PETER’S PINOY PATTER — June 2021
Bridge Generation News
(Today’s Bridge Generation – now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s – are a rapidly declining population. Over the years, most members of these American-born children of the first wave of Filipino immigrants have passed away. To remember their contributions to the history of Filipinos in America, a deceased BG individual has been a recurring feature of this blog. This issue features Adele (Bautista) Urbiztondo, November 9, 1932 — September 13, 2016.):
Born in San Francisco in the midst of the Great Depression to Philippine immigrants from Pangasinan, Juan and Consuelo (Arenas) Bautista, Adele spent most of her life in “The City by the Bay.” During her formative years she attended Catholic grammar and high schools at Star of the Sea, graduating in 1950. An accomplished pianist, she began piano lessons at age five, learned to play classical music at the SF Conservatory of Music, and studied under the tutelage of esteemed Austrian teacher, Madame Borovsky. During World War II, Adele contributed to the war effort by playing piano before countless men and women in uniform.
Young adulthood were unforgettable days for Adele. After being crowned Miss Philippines at the 1949 California State Fair by then Governor Earl Warren, she was chosen in 1950 to raise the Philippine flag at the San Francisco City Hall to commemorate the Fifth Anniversary of the United Nations. In the 1952 Columbus Day parade, she proudly rode in SF’s Filipino Community lead convertible. (Today, the photo serves as the book cover for “Filipinos in San Francisco.”) May 31, 1952 was unquestionably the most unforgettable day for Adele. It was the day she married Emile Urbiztondo. Emile, a member of the SF Mango Club that then dominated Filipino Youth Club basketball tournaments, was just beginning a 30 year career as a Probation Officer for the Juvenile Court. In a relatively short period of time, their marriage produced six children — Steve, David, Dennis, Sidney, Richard, and Sue. To help defray the cost of raising of their children, Adele began a day care business, which would keep her busy for the next 30 years.
Adele’s busy life included bits of irony. Examples: A lover of the arts and trained in classical piano, she was a one-woman organizer of the 1984 reunion of the all-male San Francisco Mango Club! While her hilltop home overlooking Daly City was always neat and immaculate, the walls of the house were strewn with Post-it notes! Schooled in the teachings of her church, she once went to the annual San Francisco Exotic Erotic Ball dressed as a hooker!
Adele’s busy life continued into her retirement years. She helped establish the Filipino American National Historical Society SF chapter in 1990 and served as chairperson of the Bridge Generation Track at the 1994 FANHS National Conference. She entertained at social events, parties, senior citizen facilities, hotels, and cruise ships. She traveled extensively, including Alaska, Hawaii, the Caribbean’s, and the Philippines. In her later years, she moved to Las Vegas where she could play her beloved slot machines more often.
Adele passed away on September 13, 2016. A life well-lived!
Pinakbet — News Across America
Historical Tidbits
In 1988 Velma Veloria, became the first Philippine-born Filipina to be elected to a state legislature on the continental United States when she was elected as Washington State Representative for Seattle’s 11th District. She went on to serve twelve eventful years with the WA House of Representatives. Born in Bani, Pangasinan, Philippines, she immigrated to the United States in the 1950s………… On October 18, 1587, a Filipino was part of a Spanish Galleon reconnaissance team that briefly landed on what is now Morro Bay CA — the first Filipino to set foot on what is now the United States. Thirty-three years later in 1620, white Pilgrims landed in New England. So if you’re ever told by a white person to go back where you came from you can say with authority, “Filipinos were here before you!”
Did You Know
Elaine (Mendoza Erfe), the wife of comedian Dave Chapelle, is Filipina. She grew up in Brooklyn and met Chapelle in New York City. Married for more than two decades, the couple and their children reside on a 65-acre farm in Yellow Springs OH………. (From Positively Filipino’s April 24 excellent webinar.) Of all the world countries, the Philippines is most impacted by climate change while the U.S. is second only to China in contributing to greenhouse gasses.
………The Disney short feature “Float” written by Bobby Rubio, a first for the studio featuring Filipino characters, is based on the story of his autistic son. Rubio says, “I didn’t have to sugarcoat the story. I was allowed to tell the story I wanted to tell.”……….. On April 11, the San Jose City Council unanimously approved naming a new park “Delano Manongs” as a tribute to the city’s Filipino American community. In ZIP code 95133, where the park is located, Filipinos make up 13.1 percent of the population.
Musings
Is Excluding People of Color in Favor of White Supremacy in America’s Future? Part XVI
(Last month’s blog spoke of Republicans falsely dismissing the January 6 violent failed coup led by White Supremacist insurrectionists (to prevent certification of the 2020 presidential election won by President Joe Biden) as peaceful. In reading the U.S. Constitution, a coup constitutes a rebellion against America’s democracy. This month’s Musings will focus on the implications of the coup/rebellion/insurrection on People of Color, with particular focus on Filipinos.)
According to “Wikipedia”:
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other “races” and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of white power and privilege.
For decades white people have been increasingly concerned about “the browning of America” and the growing influence and visibility of People of Color. At the same time, many whites were economically impacted by the importation of manufacturing jobs, technological advances, and the gigantic gap of their incomes compared to the top one percent of Americans. People of Color were seen by many white persons as a convenient scapegoat on which to blame their socio-economic frustrations. White Supremacists and other extremist groups — emboldened by disgraced, twice-impeached, former president Donald Trump — became more aggressive in their desire for a White America.
Beginning with the 2016 campaign and continuing in his four years as president, Trump took advantage of white-perceived loss of power and privilege. He called Mexicans rapists, declared that blacks should go back to their “shithole” countries, pointed to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) as the cause for the high rates of Covid-19 infections and deaths.
American violence against AAPIs has been commonplace since Chinese first arrived in the mid 19th century as cheap labor to build the transcontinental railroad. In 1871, 15 Chinese were lynched by a mob of 500 in Los Angeles. They were seen as threats to white jobs and scapegoated as “dirty and disease ridden”– descriptions that were eerily repeated for subsequent AAPI immigrant groups, including Filipinos. In the aftermath of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, virtually all persons of Japanese ancestry were sent to isolated concentration camps. In the early 1980s, the Ku Klux Klan attacked and killed Vietnamese shrimpers in waterways surrounding Houston. And in 1992, widespread looting, assault, and arson was committed in rioting at Korea Town in South Central Los Angeles.
Despite widespread media reporting of recent anti-Filipino violence such as those perpetrated against an unnamed elderly woman and mentally disabled Noel Quintana in New York City, some Filipinos in America persist in the mistaken belief Filipinos are immune from anti-Asian/Filipino violence. The history of anti-Filipino violence in America tells us otherwise. During the height of the sakada immigration to Hawaii during the 1920s, it was common practice for Filipinos to be lynched for minor infractions. At the same time in Susanville CA, a World War I Filipino army veteran was lynched for consorting with a white woman. In 1930 Fermin Tobera was killed by a white mob in Watsonville CA. Also in the 1930s white mobs chased Filipinos out of Exeter CA and Yakima WA. On August 10, 1999, letter carrier Joseph Ileto was shot to death by a White Supremacist in Chatworth CA.
Conclusion: White fear of the “browning of America” and commensurate white loss of power and privilege are major factors behind the increasing violence against Persons of Color in the United States. Filipinos should not lose sight of the serious threat that White Supremacy poses to the Constitution, to American democracy, to POC, and to Filipinos.
BREAKING NEWS!!! As we go to press, the U.S. Senate just voted down a bi-partisan bill establishing a Commission to investigate the violent January 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol! While all 50 Democratic Senators voted “yes”, 35 Republican Senators voted “no”, while 15 additional Republican Senators were absent! This means the current Republican lies that the January 6 violence was “normal” will continue unabated! But we all know what we saw on TV! It was an assault on American-style democracy and by strong implication, an assault on Persons of Color — including Filipinos. There is no logical reason to prevent a bi-partisan investigation on the most violent assault on the U.S. Capitol since the War of 1812! Shame on Republicans.
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