Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

It all started with a young woman’s desire to better know her father, who died when she was too young to remember. Carina Monica Montoya was just six years old when her Filipino daddy, Tomas "Tommy" Montoya, died.

"I began research on the early Filipinos in America in general, and the Filipinos in Los Angeles in particular, all in an attempt to know and understand my father’s life during the early years," said Carina. The result of her research is the remarkable book which will be launched on April 4 at Historic Filipinotown -- Images of America Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown.

Carina Montoya was born and raised in Los Angeles and her personal interest in local history has led to an amazing book of images of the past. Her father, Tommy Montoya, was from General Trias, Cavite and was one of the first young Filipino men to arrive in the 1920s, live in Los Angeles’s Little Manila, and eventually settled in and around the Temple-Beverly corridor. She collected many of the vintage images from the early Filipino families who settled in and around the Temple-Beverly corridor, the Filipino community, and Los Angeles historical organizations. Her remarkable vintage photographs illustrate developments throughout the century that not only led the early Filipino families to an area in the city they could finally call home, but it created a cultural legacy that remains as the foundation of the town today.

"My father served in the US Navy, and as a result of his service was granted citizenship. He settled in Los Angeles and found work in Hollywood as a waiter at Don The Beachcomber, a popular Polynesian restaurant/bar that mostly catered to Hollywood film industry crowd. My father did not have any relatives in America when he immigrated. His friends became his family, living in groups, sharing food and money when times were bad, such as during the depression years. When he met and married my mother in the early 1940s, they lived in an apartment in Little Tokyo. They lived through the forced relocations due to urban developments. When I was an infant, he was diagnosed with having Multiple Sclerosis. He became paralyzed from the neck down and had to put in an iron lung at Rancho Los Amigos in Downey, CA." Carina recalled. "My father passed away before my seventh birthday and I have very vague memories of him. Through my books I’ve been able to see and understand my father’s life as an immigrant. A desire to know my father has been my inspiration. Many of the photographs and information that I obtained from individuals and families in and around the Temple-Beverly corridor helped put names to faces and faces to places and places that collectively comprised the Filipino community of Los Angeles. I wanted to start from where it all began for my father, in Little Manila, and where my young immigrant mother with two fatherless children sought security and familiarity among friends and family, in the Temple-Beverly corridor. In my hunt for photographs, I’ve retraced my father’s steps in and around downtown Los Angeles, Bunker Hill, and the Temple-Beverly corridor. Of course many, if not all, of the buildings that comprised Little Manila from the 1920s-1940s are no longer there, but echoes of the ghost pool halls, barber shops, diners and taxi dance halls breath life into my photographs that would have otherwise been left forgotten. Each photograph was a piece of the puzzle that in the end contained the big picture of what Historic Filipinotown today is all about. The challenge was finding the photographs, and the information to go with them," the young author said.

Carina’s research also highlighted the resiliency, persevering spirit and closeness of the early Filipino immigrants, as demonstrated in the life of her mother, Rose. Talking about her mother, Carina recalled, "She initially came to America in the late 1940s to visit her older brother, Amor Guerzon, who lived in Seattle and worked in the Alaskan fish canneries during fish season. He later became a key figure in the formation of a union to protect the Filipino cannery workers in providing them with better wages and working conditions. She met my father in San Francisco and married soon after, settling in Los Angeles. When my father fell ill, she had to find work to support two young children, in addition to growing medical bills. Too proud to accept charity, she hired a retired couple from New Orleans who lived next door to babysit my brother, Eric, and I while she attended classes at Los Angeles City College. She took English and business classes, which resulted in her finding a job at Occidental Life Insurance Company in downtown Los Angeles, now the TransAmerica building. Although her salary was low, it was enough to pay the rent, put food on the table, send up to private schools and receive music lessons. The relationship my brother and I had with the babysitters extended beyond the child care years and even to this day we regard that couple from New Orleans as our grandparents."

"My mother did not re-marry, and raised my brother and as a single parent. We belonged to the Santa Maria Association, an Ilocano organization founded in the 1940s. It was a family-oriented organization that held monthly meetings, celebrated holidays such as Christmas, Easter, etc., and provided a place for us to go and feel at home. Organizations such as the Santa Maria Association helped its members during difficult times by contributing money to help pay funeral expenses," Carina recalled.

Carina attended Immaculate Heart of Mary grammar school in Los Angeles, and Holy Family High School in Glendale. She graduated from the College of Great Falls (now University of Montana) in Great Falls, Montana, majoring in Sociology with a minor in criminal justice. To work towards a Masters degree in History, she attended Cal State University in LA but has since transferred to Excelsior College in New York, in an online course that better suits her busy schedule. When not doing historical research, Montoya is a Judicial Assistant to a United States federal judge in downtown Los Angeles. She is also an active reservist in the United States Navy.

Montoya is also the author of the book, Filipinos in Hollywood, and the co-author of a series of Filipino children’s cook books, all written in the spirit of promoting and preserving Filipino culture and tradition.

In the book, Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown, one can see how the early Filipinos faced severe discrimination. Among the interesting highlights of Montoya’s research brought this to the fore. "The first wave of Filipinos brought in three types: workers, military servicemen, and students. Regardless of economic status during the 1920s-1940s, Filipinos were relegated to service-related jobs and stoop labor in the fields. Prior to Filipinos able to purchase land, lifting of strict immigration laws and anti-miscegenation laws, all Filipinos living in America were subjected to the same obstacles of discrimination," Carina explained.

"In 1933, after Salvador Roldan challenged a California anti-miscegenation law that prohibited interracial marriages between whites and "Mongolians, Negroes, Mulattos, and persons of mixed blood," arguing that Filipinos were Malayan, he won the case and was allowed to marry his Caucasian wife. However, two months later, the statute was amended to include Malay, and marriages between Filipinos and Caucasians prior to the amendment were deemed void," said Carina. "Another highlight is that the early immigrants/ nationals were mostly brought to the US to fill America’s agricultural needs. Laws restricted what Filipinos were able to do in America - where they could work and where they could live. This accounted for much of the "transient" lifestyle of these young men, following crop season up and down California, and in the Alaskan fish canneries during fish season. For some it was a practical lifestyle, but for others it prevented any attachment to a place," she added.

Fortunately, discrimination is no longer a big issue today. "I can honestly say that my brother and I never felt the effects of discrimination and interracial marriage, language barriers, identity confusion, etc., was never an issue," Carina says. "We looked at ourselves as American and had no socialization problems. It wasn’t until I began research on the early Filipinos in America in general, and the Filipinos in Los Angeles in particular, all in an attempt to know and understand my father’s life during the early years, that I realized discrimination did in fact exist and that both my father and mother experienced it."

Carina’s inspiration for her books is all personal. Her other historical book, Filipinos in Hollywood, was also done in an attempt to better know her father and understand his life through the history of the Filipinos in Los Angeles. Carina says, "In getting to know my father through my books, it has enlightened me about so many things about the Filipino community and has brought me back to my own roots and lighted a flame within me to preserve this history that I am very much a part of. My children’s cook books (with renowned artist/muralist Eliseo Art Silva as illustrator) are also an attempt to preserve our culture, identity and heritage by passing on this information to future generations. The cook books incorporate Filipino history and food, such as, where adobo came from and it’s Spanish influence, and how it is made."

Montoya is currently working on establishing a Los Angeles Filipino museum that will be housed in an original Victorian house purchased in the 1930s by one of the city’s oldest Filipino families, located in the heart of Historic Filipinotown. The museum will exhibit photographs dating back to the 1920s of Filipino immigrants that came to America and settled in Los Angeles. Photographs of the first Filipino organizations founded in Los Angeles, i.e., Filipino Federation of America, Inc., Philippine Women’s Club, Santa Maria Ilocus Sur Association, Pangasinan Association, Cebu Brotherhood, and many others, will all be on exhibit.

Carina believes that Filipino Americans can contribute better to society and be more recognized as a potent force in the mainstream. "We should not let go of our culture and heritage because that is what defines who we are. If you are proud of your culture and heritage, then you are in a position to make a difference. Change can be a good thing, and power can be reflected in numbers," says the remarkable author."

( www.asianjournal.com )

( Published on March 25, 2009 in MDWK Magazine p. 2 )