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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."
