites and Blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant to the very principles of Saxon government. It is subversive of social peace. It is destructive of moral supremacy, and ultimately this slavery of White women to Black beasts will bring this nation a conflict as fatal as ever reddened the soil of Virginia or crimsoned the mountain paths of Pennsylvania. … Let us uproot and exterminate now this debasing, ultra-demoralizing, un-American and inhuman leprosy.”

Although anti-miscegenation laws in many states, including California (Civil Code 60 and 69), prohibited marriage between Whites and “Mongolians,” “Negroes,” and “Indians,” Filipinos continued to assert their rights to marry who they wanted to. In 1932, Salvador Roldan sued the State of California for the right to marry his English wife. He pointed out that the law specified “Mongolians” and that Filipinos were “Malay.” He won, but lawmakers quickly added “Malay” to the law.

The constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws only began to be widely called into question after World War II. In 1948, the California Supreme Court in Perez v. Sharp ruled that the Californian anti-miscegenation statute violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. California was the first state since Ohio in 1887 to repeal its anti-miscegenation law.

One political theorist, Hannah Arendt, believes that anti-miscegenation laws were an even deeper injustice than racial segregation. The free choice of a spouse, she argued in Reflections on Little Rock, was “an elementary human right”: “Even political rights, like the right to vote, and nearly all other rights enumerated in the Constitution, are secondary to the inalienable human rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence; and to this category the right to home and marriage unquestionably belongs.”

It was not until 1967, during the height of the civil rights movement, that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Loving v. Virginia case that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. At that time, 38 states in the U.S. had formal laws on their books that prohibited non-Whites from marrying Whites.

Before the case escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1965, Virginia trial court Judge Leon Bazile, who heard their original case, refused to reconsider his decision. Instead, he defended racial segregation, writing, “Almighty God created the races White, Black, Yellow, and Red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

When the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case, they ruled unanimously in Loving v. Virginia, stating, “Marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.”

The U.S. Supreme Court condemned Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law as “designed to maintain White supremacy.”

Statistics today show that U.S.-raised Filipino Americans have a very high level of intermarriage with people of other races, which would not even be possible if anti-miscegenation laws were still in effect. It is important to remember these lessons in order to prevent injustices like these from continuing.

Pablo Manlapit and the Hanapepe Massacre

This twenty-fourth day of Filipino American History Month brings more information on Pablo Manlapit and the Hanapepe Massacre.

Pablo Manlapit immigrated from the Philippines to Hawaii in 1909. He worked as a plantation laborer at Hamakua Mill Company. He studied to become the first Filipino lawyer in Hawaii and helped organize the Filipino Labor Union (FLU).

He led the first major pan-Asian strike in Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Filipinos and Japanese participated in the work stoppage against the Hawaiian Sugar Plantations Association (HSPA). They wanted better and fair working conditions. Filipino workers were not paid equally for doing the same work as the Japanese workers. The Filipinos were paid $0.69 and the Japanese were paid $0.99. While they were on strike, plantation workers on other islands continued to work to raise about $600,000.00 in support of the strike. It began on January 19, 1920, with 3,000 FLU members. When the Japanese laborers joined them in February 1920, more than 8,300 plantation laborers, or 77 percent of the work force was on strike. The strike went on for two months.

By 1922, Manlapit had organized a new Filipino Higher Wage Movement which numbered about 13,000 members. In April 1924, it called for a strike on the island of Kauai, demanding $2 a day in wages and the reduction of the workday to eight hours. This strike, which lasted approximately six to eight months, lead to increasing violence against Filipinos. In one incident on September 9, 1924, 16 Filipinos strikers were shot and killed by police in Hanapepe and four policemen were killed. Manlapit was jailed and deported to the mainland. Filipinos who participated in the strike were blacklisted by many employers, which led to the immigration of many families and single men to the mainland.

Although Manlapit went into labor organizing in California, he in returned to Hawaii in 1933 to continue his work. In 1935, he was permanently expelled from Hawaii to the Philippines. By that time, he had already left a lasting legacy of labor empowerment.