VOTE: SAVE AMERICA’S MULTI-RACIAL DEMOCRACY 

Bridge Generation News

Personality of the Month: Josie (Tenio) Canion, 89:

Josie was born on October 13, 1932 in Stockton CA, the seventh of nine children of Filipino immigrant parents Mariano Tenio and Perfectua Ranario, from the Visayan island of Bohol who immigrated to Hawaii in the 1920s to work on sugar cane plantations.  They later sailed to California and settled in Stockton where agricultural work was more plentiful.  Josie grew up in a musical family, thanks to her mother — an accomplished musician in the Philippines who sang and played the piano and guitar. Despite being musically untrained, she had perfect pitch!  Josie proudly said, “My Mom, we used to call her the 100-pound ear!” Older brothers Jimmy and Joe played saxophone and drums, respectively, while   youngest brother, Rudy, played the piano.  Self taught, the musical Tenio siblings never had enough money for music lessons.  However, they listened to the radio, studiously watched other musicians, and developed their own styles.  Josie sang but didn’t learn to play the piano until she was a grandmother.

As an outgoing teenager, Josie often accompanied her siblings to musical performances. But it was her close friend and segregated South Stockton neighbor — pianist Mike Montano — who was responsible for getting Josie her first gig.  One day, as she was folding diapers (at the time she was in her mid-twenties and the mother of five girls) Mike came over and started playing the piano.  Josie sang along — no matter what Mike played.  She was also able to scat, bebop-style, to Mike’s tunes! That evening, he brought her to a local jazz club to perform.  Thus began her musical career.  Josie went on to sing at various Stockton venues with “The Preludes” — the only female in the all-Filipino vocal quartet consisting of Rudy, Billy Ente, and Hamilton Burila.

In the early 1960s Josie and the girls moved to San Francisco which provided greater opportunities for her musical career. She became an integral member of a  talented group of young Filipino American musicians that kept in close touch, especially when it came to opportunities for jobs.  One day, the promoter of Forbidden City — the well-known Chinatown night club — said to Josie, “Ok, you got the gig.  You don’t got to dance or none of that.  Just singing. But you have to change your name to Josie Chan.”  Proud of her Filipino heritage and incensed at being asked to change it, Josie declared, “That’s not my name! I’m not signing that contract!”  And she walked out!  Such was the prevailing practice of hiring Filipinos in Chinatown clubs.  San Diego vocalist Anna Rubio‘s name was changed to Anna Lee; pianist/singer Primo Villarruz of San Jose became Primo Kim; and Stockton’s brother and sister dancing team Tony and Arlene Lagrimas were billed as Tony and Arlene Wing.  It would not be the only time Josie encountered discrimination because of her ethnicity.

During her San Francisco years Josie formed a musical duo with her brother  Rudy. They became hits at numerous venues — from the tropical Tonga Room at the plush Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill to The Following Sea at touristy Pier 39. These were also the years when she married Ray Canion, a full-time machinist at the SF International Airport and part-time jazz guitarist.  Josie and Ray’s home in the city’s panhandle and later at adjacent Daly City was often the site for informal jam sessions.  Joseph “Flip” Nunez, pianist at several  downtown lounges, was a frequent guest at their home.  He regularly accompanied Josie’s singing teen-age daughters – Georgie, Reggie, Jamie, Stevie, and Jody – also blessed with their grandmother’s “100-pound ear”.  So impressed was Flip that he  introduced the girls to George Duke, a renowned jazz pianist and arranger, who became their manager. This was the beginning of The Third Wave who enjoyed a successful but all too brief career. The girls went on to tour in America and Europe with such jazz luminaries as Thelonious Monk, Cannonball Adderley, Carmen McCrea, and Dianne Warwick.

In 2010 Josie recorded a CD backed by a jazz sextet of old friends, fittingly titled Life Long Friends.  She is the recipient of many honors, including the Filipino American Jazz Artists Lifetime Achievement Award. Her career brought her to national and global venues. Perhaps her most heart-warming performance was at the 1994 Filipino American National Historical Society’s National Conference in San Francisco.  Josie, along with Rudy and long-time Filipino American jazz musician friends “Flip” Nunez and “Ham” Burila, sang nostalgic ballads and up tempo tunes before a crowd of 700 appreciative Bridge Generation senior citizens — many misty-eyed in their memories.

Today, at 89 years of age, widowed, and back in her hometown of Stockton since 1989, Josie is the only surviving member of the nine Tenio children.  Today, she only performs occasionally.  Today, she has  more important interests — enjoying her many grandchildren and great grandchildren!

(Acknowledgments:  Joshua Icban, master thesis, California State University East Bay, 2018; interview with Luna Jamero, 2021; Stockton FANHS Chapter newsletter, January 2022 Linda Claramo, editor;  Wikipedia; and the blogger’s personal collections.

Passings:

Active with Seattle’s Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Filipino Community Center, and FANHS, Angela (Castro) Gamido, 84, passed away on September 12, 2022. She was born on October 18, 1937 in Bremerton WA, the daughter of the late Luis and Priscilla (Alcala) Castro. She is survived by her husband Henry Gamido, five children, seven grandchildren, and four great grandchildren………… Constance (Cano) Estante, 93, lifelong resident of Stockton CA, died on September 4.  In historian Dawn Mabalon‘s epic Little Manila is in the Heart, teen-ager Connie, then a member of Stockton’s youth-oriented World War II Filipino social scene, was described by the Philippines Star-Press as a “really swell girl to meet and nice and friendly….a pure Pinay and proud of it, too.”

Happy November Birthdays:

Gabe Baltazar, Connie (Adlao) Suan, Gregg Bambo, Carole (Labuga) Holcomb

Pinakbet — News Across America

Filipino American Historical Tidbits:

On April 25-26, 1973 two Philippine cablegrams entitled The Blacklisted included the names of 120 anti-Marcos Filipino Americans.  The list included the following individuals:  Fred Cordova, Royal Morales, Rodel Rodis, Ester Soriano, Florante Ibanez, Morris Artiaga, Emil DeGuzman, Rev. Fr. Antonio “Tony” Ubalde, and Luna Janeco (presumably LUNA JAMERO).

Did You Know:

Doug Baldwin, former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver, is the team’s third all-time leader in team receptions and receiving yards………… Appointed by President Barack Obama in 2012, Lorna G. Schofield, U.S. Southern District Court Judge of New York, became the first Filipino American to serve as a federal judge…………  Republican John Ensign of Nevada became the only Filipino American to ever serve in the U.S. Senate upon his election in 2000.

Musings

White Supremacy in America, (to) It Has Always Been About People of Color, (to) Equitable Justice for People of Color, (to) Multi-racial Democracy Weakened, Part XXIX:

For 29 issues this column has chronicled the gradual weakening of America’s multi-racial democracy by White Supremacy.  Today, America is divided into red and white states and recalcitrant Republicans and Democrats.  Today, America is seriously threatened.  Following are some contributing events:

• The Republican party has long relied on “dog whistles” to target People of Color; but after Trump  called Mexican immigrants “criminals and rapists” at his first campaign speech, brazen political violence became commonplace.
• Politically inspired threats by Trump sympathizers have been inflicted upon Congressional members and election workers critical of the ex-president.
• Murder rates of People of Color, religious minorities, and ordinary citizens subsequently spiked — often killed by weapons of war.
• The 2016 election of Trump revealed weaknesses in our governing structure that permitted the election of a demagogue.
• On January 6, 2021 thousands of insurrectionists conducted an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol.
• Nine subsequent hearings of the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack provided strong evidence that the defeated former president was at the center of a multi-faceted plan to return him to the presidency in 2024.
• To aid Trump’s return as president, over 200 Trump acolytes running for office at local, state, and national levels during the 2022 midterm elections are poised to deny the legitimacy of President Joe Biden‘s 2020 election.
• The U.S. Senate continues to be hamstrung by its reliance on its antiquated filibuster rule.
• As a result, Congress has failed to deal with America’s most serious issues — not only election reform but also immigration, gun violence, and climate change.

Clearly, American democracy is threatened.  On Election Day the nation must elect a Congress that will bring critically needed reforms to the country.

No issue is more important than saving America’s multi-racial democracy.  Concerns over inflation and the high cost of groceries and gasoline won’t matter if we lose our Constitutional freedoms.  National polls report that many Americans consider threats to our democracy a serious issue — especially for People of Color.  If threats to America’s multi-racial democracy are to be thwarted, Democrats must retain control of at least one house of Congress.  Support the following candidates for U.S. Senate:

Mark Kelly* — Arizona; Catherine Cortez Masto* — Nevada; Rafael Warnock — Georgia; Maggie Hassan* — New Hampshire; Michael Bennet* — Colorado; Val Demings — Florida; Tim Ryan — Ohio; John Fetterman — Pennsylvania; Cheri Beasley — North Carolina; and Mandella Barnes — Wisconsin.

*incumbent

 VOTE: SAVE AMERICA’S MULTI-RACIAL DEMOCRACY 

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