Bridge Generation News

BG Personality of the Month:  Robert Ragsac, 92, San Jose CA:       

I first met Bob in September 1952 as I was registering for my first few days at San Jose State College.  He was glad to see another one of the few Filipino Americans on campus.  He carried a knapsack full of books with a slide rule sticking out from one of the books.  He also was in a hurry to get to an engineering class.  I was to later learn that hurrying away with engineering books was typical of Bob — so committed was he to be an engineer.

A young man in a hurry: Bob graduated from SJSC with a Bachelor of Science in 1954.  In rapid succession, he married the former Mardena Ambon, was accepted at the prestigious California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and in 1955 received a Master in Science from CalTech. He went on to a very successful career as an aerospace engineer in Silicon Valley. “Rocket science” is commonly spoken in jest.  But that’s what Bob did as he often worked on classified government projects. 

Bob was born in 1931 in San Jose CA — the second and eldest son of four children of Philippine immigrants Sergio and Maria Ragsac from the Ilocos.  The couple had settled in today’s Japantown in the 1920s.  Even then the area was already ethnically diverse, with Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos coexisting amicably. 

Bob’s formative years were unremarkable — with one exception. In 1942 when he was ten he wondered, “Why did my Japanese friends all disappear?”  He was crushed upon learning everyone of Japanese ancestry, including schoolmates born in America, were forcibly rounded up by the U.S. government to relocation (concentration) camps.  Today, he still gets emotional when talking about it.  In the late 1940s, Bob organized neighborhood youth into a basketball team that eventually grew into the San Jose Agenda — one of the more competitive teams in California’s F/A Youth Club circuit during the 1950s.

In retirement, Bob has devoted much of his time to correcting the omission of Filipinos in San Jose’s history.  Today’s Japantown was originally named Chinatown, but after it was burned down by a suspicious fire in 1887 it was leased to displaced Chinese by land owner John Heinlen and called Heinlenville-Chinatown.  Following the Japanese return from relocation camps, it became Japantown in the 1950s.  During the 1930s Filipino businesses and shops were established within Heinlenville-Chinatown’s core and called Pinoytown — but usually by Filipinos.  Bob grew up in the area and never understood why Pinoytown was seldom used.  When the City of San Jose  proposed a name for a new park, he expressed his frustrations at a community meeting, emphatically declaring, “Stop erasing history, we’ve been here since the 1920s, we’ve contributed to this community!” 

Bob subsequently joined San Jose State University students protesting the university’s failure to recognize Filipino farmworkers on a campus monument.  Bob called the omission of Filipino farmworkers an “insult.”  The protests ultimately led to the City of San Jose naming “Delano Manongs Park” in the nearby neighborhood of Berryessa in 2022.  He then developed a walking tour in Japantown of “First Wave Filipino’s” former and current businesses, churches, fraternal organizations, and residences.  The tour comprises a sixteen block area centered around North Sixth and Jackson Streets Bob calls “Pinoytown.”  He also is  involved with “Hidden Histories” — a City of San Jose digital art project — honoring the contributions of Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos.  In 2023, he organized “Pinoytown Rising, Filipino Americans in the Santa Clara Valley” — an exhibit of Filipino historical artifacts, photographs, and traditional uniforms at the San Jose Public Library that will end on November 30. In addition, Bob serves on the board of directors of the Filipino American National Historical Society Museum in Stockton.  At 92, he shows no signs of slowing down.  (Acknowledgements: Robert Ragsac, “Pinoytown”; San Jose Mercury; Google)

Pinakbet — News Across America

Filipino American Historical Tidbits:

1956 — The author of “America is in the Heart” Carlos Bulosan was buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in Seattle WA.

Did You Know:

Congratulations to Washington, D.C. historian Erwin Tiongson.  His diligent research led to the revelation that mathematician Emma Rotor aided in developing the proximity fuse that helped win World War II.  Bullets, shells, and bombs could now be exploded close to its target rather than on impact, which made them deadlier.  

Musings

From 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, (to) Political/Gun Violence) Part XXXX.        (Following is a recap of the above forty blogs)       

August 2017: Williamsburg VA White Nationalists protest, “We will not be replaced.” 

August 2019: Trump’s tirade against four ethnic minority Congresswomen.  The Congresswomen — all American citizens — should “go back to their asshole countries.”   

September 2019:  In the wake of the recent mass shootings in Dayton OH and El Paso TX, “White Supremacy is alive and well in America.” 

March 2020: The U.S. Senate acquitted Trump on impeachment charges of “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress.” Significance: Trump was not ruled innocent; acquittal only means the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

May 2020:  Covid has had a disproportionate impact on POC.  

June 2020:  Will Americans be more disciplined and follow science or be influenced by politics and immediate gratification?

July 2020:  Will America be content with the restoration of law and order (the symptom) and not tackle the basic reasons (the causes) for the country’s racism? 

September 2020:  Black and Brown people continue to die of Covid at nearly 50% more than White people.

November 2020:  At a presidential debate, Trump announced to Proud Boys — a violent militia group — “Stand back and stand by.”  

December 2020 :  After the 2020 elections, America continues to be a deeply divided country racially, demographically, geographically, and politically. More Filipino Americans voted for Trump among Asian Americans — exceeded only by Vietnamese Americans.

January 2021:  Trump’s efforts to overturn the election by falsely claiming voter fraud continued to embolden his base.  Trump’s  actions resulted in increased chaos and divisiveness — so divisive that officials and election workers have been subjected to death threats.

February 2021:  We all witnessed the January 6 horrific mob insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in the failed coup to overthrow American democracy. “Why so many MAGA deniers?”

March 2021:  Persons of color deemed “essential” continue to be by-passed for Covid vaccinations.

May 2021:  Disregard disinformation and lies. The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol led by White Supremacists to overturn the presidential election was a rebellion.    

June 2021:  White fear of the “browning of America” and its “loss of power and privilege” are major factors behind the increasing violence against Persons of Color. 

September 2021:  The real targets of voter suppression bills are People of Color.   

October/November 2021: Regarding the Administration’s handling of the Haitian refugee crisis at Del Rio TX, “Would it be different if the refugees were white?”

February 2022:  Congress defeated the Freedom To Vote Act and its anti-voter suppression provisions.

April 2022:  According to recent polls, Americans are more concerned about the pandemic, the price of gasoline, and the economy — not about threats to democracy.  

May 2022:  Does American indifference regarding threats to democracy mean the U.S. is destined to become an autocracy? Answer, Maybe.  Will POC continue to be devalued? Answer, Yes. 

July 2022:  Sweden’s International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) added the United States to its list of 34 “backsliding democracies.” 

August 2022: After watching the House Select Committee Hearings on the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol on TV, American constitutional democracy came very close to being forever lost.  

October 2022:  Delivering a fiery primetime speech to the nation President Biden said, “America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept.”  He denounced MAGA Republicans as semi-fascists who.….. “do not respect the Constitution.” 

November 2022:  American democracy is seriously threatened.  Some contributing factors: political violence, threats to Trump’s enemies, weaknesses in our governing structure, Senate’s filibuster rule, January 6 attack on U.S. Capitol.

December 2022:  Significance of November elections: voters were more concerned about the threats to American democracy and threats to our rights and freedoms: abortion, civil, election, and privacy rights; the rights of freedom of religion, due process, and the rule of law.

January 2023:  America was again beset by violence — not only political but also by mass gun attacks on some of the nation’s marginalized populations. The 2022 year’s count of murders by mass shootings totaled 610.

March 2023:  Mass shootings in America have become normalized because it has most guns in the world.  In a 2018 Small Arms Survey, the U.S. is estimated to have 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, while the next highest country is at 52.8 firearms. 

May 2023:  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, guns are also the number one cause of death of children in America — more  than motor vehicles and cancer.

July 2023:  Over the years common sense measures to quell gun violence have been suggested but virtually none have passed.    Senseless mass shootings and gun violence continue unabated. 

October 2023:  California’s excellent record of gun control:  ranked as the No. 1 site for gun safety, a 43% lower gun death rate than the rest of the U.S., and a gun homicide rate for youth nearly 50% lower in 2022 than 2006.  

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