Minds were blown when Carmina and Patch discover that Filipinos, embodied in the Manila Men, were in America BEFORE it was even America! They talk about the mystery that shrouded Saint Malo before it was introduced to the world, the Manila Men's triumphs, and the legacy they left in their generations-long descendants. Listen in as they discuss the Manila Men’s undoubted impact on Louisiana, then and now.
Minds were blown when Carmina and Patch discover that Filipinos, embodied in the Manila Men, were in America BEFORE it was even America! They talk about the mystery that shrouded Saint Malo before it was introduced to the world, the Manila Men's triumphs, and the legacy they left in their generations-long descendants. Listen in as they discuss the Manila Men’s undoubted impact on Louisiana, then and now.
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Patch:
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Carmina:
Back to our show. Today's trip is a round trip when we talk about historical facts and things that connect us back. On April 30, 1812, Louisiana was admitted as the 18th state of the United States. Why are we talking about Louisiana<laugh> and what does it have to do with the Philippines?
Patch:
Well, I only recently discovered the first Filipino immigrants settled in the state of Louisiana,
Carmina:
And my mind was blown patch, because Filipinos were in America before America was even America.<laugh>.
Patch:
Yes. So technically Louisiana was under the Spanish, right? Yeah.
Carmina:
That's another thing that I forgot. Louisiana was a Spanish colony because Spain bought Louisiana from France in 1763.
Patch:
The first Filipinos that arrived in America though was in California,
Carmina:
Right. In the 1500s because of our friend, the Gallion Trade.
Patch:
So they arrived in what is known as the Morro Bay in California. And they were the first Asians to set foot in America.
Carmina:
That's right.
Patch:
Apparently there was fighting that happened between the crew and the indigenous people in the area. And so that was the end of that. There was no settlement.
Carmina:
That we know of. I guess it's gonna be for another episode, but it's very possible apparently, that some Filipinos joined with the Native Americans.
Patch:
Oh.
Carmina:
But that's for another episode,<laugh>.
Patch:
That's for another day. Okay.
Carmina:
But the more known and relatively more documented settlement of Filipinos was about a Louisiana Bayou on the shore of a Lake. Lake Borgne, where the Filipinos built a small fishing village called St. Malo. There's a dispute about the exact date of the settlement. One school of thought is they settled there in 1763 and another school of thought in the 1800s. But regardless of what date is correct, it is still the oldest known Filipino settlement in America.
Patch:
But there's also some dispute whether or not the Filipino sailors from the Galleon Trade jumped ship to settle in Louisiana, or if they were free men and decided to just settle in Louisiana.
Carmina:
So let's talk about that a little bit. If they did desert the ships, can we really blame them? The voyage took months, right? Anywhere from four to six months if they were lucky, if they didn't encounter maybe one or two storms and shipwrecks. Plus they suffered abuse apparently from the Spanish crew and official. So who would want to do that all over again? On the way back.
Patch:
It's interesting though that the settlement that St. Malo was very harsh. It was very secluded, unappealing, storm prone and mosquito infested. These Filipinos really were, you know, very strong-willed, resourceful.
Carmina:
In other words, it was perfect<laugh> because mosquitoes, we have that in the Philippines,storms.<laugh>, right. And marshlands, kidding aside, I'm sure it was not an easy life.
Patch:
No, not at all.
Carmina:
So they settled there and they built their life there. But the first time it was known to the world was because of an article in Harper's Weekly magazine that was published on March 31, 1883. The author, Lafcadio Hearn, was a Greek Irish journalist, and he was working as a reporter in New Orleans. He was apparently an avid admirer of everything to do with the Far East.
Patch:
Yeah. So, but it's interesting how he even ventured into St. Malo.
Carmina:
The reason why is so intriguing,<laugh>,
Patch:
There was folklore about these strange Manila Men, as they called them.
Carmina:
Wasn't the folklore that there were no women there. But one day a woman arrived and it caused chaos, basically.
Patch:
Yes.
Carmina:
And the way the inhabitants of St. Malo settled, it was by hacking the woman into pieces<laugh> and feeding the body parts to alligators.
Patch:
Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:
And that was the reason Hearne was dispatched there, basically to investigate it.
Patch:
And there was also another rumor about this man who was tied to the post and was killed.
Carmina:
Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,
Patch:
The folklore obviously is coming out of the racism. the Filipinos, or the Malays, as they were referred to, were basically portrayed as savages.
Carmina:
When Hearne went there, another newspaper called the Times Democrat sent another author, unnamed. I mean, there are speculations who this person was. But that expedition produced two different perspectives. It was said that Hearne's was the more objective one, but of course it still had those undertones of discrimination. This other article, it reeked of propaganda because the other thing that was happening around that time was talk of colonizing the Philippines. So by portraying it in a way that gave the idea to Americans that they were savages to be controlled, the hope was to garner more support for colonizing the country.
Patch:
Everything is about propaganda, right,<laugh>.
Carmina:
That's right. So anyway, let's talk about what Hearne documented.
Patch:
One of the more interesting thing to me was obviously food.
Carmina:
<laugh>. Yes.
Patch:
They subsisted in fish primarily. They, um, consumed it raw or seasoned with vinegar and oil, which is very Filipino.
Carmina:
Kinilaw!
Patch:
There was apparently no alcohol in St. Malo.
Carmina:
There was gambling though, apparently<laugh>.
Patch:
Yes. There was gambling in, in fact, one of the images from that article was a group of men gambling.
Carmina:
Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Patch:
During stormy evenings. The fishermen who lived in the area, they're huddled around the table, and they were only eliminated by this fish oil lamps in the town.
Carmina:
The other thing that was mentioned in the article was the houses on stilts. And thank goodness Hern had an illustrator with him. Right> Because now we have these images of how they lived.
Patch:
Yeah. And they weren't described as mansions though. So I would think that they were huge, not just your regular small nipa hut.
Carmina:
And also they were made of wood, and the conclusion was that they had to bring those materials from far away.
Patch:
Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:
So it also created some kind of fascination about how they were able to do that.
Patch:
The other thing that struck me, they interacted with family and friends in the Philippines, and they would send money and help those loved ones move to the United States. So even back then, there was tradition of Filipino remittances.
Carmina:
And balikbayan boxes, maybe.
Patch:
And balikbayan boxes. Right.
Carmina:
Well, one thing that Hearne did confirm is that there really were no women there. And that there were only two times when women lived there. The first, when one of the original settlers brought his wife, but she left when he died. And the second one was when someone attempted to murder another fisherman. And that's when the wife left, probably in fear of her safety. So it is true that there were no women there, but it might have been for practical reasons.
Patch:
Exactly. I think that's how he interpreted it, rather than that salacious rumor about the woman causing a frenzy.
Carmina:
Yes. And if anyone did get married, it's not like they were prohibited from getting married or having kids, it's just that if they did get married and had kids, then they had to leave and settled to another nearby village. They had their own laws and way of life. There was this man who was kind of the law of the land. So it might have been true that there was a man tied to a stake<laugh>.
Patch:
Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:
At one point, as a way to enforce that law.
Patch:
The St. Malo Filipinos spoke Spanish.
Carmina:
Mm-hmm.<affirmative>
Patch:
And practiced Catholicism. And as we know, that's the result of Spanish colonization. But they used it to their advantage because at that time, you know, the Asian population was not regarded with respect. But the Filipinos were able to say, hey, quote and unquote,"I'm civilized. I speak Spanish, and I am Christian."
Carmina:
There's this film My America, or Honk, if you love Buddha<laugh>. Have you heard of it?
Patch:
No.
Carmina:
It was done in 1997, actually one in Sundance. It was by a Japanese-American filmaker, Renee Tajima-Pena. It's about her experience being Asian-American and the challenges our, you know, ancestors and us, their descendants went through and continued to go through. It's not exclusively about Filipino Americans. Everyone should still watch it. I think it's so good and groundbreaking, especially when you consider when it was done. I watched it because there was a segment about the Bertanog sisters. Their names were Benita, Audrey, May and Joyce, and their fifth generation Filipino Americans in Louisiana. Their ancestor was Felipe Madrigal, who married an Irish woman named Bridgett Nugent. And he was a seaman on a ship from Ireland to the US that Bridget and her family were on. At that time there was also a huge influx of Irish immigrants to the U S during the three m onth journey they fell in love and they got married as soon as they arrived in New Orleans, which Bridgett's parents did not approve of< laugh>.
Patch:
Oh boy.
Carmina:
And the parents continued north without contacting them ever again. Anyway, why was I mentioning this? So to your point about Filipinos using their Spanish identity, these three sisters said that their birth certificate documented them as being white.
Patch:
Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:
And that was because at that time, being a Spanish colony, the government officials didn't really know how to classify Filipinos<laugh>. So their birth certificates and their children's birth certificates documented them as being white, which I thought was really fascinating. So what that allowed them to do during the time that they were growing up, it was a segregated America. But they were able to go to white schools. They were able to intermarry with whites. Even if there were prohibitions at that time about interracial marriages, their ancestors were even allowed to be buried with white people. I think that's just such a unique part of their history. When I watched the film, I mean, they were very distinctly Filipino. Okay?
Patch:
Mm-hmm.<affirmative>.
Carmina:
So I can just imagine what their experiences were in segregated America and even the experiences of their ancestors.
Patch:
I kind of remember seeing like, um, a list of, I, I guess there was an old survey?
Carmina:
Census, maybe.
Patch:
Yeah, census. But they were referred to as either white or black.
Carmina:
So I wonder if you didn't speak Spanish, if they were just defaulted to black.
Patch:
Maybe. One of the things that we shouldn't forget to talk about shrimp dancing,
Carmina:
That became more known sometime between the 1920s and 1930s because Manila Village was founded. It's the most famous and largest shrimp drying facility in the area. It's a platform community known for shrimping. The Filipino that was credited with that is Quintin de la Cruz.
Patch:
For those who don't know what shrimp dancing is. Shrimp dancing is the technique introduced by the Manila Men, which revolutionized the shrimping industry. The technique involves stomping on piles of shrimp in a circular manner to separate the shells from the meat. And they dried the shrimp. And this industry took on a whole new life.
Carmina:
And demand was so high, not just within the United States, they were exporting it to Asia, Canada, and South and Central America. The demand spurred the development of these shrimping platforms. And the largest and most well known is the Manila Village. They were built with hand driven wooden pilings. To give you an idea of how big it was, it was said to be the size of two football fields.
Patch:
Oh my. That's huge!
Carmina:
It is. Sadly, St. Malo was wiped out by the New Orleans hurricane of 1915. In 1947, another storm destroyed most of the buildings, but it was in 1965 when Hurricane Betsy totally decimated the rest of the buildings. And today there are only markers left. Only the tops of them are visible from the water because of climate change, the entire town around it could be submerged with just another big hurricane. And speaking of hurricane Patch in 2006, remember Hurricane Katrina happened, but it's a very significant to our topic today. Because of the devastating impact to the work of Marina Espina.
Patch:
She did extensive research interviews, collected birth certificates, and the oral history that she recorded. And she kept all that research in her house. And when Hurricane Katrina happened, then all the records were destroyed.
Carmina:
Just a little bit about Espina, she was from the Philippines, but moved to New Orleans in 1967 when her husband was assigned to work there for the Philippine Consulate. She learned of the Manilla Village from one of the consular officers there, but she couldn't find any reference materials about it in the library. So she did something about it. And she poured years of effort in tracking down and going to where Filipino descendants lived in Louisiana. She wrote a book, Filipinos in Louisiana, and is often cited in the University of New Orleans', Asian American Studies. And her research is considered an important foundation of Filipino American history,
Patch:
Which is sadly a symbolism of our Filipino American culture. It just washes away and there are no like, uh, physical records of it.
Carmina:
In spite of all of this history being washed away. On June 16th, 2012, the Manila Village historical marker was unveiled by the Philippine, Louisiana Historical Society.
Patch:
And in 2019, another for St. Malo in St. Bernard Parish was installed
Carmina:
Patch. Have you heard of Lisa Ling's show Takeout? The first episode was titled Mix Mix.
Patch:
Halo halo.<laugh>?
Carmina:
Yes. Because there was a segment talking about Halo Halo. She went to Jean Lafitte, which is a town in Louisiana, and she had some of the descendants of some of the Filipino settlers. And you wouldn't have known<laugh> because a lot of these folks who identified as Filipinos were blue-eyed blondes.
Patch:
Oh, okay.
Carmina:
There were even parts of the show where a couple of white dudes were talking about their Filipino heritage, and they are direct descendants of two of the original Filipino settlers. One of the things that they talked about was the possibility that Louisiana wouldn't have been the same without the Filipinos. So for example, gumbo wouldn't be the same without the dried shrimp.
Patch:
Right.
Carmina:
And also featured in the show where a lot of other things, there was Ube Horchata, and even Cebu Lechon by some of the more recent of OFWs, I didn't realize that there were so many of fws that were needed in Louisiana because of Katrina. So there was an influx of a new generation of immigrants from all sorts of industries because of the labor shortage. So there are a lot of healthcare professionals, teachers, hospitality workers, and other service industry workers. I was also so intrigued by a burlesque dancer who calls herself Grandma Fun<laugh>. I don't wanna spoil anything, so everyone should watch it. But her immigrant story and her struggle to get her voice heard was very unique and heartwarming.
Patch:
Well, we all know this as immigrants, right? That the mark we are making as Filipino Americans, specifically in Louisiana, where it all started for us, will continue. And with new technology this time around, our history won't necessarily get washed away as it had happened in St. Malo and the Manila Men.
Carmina:
This episode, we honor their bravery, their resilience, and pride in their heritage.
Patch:
And that's our episode. We hope you join us on our next trip. Ingat, thanks for listening to Filtrip with Carmina and Patch Support Filtrip through Patreon or PayPal. And follow us on Instagram and Twitter. Subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever all podcasts are downloaded.
Carmina:
Thanks to FilTrip sponsor, Solepack, a functional shoe accessory bag. Visit thesolepack.com for more details.