05 Filipino Migration and Colonial Histories

Colonial rule and migration

After defeating Spain in 1898, the United States took control of the Philippines. Filipinos who had declared independence from Spain resisted U.S. rule in the Philippine-American War of 1899–1902.

U.S. colonial government continued until 1935, when the Philippines became a Commonwealth and began a planned transition to independence. World War II interrupted that transition, and the United States recognized Philippine independence on July 4, 1946. Colonial ties shaped migration through education, government training, and labor recruitment.

Migration, work, and immigration policy

In the early 1900s, some Filipinos came to the United States for education or colonial-government training. Recruiters brought laborers to Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations, while others worked as sailors and traveled to Alaska’s salmon canneries, farms, and West Coast cities. By the 1920s and 1930s, many mainland migrants worked in agriculture, domestic service, and hospitality, especially in California and Washington.

Before 1934, Filipinos were U.S. nationals, not U.S. citizens, and could migrate more freely than many other Asians who were barred or restricted by immigration laws. Many early migrants were young men who planned to earn money, support relatives in the Philippines, and return home.

The Tydings–McDuffie Act of 1934 set a path toward independence but reclassified Filipinos as aliens for immigration purposes and limited arrivals to 50 per year. The restriction deepened the separation of many male workers from their families and potential spouses.

Discrimination and community formation

Filipino migrants often followed seasonal work, moving among farms, canneries, and service jobs. Employers paid low wages and provided poor housing. Workers also faced racial prejudice and exclusion from some unions, while California laws restricted interracial marriage.

Because many migrants were single men, communities often formed around shared housing, restaurants, social clubs, and other gathering places rather than households centered on nuclear families. Stockton, California, became a major center of Filipino American life. Its Little Manila grew alongside agricultural employment, with businesses and social spaces that helped migrants find work, companionship, and support. Similar Filipino communities developed elsewhere along the West Coast and in Alaska.

The Ilokano word manong, meaning an older brother or male relative, is a term of respect that came to describe many members of the early migrant generation.

From early labor campaigns to Delano

Filipino workers organized despite difficult working and living conditions. In 1930, Larry Itliong joined a farmworker strike in Washington; in the years that followed, he helped organize agricultural and cannery workers. Filipino labor activism also included strikes and unions such as the 1948 asparagus strike in Stockton. These efforts show that Filipino migrants built organizations and challenged workplace conditions rather than serving only as a labor force recruited by employers.

In September 1965, Filipino members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), led by Itliong, voted to strike grape growers in Delano, California, for better wages and working conditions. Itliong asked the mostly Mexican American National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, to join. Their cooperation strengthened the campaign, which included a nationwide grape boycott. AWOC and NFWA later united in the United Farm Workers (UFW).

Filipino organizers, including Itliong and Philip Vera Cruz, were central to the movement. Tensions over leadership and recognition also emerged, even as the organizations worked together.

Community institutions and collective action

The Filipino Community Hall in Delano served as a meeting place, strike headquarters, and shared organizing space. It demonstrates how a community institution could connect everyday social life with collective political action.

Across generations, Filipino migrants made communities, supported families across borders, and organized together for dignity and rights. Their history links U.S. colonial rule and unequal political status with migration, community formation, racial and workplace discrimination, and labor activism.