WATSONVILLE — The stories of Filipino Americans who made their homes in the Pajaro Valley in the early 20th century, and the challenges they faced, are not commonly taught in U.S. history courses, but their stories are currently on display at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History through Aug. 4.
From artifacts to vintage photographs of Filipino businesses to videos of oral history, the exhibit “Sowing Seeds: Filipino American Stories from the Pajaro Valley” is a full display of the Filipino experience, especially in the 20th century.
Curator Christina Ayson Plank — a UC Santa Cruz visual arts Ph.D. candidate, Asian Pacific American collections specialist at the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art and head curator of Filipino research initiative Watsonville is in the Heart — said the idea came about through Roy Recio, founder of the grassroots Tobera Project.
“It was initially Roy’s idea to have an art exhibition, one that paid tribute to the families that came to the United States in the 1920s, 1930s,” she said. “He had created an exhibition in 2020 for the Tobera Project that featured some of these family members.”
However, the COVID-19 pandemic shut the exhibit down early. The Tobera Project planned to take the exhibit to a more public venue once the stay-at-home restrictions were lifted, and when Plank learned about it, she offered to create a more expanded exhibit at the Museum of Art & History.
“We were fully committed to doing an expanded version of what Roy had originally created,” she said.
One thing Recio envisioned was to bring in contemporary California artists to create works alongside community members. One of the centerpieces is a 17-minute film called “Dear Watsonville” created by Los Angeles filmmaker Sandra Lucille to create what she has referred to as “a moving graphic novel” where oral histories by Filipino families are combined with animated vignettes strewn throughout.
The exhibit also features a timeline covering the history of Filipino Americans in the United States, particularly the Pajaro Valley. Following the Philippine Revolution and Spanish-American War of 1898, America acquired the Philippines from Spain, and the U.S. government recruited Filipino workers for cheap labor in the then-territory of Hawaii as well as mainland Western states like Washington, Oregon and California.
The Pajaro Valley in particular provided ample opportunities for Filipino Americans to work in the fields, and they became a significant part of the community and even established their own businesses. The exhibit features photographs of prominent Filipino-owned businesses in Watsonville such as Ideal Dry Cleaners, Universal Barbershop and Philippine Gardens.
However, Filipinos faced a lot of discrimination in Watsonville and the state. Before World War II, they were not allowed to marry outside their race, vote or buy property and could only live in certain areas of town. “No Filipinos allowed” signs were commonly hung in store windows, and the Northern Monterey Chamber of Commerce stereotyped Filipinos as a danger to society. In January 1930, hundreds of white men assaulted Filipino farmworkers and looted stores in Watsonville in a series of race riots that lasted for four days. These riots resulted in the death of 22-year-old Fermin Tobera, who was shot as he slept in a bunkhouse on San Juan Road. The California Assembly formally apologized to Filipino Americans for the riots and other injustices in a 2011 resolution authored by Luis Alejo, now a member of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors. The U.S. also relinquished control of the Philippines in 1946, allowing it to become an independent nation.
Despite the abhorrent treatment, Filipinos remained very active in the community, growing crops and forming organizations like the Watsonville Youth Filipino Club. When California’s ban on interracial marriages was struck down by the state Supreme Court in 1948, Filipinos and non-Filipinos started getting married in the Pajaro Valley. This is captured in a photo in the exhibit of Archie and Margaret Lopez getting celebrating their wedding at St. Patrick’s Parish in a ceremony sponsored by the Caballeros de Dimas-Alang. Because of the discriminatory laws, they had to get married out of state before they could have an official ceremony.
Other artifacts featured in the exhibit include plates created by Johanna Poething memorializing Filipino American elders’ struggles to find housing after being evicted from the International Hotel in San Francisco in 1977, a bandurria instrument played by Modesto Tuzan Sr. throughout California, a pennant from the Watsonville Youth Filipino Club, a Sulay family reunion photo album donated by Juanita Sulay, the last garlic crop grown by Mariano Fallopian Sr. and an el cortido, a short-handled hoe that required farmworkers to bend over for long periods to cultivate crops until it was banned in 1975 following the activism of United Farm Workers due to complaints that the tool led to serious back pain in workers.
“As we’ve developed the archive website, we’ve been going to community members’ houses, seeing their family heirlooms and hearing the stories connected to those objects,” said Plank. “Collecting those materials and showcasing them is really just our way of presenting the memories that the community has already shared with us on the digital archive.”
The exhibit also features works by Minerva Amistoso, Binh Danh, Ant Lorenzo, Ruth Tabancay, Jenifer Wofford and Connie Zheng.
In addition to sharing stories of Filipino Americans, Plank hopes the exhibit will inspire visitors to document their own family stories.
“Everybody can be a historian, if only they listen to their elders,” she said. “I hope folks feel that sense of energy and excitement about listening to the community and really seeing themselves in these long legacies and long histories.”
“Sowing Seeds” is on display through Aug. 4 in the Solari Gallery on the second story of the Museum of Art & History, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. The museum is open noon to 6 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays. A family day, featuring an all ages scrapbooking activity, will be held noon to 6 p.m. July 13. For information, go to Santacruzmah.org/exhibitions/sowing-seeds.
Materials can also be viewed digitally at Wiith-archive.ucsc.edu.
