‘Positively No Filipinos Allowed’
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“Positively No Filipinos Allowed.” (Photo by Sprague Talbott)
This image has become the poster -- often with “Welcome to America” added as commentary at the bottom -- for young Filipino Americans as a reminder of both their identity and the hardships faced by the earliest Filipino immigrants. In essays, articles, and other publications on the Filipino American experience, the photo is usually captioned “Stockton, 1930s” and is seldom attributed to a photographer or a source.
The Book: This iconic image first appeared in One Nation, a collection of essays authored by Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner and the editors of LOOK magazine. Stegner, better known for his works of fiction than for more topical issues, received the Anisfield-Wolf Award in 1946 for One Nation; the book was also “A Life-in-America Prize Book” for 1945. The photograph, as well as many others in the book, is attributed to Sprague Talbott for LOOK magazine. Talbott was a stockbroker who turned to photography in the mid-1930s.
One Nation was conceived and commissioned by the editors of LOOK to record the racial and religious tensions that beset the United States during the Second World War. Eight essays, each featuring an American minority group, were accompanied by an abundance of photographs that was a standard of the biweekly magazine. Its contents proved too controversial, however, and the 18-month project ended up being published by Houghton Mifflin in 1945.
The Essay: “Legally Undesirable Heroes: The Filipino in America” – was similar to a few other photo-essays that cropped up during that time. They were rare glimpses into Filipino American life not often included in the narrative of the First Wave immigrants – the pioneering migrants who arrived in the U.S. roughly between 1920 and 1945. One Nation came on the eve of 1946 which marked the beginning of the Second Wave of Filipino immigration following the end of WWII.
“Legally Undesirable Heroes” begins with the established narrative of the First Wave of Filipino American immigration – i.e., one of a predominantly male and migratory farm-working population. Farm labor employed 48 percent of working Filipinos. This is especially true in California where 30,000 of 45,000 Filipinos on the mainland had settled. A characteristic detailed in the 1940 Census but not included in the essay showed over 60 percent of Filipinos on the mainland living in the cities. Urban workers were in various occupations, though primarily in services and domestic work.
Talbott’s images capture the harsh life of Filipino farmworkers: converted boxcars for housing; cots in shared quarters; outdoor bathrooms. Cockfighting and gambling – entertainment or bane of many farmworkers – are captured in photographs. Social organizations and clubs, however, were also shown as providing less expensive alternatives such as friendly card games that did not empty workers’ pockets. Gambling in Stockton, California alone drained “$2 million a year out of Filipino earnings.”
The front spread of Wallace Stegner's essay in One Nation.
The War: Commencement of the Pacific War in December 1941 roused Filipino Americans’ patriotism for a land they left behind as well as for the land they now called home. About a third of eligible men enlisted or were drafted into the armed services. The promise of expedited American citizenship may have been a motivating factor as much as allegiance to a country where many had lived for two decades. Citizenship also guaranteed a way to bring wives and families left behind. In 1935, an annual limit of 50 Filipino immigrants a year had been imposed in exchange for the promise of Philippine independence. (This was later increased to 100.)
With such a high rate of Filipinos who enlisted or were drafted, farm work wages rose dramatically. Agricultural workers, Stegner wrote, earned from $9 to $25 a day, even up to $35 for those who would forgo lunch. Such rates were a stark contrast to pre-war wages. Only a few years earlier, for example, Filipino celery workers went on strike to earn an extra nickel to the then prevailing hourly wage of 34 cents. However, this wartime farm labor shortage – and increased wages – prompted the institution of the Bracero program which replaced the diminished supply of Filipino farm workers with Mexican migrant labor.
Home Life of Filipinos and a Second Generation: Although the first wave of Filipino immigrants is described as a bachelor society due to a pronounced gender imbalance, a “Filipino home life [has become] a fact, not an impossible dream,” as Filipino men married “Filipinas, some Mexicans, some Okie[s].” Stegner disclosed that, mindful of miscegenation laws enacted in California and several Western states in the 1930s, Filipino men wanting to marry a white woman would “go outside of California, most often to New Mexico” to marry. Filipino scholars observing and documenting their countrymen in the late 1930s and 1940s have offered the same observation. The 1940 Census also showed that in the Midwest and East Coast, Filipino men – not burdened by anti-miscegenation laws – were twice as likely to be married than their rural counterparts in California.
Such unions have brought about a second generation, as shown in pictures of Filipino American children engaging in very American activities. Second-generation Filipinas were also coming of age as shown in a photo of a young Filipina American hand in hand with a uniformed Filipino American soldier.
Indeed, the 1940 Census data showed a shift, with the sex ratio of U.S.-born Filipinos correcting the gender disparity a tiny bit. The shift is much more pronounced in the urban areas. By 1940, three of every four Filipinas lived in cities. The second generation of American born Filipinos made up a quarter of the Filipino population in Chicago and New York City.
The war’s impact on the first wave included expanded employment opportunities in the cities such as clerical and skilled labor in shipyards. Such jobs meant stability and better wages. Photos of Filipino students in the U.S. acknowledged their contributions to the war effort as recruits of the Office of War Information.
Filipino-owned businesses such as a cooperatively owned grocery store and a car repair garage are shown. Stegner wrote that new business owners took over some establishments left behind by Japanese Americans interred during the war.
By the time of the book’s publication, the Philippines had already been “liberated” – a fact noted by Stegner. Filipinos who joined the U.S. army were among thousands of returning servicemen. The essay ends with the iconic photo with this question: “How about our feeling toward the Filipinos?”
“This iconic image first appeared in One Nation, a collection of essays authored by Pulitzer Prize winner Wallace Stegner and the editors of LOOK magazine.”
An Uncertainty: Knowing the provenance of this deeply affecting image raises other questions. The photo is often captioned as a “Stockton hotel, circa 1930s.” The One Nation project was conducted over an 18-month period between 1943 and 1945. Most of the photographs in the book were commissioned by Look, which started publication in 1937. The photo’s disturbing warning would have been even more troubling had it been taken during a time when Filipinos were actively in combat as part of America’s armed forces. If so, the caption underneath the photograph is particularly heartrending.
The “Positively No Filipino Allowed” image remains a moving reminder of the continuing struggle for respect for and acceptance of minorities who have long called America home. And amidst a pandemic, it has become a harsh reminder that Filipinos are among those targeted in a resurgence of hate and violence against Asian Americans.
One Nation is available in many local libraries and can be borrowed for free online through the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/onenation0000steg
Sidebar
Carlos: In his essay “Legally Undesirable Heroes: The Filipino in America,” Stegner introduces Carlos Fidel, an imagined immigrant, to expose the harsh conditions and racism experienced by Filipino Americans. Sixteen-year-old Carlos arrives in 1928 full of hope and ideals, only to be humiliated and attacked simply for being Filipino.
In Carlos, Stegner recognizes the tens of thousands of Filipinos who have made America their home and who were willing to fight for their rights to become Americans. Despite all the hardships, Stegner imagines Carlos convincing his fellow Filipino Americans:
“Love of liberty is something America taught the world. But in America liberty has got covered up, like a flag fallen and half buried in dirt and leaves. I know that millions of Americans want to raise it up again, and I want to help. The man who slaps me for being a Filipino, I will not call a representative of his country, an American. I will come back and show him how to be one.”
One Filipino immigrant also called Carlos could very well have written similar sentiments. Noted Filipino American poet and writer Carlos Bulosan is acknowledged and listed among those who assisted Stegner in the making of One Nation. Bulosan’s “Filipinos Deserve a Break,” a photo-essay published in 1942, preceded Stegner’s essay. It was written in a similar vein and asked for citizenship for Filipinos in America and the right to fight for the liberation of the Philippines – months before Filipino men were drafted or allowed to enlist.
M.T. Ojeda is re-learning how to write after over two decades as a housing data and policy wonk. She once dreamt of becoming a cartographer but now
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