Historian of San Mateo’s Filipino community

The history in La Peninsula, the magazine of the San Mateo County Historical Association, details the saga and contributions of a once largely unrecognized community that grew to more than 60,000, according to the 2000 census, which was two years before Acena wrote his 50-page history. The 2010 census listed 80,349 Filipinos in San Mateo County.

Early in the history, Acena notes that the restrictive immigration laws of 1921 and 1924, aimed mainly at Southern Europeans and Asians, did not keep Filipinos from entering the United States, concluding they were in “a peculiar situation: they were American nationals with freedom to move between the Philippines and the United States” but still ineligible for citizenship in the United States, which gained the archipelago as a result of its victory in the Spanish-American War.

During the 1920s, many young Filipino men came to California to work. The state’s Filipino population grew from 7,674 in 1920 to 30,470 by 1930. During the 1920s and into the 1930s, Filipinos began to be a noticeable presence in San Mateo County, Acena wrote, with many employed as houseboys and chauffeurs in affluent Peninsula communities. Some worked on farms along the coast with records showing their presence as far back as 1870 when the census reported that nine residents of the Half Moon Bay area were born in Manila. Their occupations included laborer, farmer and fisherman.

Many of those who came during the 1920s and 1930s were students who worked their way through school as domestics. Other Filipinos, especially those working in farming, called them “school boys” or “fountain-pen boys.” San Mateo Junior College, today’s College of San Mateo, opened in 1922 and several students from the Philippines were among the first to enroll. By 1928, there were enough to organize a Filipino Club which appeared in most of the college’s yearbooks from 1929 to 1937. Filipino students made the honor society, joined the Engineers’ Club, the yearbook staff, the Art Club and took part in intramural sports and varsity athletics.

The students were overwhelmingly male, reflecting the general immigration pattern of the time when the population ratio of males-to-females among U.S. Filipinos was typically around nine to one. The young men, and the few women, constituted the pioneer “Manong” generation of Filipinos, manong meaning “older brother,” Acena wrote, adding that immigration from the Philippines declined with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930a, a situation that changed with World War II when many Filipino GIs brought back “war brides” from the Philippines. For many of the Manong generation who were veterans, family life could finally start. In 1950, the Filipino population in California reached more than 40,000. Another impact of the war was the emigration to the suburbs which for many meant San Mateo County. Filipino families were moving to the county in growing numbers as Filipino American veterans took advantage of the GI Bill’s housing benefits. Daly City would become “the premiere Filipino American suburb in the United States,” Acena said.

“It has been observed that the greatest export of the Philippines is not rice or sugar, but its people who have become a significant part of the global workforce,” Acena concludes in his history. “In this respect, the Philippines may be no different than other counties such as China, Ireland or Italy whose sons and daughters have also scattered across the planet.”

The Rear View Mirror by history columnist Jim Clifford appears in the Daily Journal every other Monday. Objects in The Mirror are closer than they appear.