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Asian-American: Filipinos
I have been here in America for several years, but I still feel like a stranger in this country. I have adapted to the culture, but I am still treated differently from white Americans.
I feel like I am not free. I am not entitled to everything that a white American is. I am sad that I have come here for a better life only to be looked down upon.
Everywhere I see segregation and discrimination. Sometimes I can’t even sit down at a restaurant to be served or enter businesses because there are signs declaring “NO Filipinos Allowed.”
At first there was the Naturalization Law that excluded non-whites from gaining citizenship. The war allowed them to fight with other fellow Americans and those who fought in the U.S. armed forces were able to become citizens. Filipino-Americans hoped to show that they were soldiers of democracy and were true Americans. They wanted to gain respect after the war for fighting with the Americans, and to eventually gain American citizenship. In reality, those who did fight in the U.S. armed forces gain citizenship. However, many Filipino-Americans still faced segregation and discrimination, even soldiers. They felt that the white Americans hated and ridiculed Filipinos because of their brown skin.
Filipino-Americans mostly lived in the west coast of the U.S. Most lived in California and Hawaii.
(Fillmore District, San Francisco)
I am equally American as others. I’ve tried to be just like an American by dressing like one, living like one, and eating like one.
When the first immigrants came here, they worked in cane fields in Hawaii, farms in California, and canneries in Alaska. During WWII, Filipinos enlisted as soldiers into the First Filipino Infantry Regiment to fight alongside Americans against the Japanese.
