Migrant Scribes And Poet-Advocates: U.S. Filipino Literary .

Migrant Scribes and Poet-Advocates: U.S. Filipino Literary Historyin West Coast Periodicals, 1905 to 1941byJean VenguaA dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of therequirements for the degree ofDoctor of PhilosophyinEnglishin theGraduate Divisionof theUniversity of California, BerkeleyCommittee in charge:Professor Genaro M. Padilla, ChairProfessor Tom LeonardProfessor Mitchell BreitwieserFall 2010

1AbstractMigrant Scribes and Poet-Advocates: U.S. Filipino Literary Historyin West Coast Periodicals, 1905 to 1941by Jean VenguaDoctor of Philosophy in EnglishUniversity of California, BerkeleyProfessor Genaro Padilla, ChairMuch of the earliest prose and poetry published by Filipinos in the United States appeared in themany periodicals published and edited by Filipinos from 1905 through the end of the GreatDepression. Today, these periodicals function as historical "archives." However, they alsodocument U.S. Filipino literary heritage from the first half of the twentieth century, especially informs of persuasive writing such as editorials and feature essays, and also in poetry, short stories,reviews, and literary criticism. The periodicals nurtured Filipino writers as they struggled to findtheir voice in the foreign nation that employed them as non-citizen workers, and had colonizedand exploited the material resources of their homeland, the Philippines. A study of these textsmay help to add breadth and depth to our research and understanding of Filipino writing in theU.S., both its literary production and history, as well as its contemporary forms.This dissertation is a preliminary survey of writing found in eight U.S. Filipino periodicals in theWestern U.S. during the early 20th century. It articulates several broad functions of thesenewspapers and magazines in relation to the production and support of U.S. Filipino writing.While U.S. Filipino periodicals constituted their own social spheres, providing venues andreading constituencies for writers, the work they published also narrated and thus reinforced theformation of Filipino communities—both migrating or localized—as well as group andindividual identities, although the effects varied, in terms of the writer‘s gender. This studyexamines the historical and material contexts for this writing, exploring the lives of the writersthemselves, as well as specific examples of texts that they produced.

iTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsiiIntroduction1Chapter I – The 19th and early 20th Century Press in the Philippines and the Filipino StudentMagazines8Chapter II – The Northwest: Victorio Acosta Velasco and the Philippine Advocate42Chapter III – Central Coast: the Three Stars, Philippines Mail, and the Filipino Pioneer71Chapter IV – War and the Irony of Unity: the Philippine Commonwealth Times and thePhilippine-American News Digest120Chapter V – Conclusion146Bibliography154Appendix163

iiAcknowledgementsFor their guidance and support, my thanks and appreciation to Genaro M. Padilla, Tom Leonard,Mitchell Breitwieser, José David Saldívar, Sue Schweik, and Oscar Campomanes. Independentresearchers and archivists have been of great help; these include Alex Fabros, Jess Tabasa, thestaff of the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, Allen Library at the University of Washington, theCharles E. Young Research Library at UCLA, Steinbeck Library in Salinas, Monterey CountyHistorical Society, and Fred and Dorothy Cordova of the FANHS archives in Seattle. Friendsand fellow scholars at Berkeley, including Elizabeth H. Pisares, Nerissa Balce, Gladys Nubla,and Margo Ponce Diaz, have inspired my research. Thanks also to Leny Mendoza Strobel, EileenTabios, Joselyn Ignacio, Dida Kutz, Mary Scherr, and my son, Dana Gier, for cheering me on.Special appreciation goes to Michael Fink for his technical expertise and unwavering support;and to Carla Alicia Tejeda, my friend and partner in the dissertation process.

1IntroductionMigrant Scribes and Poet-Advocates: U.S. Filipino Literary Historyin West Coast Periodicals, 1905 to 1941When I entered graduate school in the 1990s, there seemed to be a consensus in Asian Americanstudies that Filipino American writing had its genesis primarily in the early writings of CarlosBulosan; America is in the Heart was the most often cited of his works. It was first published in1943, and resurrected in 1973 by Carey McWilliams during the beginning of the Third WorldStrikes of the 1970s. Among writers or academics unfamiliar with Filipino American literature inthe 1990s, the genre seemed barely to exist, or was thought to be in its earliest stages. We nowknow that Filipinos have been writing and publishing in the United States since at least January24, 1899, with Felipe Agoncillo‘s Memorials to the U.S. Secretary of State and the U.S. Senate,published by the American Anti-Imperialist League.1 In ―Filipino American Literature,‖ OscarCampomanes has pointed out that prose written by Filipinos can be found ―from 1905 onward,‖including the work of ―Juan Salazar, Juan Collas, and Marcelo de Gracia Concepcion in the1910s–1920s, Greg San Diego and the brothers Jose and Teofilo del Castillo in the 1930s–1940s.‖2Much of the earliest prose and poetry published by Filipinos in the United States appeared inperiodicals published and edited by Filipinos from 1905 through the end of the Great Depression.In his study of "The Filipino Press in the United States," sociologist Emory Bogardus took noteof "the prolific nature of the Filipino press" in the 1930s, noting ―six or eight newspapermagazines in Los Angeles ‖ alone.3 Enya P. Flores-Meiser has estimated twenty newspaperspublished by Filipinos from 1931-1940, although she does not specify region.4 I have foundeither microfilm copies or reference to at least forty-four periodicals published during the period1905 to 1941. During that period, these publications were examined by sociologists in order tounderstand and report on the migratory and social patterns of Filipinos. Today, these periodicalsfunction as historical "archives."5 But, as I argue here, they also document U.S. Filipino literaryheritage6 from the first half of the twentieth century, especially in forms of persuasive writingsuch as editorials and feature essays, but also in poetry, short stories, and literary criticism. Astudy of these texts may help to add breadth and depth to our research and understanding ofFilipino writing in the U.S., both its literary production and history, as well as its contemporaryforms.Filipino writing on the West Coast was fueled by a group of writers who were communityleaders, intellectuals, and labor organizers. To Oscar Campomanes‘ list of writers we can addVictorio Acosta Velasco, J.C. Dionisio, P.C. Morantte, Simeon Doria Arroyo, D.L. Marcuelo,and many others. Together they formed a collaborative network of ―traveling‖ editors andwriters, or ―scribes‖ as more than one reporter called them, many of whom were migrant workersfor at least part of each year, and students for the rest of the year, who paid their tuition andlodging through service work or agricultural and kitchen labor. A few were lucky enough to havethe funds to start businesses, or were saavy at social networking and able to find patrons. Theirnewspapers and magazines provided a reading constituency for emerging U.S. Filipino writers

2who were rarely published in the mainstream media. The periodicals also provided thebeginnings of a critical dialogue about Filipino literature written in the U.S.This dissertation is a preliminary survey of writing found in eight U.S. Filipino periodicals in theWestern U.S. during the early 20th century.1 This study articulates several broad functions ofthese newspapers and magazines in relation to the production and support of U.S. Filipinowriting. These functions include providing writers with venues and readers, helping to unitecommunities and to cohere group and individual identities through various types of reports,narratives, and poems. In the process, I examine the historical and material contexts for thiswriting, exploring the lives of the writers themselves, as well as specific examples of texts thatthey produced.The writing samples include essays, editorials and op-eds, testimonials, short stories, poems,reviews of books, film, and dramatic performances, and literary criticism. The newspaper ormagazine setting—comprised of reportage, ads, juxtaposition with articles, number andplacement of columns, and typography—are important indicators of meaning and emphasis inthe writings by Filipinos of this era. The study is necessarily limited by time and geographicconstraints, and the apparent dearth of legible originals and copies in California. In some cases,print or microfilm copies were incomplete, ―mutilated‖ or otherwise only partly legible. In oneuniversity library, copies of the Philippine Advocate listed in the library catalogue were foundafter a two-week search, rubber-banded and rolled in the corner of a shelf. As I madephotocopies of the dry, browned pages, they began to crumble and fall apart on the glass.Nevertheless, in other parts of the U.S. where Filipinos migrated in large numbers, there arecollections of their periodicals in both public and private collections, which may provide sourcesfor further historical and literary study.7The survey moves away from the topic of Filipinos as objects of purely historical or sociologicalstudy (which may contribute to viewpoints such as the one that begins this chapter), toward aconsideration of —not if, but how—the Filipino literary arts and letters flourished during aperiod in which the existence of Filipinos on the West Coast became increasingly embattled.Chapter I begins with an introduction and summary of the historical development of thePhilippine press and the relationship between the American press in Manila, and thedevelopment of Philippine literature in English. It is important to present a historical backgroundof the Philippine press since many of the U.S. Filipino editors were trained as editors and writerswhile working for newspapers in the Philippines, and literary criticism by Filipinos in the U.S.was tied to specific developments in literature in the Philippines during the 1930s and early1940s. Furthermore, the status of the Philippines as a colonial ―dependency‖ greatly affected thestatus and experiences of Filipinos in the U.S. during that period.I relate this background to the emerging Filipino print publications in the United States with thethe earliest student magazines: The Filipino Students’ Magazine, and The Filipino Student,published in Berkeley, California. These were edited by pensionado students attending Americanuniversities and initially subsidized by the Philippine government and the American AntiImperialist League.