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.Before the immigration acts and the depression combined to curb thenumbers of newcomers, Filipinos moved into Hawaii and California to fillthe labor gap created by the restriction on other Asians.Because the Philip-pines was then a commonwealth of the United States, there were no legalbarriers to population movement; the enormous needs of the sugar plantersin Hawaii and the farmers in California provided the spur.Filipinos had been emigrating to Hawaii to work for the sugar and pineap-ple planters since the Gentlemen s Agreement of 1907 with Japan had re-duced Japanese emigration.During the next quarter century the HawaiianIslands welcomed 125,000 Filipinos.In the 1920s, however, when Californiagrowers feared that Congress might impose quotas on Mexicans, they turnedto the Filipinos for labor.Filipinos came to the mainland from Hawaii anddirectly from the Philippine Islands.According to 1920 census figures, therewere only 5,603 Filipinos on the mainland, but 10 years later they numbered45,208.Other sources estimate that there may have been more than twicethat number.Some 90 percent of the Filipinos were single, male, and under30 years of age.They worked in northern and central California farms andvineyards.Stockton, California, with a concentration of perhaps 4,000 to8,000 Filipinos, became known at the end of the 1920s as the Manila of Cal-ifornia.Other sizable settlements formed in San Francisco, Seattle, and Port-land.The commonwealth status of the Philippines also permitted substantialnumbers of Filipinos to be recruited for the United States armed forces, es-pecially the navy.This accounted for the presence of Filipino communitiesin the San Diego and Los Angeles areas.A majority of these recruits madethe military their career and left the service only upon retirement.Thearmed forces provided them with security and, more important, with thechance to bring their families to the United States.In the navy the Filipinos Ethnic Conflict and Immigration Restriction 89were usually assigned to mess halls and as personal attendants to high-rank-ing military personnel.The depression and American prejudices caused many Filipinos to losetheir jobs during the 1930s.A congressional act of 1934, which promised thePhilippine Islands their independence in 1946, also established an annualFilipino quota of 50 immigrants.The quota, plus the fact that many Filipinosreturned home, cut their numbers in West Coast agriculture; by 1940, 90percent of those who remained in California were working in such personaldomestic service jobs as bellboys, houseboys, cooks, kitchen helpers, andwaiters.As economic conditions improved in the late 1930s, the numbers of Euro-pean immigrants rose again.More important motivating factors than eco-nomics, however, were the triumph of fascism in Germany in 1933 and thecoming of war in Europe six years later.As the Germans annexed Austria(1938) and Czechoslovakia (1939) and then crushed Poland (1939) and con-quered Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in thespring of 1940, hundreds of thousands fled in terror, and more would haveleft had they been able to do so.Though millions of political and religious dissenters were persecuted byHitler s regime, Jews stood out as the major victims.Plagued by legal andother harassments, they sought asylum in other countries.After acceptingas many as they thought they could absorb, the nations of the world refusedfurther modification in their immigration policies.Until 1939 Hitler per-mitted almost all Jews to leave if they chose to do so; unfortunately, mostcould not find any nation that would accept them.The horrors perpetratedby the Nazis were legion, but before the mass exterminations in the con-centration camps, perhaps the worst single episode occurred on the night ofNovember 9 10, 1938.The government sanctioned a savage assault on Ger-man Jews, and throughout the night people were beaten, stores were looted,and homes, hospitals, and old-age institutions were burned; at least 20,000people were rounded up for deportation to concentration camps.The bar-barity of these actions evoked worldwide denunciation.President FranklinD.Roosevelt declared, I myself could scarcely believe that such thingscould occur in a twentieth-century civilization. Nevertheless, U.S.immigration laws remained intact, and the Americangovernment made few allowances for the victims of Hitler s terroristic poli-cies.Americans certainly feared economic competition from immigrantworkers, for with almost 10 million unemployed in the United States, jobprospects for newcomers were dim [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Before the immigration acts and the depression combined to curb thenumbers of newcomers, Filipinos moved into Hawaii and California to fillthe labor gap created by the restriction on other Asians.Because the Philip-pines was then a commonwealth of the United States, there were no legalbarriers to population movement; the enormous needs of the sugar plantersin Hawaii and the farmers in California provided the spur.Filipinos had been emigrating to Hawaii to work for the sugar and pineap-ple planters since the Gentlemen s Agreement of 1907 with Japan had re-duced Japanese emigration.During the next quarter century the HawaiianIslands welcomed 125,000 Filipinos.In the 1920s, however, when Californiagrowers feared that Congress might impose quotas on Mexicans, they turnedto the Filipinos for labor.Filipinos came to the mainland from Hawaii anddirectly from the Philippine Islands.According to 1920 census figures, therewere only 5,603 Filipinos on the mainland, but 10 years later they numbered45,208.Other sources estimate that there may have been more than twicethat number.Some 90 percent of the Filipinos were single, male, and under30 years of age.They worked in northern and central California farms andvineyards.Stockton, California, with a concentration of perhaps 4,000 to8,000 Filipinos, became known at the end of the 1920s as the Manila of Cal-ifornia.Other sizable settlements formed in San Francisco, Seattle, and Port-land.The commonwealth status of the Philippines also permitted substantialnumbers of Filipinos to be recruited for the United States armed forces, es-pecially the navy.This accounted for the presence of Filipino communitiesin the San Diego and Los Angeles areas.A majority of these recruits madethe military their career and left the service only upon retirement.Thearmed forces provided them with security and, more important, with thechance to bring their families to the United States.In the navy the Filipinos Ethnic Conflict and Immigration Restriction 89were usually assigned to mess halls and as personal attendants to high-rank-ing military personnel.The depression and American prejudices caused many Filipinos to losetheir jobs during the 1930s.A congressional act of 1934, which promised thePhilippine Islands their independence in 1946, also established an annualFilipino quota of 50 immigrants.The quota, plus the fact that many Filipinosreturned home, cut their numbers in West Coast agriculture; by 1940, 90percent of those who remained in California were working in such personaldomestic service jobs as bellboys, houseboys, cooks, kitchen helpers, andwaiters.As economic conditions improved in the late 1930s, the numbers of Euro-pean immigrants rose again.More important motivating factors than eco-nomics, however, were the triumph of fascism in Germany in 1933 and thecoming of war in Europe six years later.As the Germans annexed Austria(1938) and Czechoslovakia (1939) and then crushed Poland (1939) and con-quered Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France in thespring of 1940, hundreds of thousands fled in terror, and more would haveleft had they been able to do so.Though millions of political and religious dissenters were persecuted byHitler s regime, Jews stood out as the major victims.Plagued by legal andother harassments, they sought asylum in other countries.After acceptingas many as they thought they could absorb, the nations of the world refusedfurther modification in their immigration policies.Until 1939 Hitler per-mitted almost all Jews to leave if they chose to do so; unfortunately, mostcould not find any nation that would accept them.The horrors perpetratedby the Nazis were legion, but before the mass exterminations in the con-centration camps, perhaps the worst single episode occurred on the night ofNovember 9 10, 1938.The government sanctioned a savage assault on Ger-man Jews, and throughout the night people were beaten, stores were looted,and homes, hospitals, and old-age institutions were burned; at least 20,000people were rounded up for deportation to concentration camps.The bar-barity of these actions evoked worldwide denunciation.President FranklinD.Roosevelt declared, I myself could scarcely believe that such thingscould occur in a twentieth-century civilization. Nevertheless, U.S.immigration laws remained intact, and the Americangovernment made few allowances for the victims of Hitler s terroristic poli-cies.Americans certainly feared economic competition from immigrantworkers, for with almost 10 million unemployed in the United States, jobprospects for newcomers were dim [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]