ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE
AND RESISTANCE AMONG THE FILIPINO COMMUNITY IN THE US
By Jay Mendoza
Executive Director, Pilipino Workers’ Center (PWC)
Spokesperson, Alliance of Filipino Immigrants
and Advocates—Southern California (AFIA-SC)
November 28, 1999
Seattle International People’s Assembly ’99
Seattle, Washington, USA.
“The people are the makers of history.”
And this applies to the
anti-imperialist struggle of the Filipino people, or Filipino community,
living, residing and working in the United States. The history of the Filipino people's anti-imperialist struggle in
the US, is a history of migration, strikes, exploited labor, racism, hate
crimes and systematic oppression and repression by none other than US monopoly
capitalism.
The history of the
Filipino people’s anti-imperialist struggle in the US, is a history of workers
versus capitalist, migrants versus imperialists, the oppressed versus the
oppressor.
And, this history of
anti-imperialist struggle has a beginning—a root—and it began in the
Philippines. In the Philippines, where
the Katipuneros (or Filipino
revolutionaries), originally led by the worker Andres Bonifacio, turned their
guns, bolo knives, bamboo rods, and fists against the US military.
Against American military
imperialist aggression, which brutally killed over one million Filipinos,
one-seventh (1/7) of the Filipino population.
Against American imperialism, which coveted the Philippine Islands for
its strategic military position in the Asia Pacific and its economic importance
for cheap raw materials and a dumping ground for overproduced US commodities.
The
Fil-Am War Is Not Yet Over!
This was the
Filipino-American War of 1899-1902. A
war which is not yet over, my friends!
A war which continues today in the anti-imperialist struggle of the
Filipino people living in the US today!
In the 1900s, before the
first “wave” of migrant Filipinos
went to the US (who were by and large landless peasants who became farm workers
in a foreign country), the militant Filipino working class in the Philippines
staged mass anti-imperialist demonstrations.
“Down with US Imperialism!” “Down
with US Imperialism!” They shouted
this on May 1, 1905, International Workers’ Day. In solidarity with workers of the world. This was the clear call of the Filipino
proletariat in Manila, the capital of the Philippine colony. Down with US Imperialism!
And if you happened to be
taking the boat to America on that day, or on any other day when Filipino
workers took to the streets. Then that
is what you would see. That is what you
will remember. As your boat left Manila
Bay in the hopes of finding the “American
Dream,” you would hear “Down with US
Imperialism”! And this would
foreshadow the militant Filipino farm worker’s strikes, which pierced the sides
of US imperialism, and forced the agri-industrial business, Planters and
Growers, to cave in to the demands of the workers.
“The people are the makers of history!”
If we look back into the
history of the anti-imperialist struggle of Filipinos in the US, when the first
Filipino migrant workers came to Hawaii, we can see its anti-imperialist
character. For Hawaii was just a
colony. The Philippines was just a
colony. Two colonial territories of US
imperialism.
So if you were recruited
and contracted to be a sugar worker in Hawaii, you were one among tens of
thousands. You were going from one
colony to another. Cheap, exploited
labor. Your peasant background and
crisis of landlessness forced you into transplanted labor…on order by US
Planters and Growers, who were backed by the US government. For Hawaii was not forced to become a State
of the US until the 1950s. And who
controlled Hawaii? The Growers and
Planters of the US monopoly capitalists in the agricultural industry.
And the Filipino people,
the workers, fought back, struggled and resisted against the imperialist
Growers. And this is the
anti-imperialist character of the Filipino farm workers’ struggle against the
Growers. Workers strikes on the
colonies! Down with US
imperialism! Workers strikes on the
colonies! In 1920, 2,600 Filipino farm
workers went out on strike in 5 plantations.
Eight more strikes followed in the next five years. This was the movement of the masses. This was the Filipino people’s resistance
against imperialism.
And we can see more
clearly the participation of the masses through the eyes and words of an
eleven-year-old little Filipino girl. A
little girl whose life was swept up by the strike of 1920. She writes:
“Dear Diary: we just
arrive here today, here, at the ‘Strike Camp.’ There
are so many Filipinos here, married-couples and unmarried men. They’re from all parts of Oahu. There are five other young girls here
too. I became friends with two of them
already. Their first names are
Esperanza and Victoria. They are, both,
very nice girls. They showed me the
place around here, as soon as we settled, I mean, found our sleeping
quarters. You see, we all live in one
big house, and so all we did was put curtains around our bed, and that will
have to serve as our room for how long, we don’t know. I guess we have to stay here until this
strike is over.”
And so this little girl
participated in the Great Strike of 1920.
She helped wash clothes, cook, played, endured the struggle of a
militant mass movement. Along with
other little girls and thousands of Filipino farm workers. The workers demanded 75 cents a day, and
waged the classic duel between wage-labor and capital.
And so, the point is
this: the paper tigers of imperialism and monopoly capitalism cannot destroy
the will of the masses. They cannot
destroy the desire that is born into the experience of the basic masses of
peasants and workers to one day be liberated from the chains of
oppression. And this is a fact of
history. That change is always in the
making. And the people are the makers
of this change.
“The struggle against modern racism is a struggle against
modern imperialism.”
And to this fact we must
awake the masses, to this political consciousness and undertaking. To eliminate racism, we must fight
imperialism! Unmask racism to reveal
its imperialist core! This is the call
of the Filipino anti-racist!
And what was the historic
struggle, the anti-imperialist resistance, against the white supremacist
society, which Filipino immigrants in the US experienced?
In the 1930s, “No Filipinos Allowed” were the
signboards that MY grand uncles read on the doors of restaurants and
apartments. “Go to the other side of town!”, “No orientals allowed”, “It is
illegal for Filipinos to marry white women!”
“Just go back to your own country, you’re not wanted here!”
The monopoly capitalists
and the US government spearheaded state violence against the Black man, against
the Red woman, against the Yellow man, against the Brown woman. Thousands died. The US state government ran a high-level psy-war propaganda
campaign that even the masses, in some respects, had turned against each
other. White workers were telling
Filipino workers: “You’re the reason I
don’t have a job. You’re the reason
wages are low. You’re the reason I
don’t have money in my pocket!” But
this is an illusion created by the imperialists. A paper illusion which can be swatted away by organizing the
masses in their millions, to fight racism with an anti-imperialist
perspective…to fight racism with an anti-imperialist perspective.
With
Imperialist Globalization Comes Racism
For the Filipino American
experience of oppression from modern racism, began with the US colonization of
the Philippines. While the African
American’s began with the slave trade.
The Indigenous Native Americans began with Columbus and the Yellow man’s
from imperialist expansion. So each
man, and each woman, and each child and each grandchild, from all different
races, have their own experiences of how they were abducted into modern US
racism.
But, each abduction is
linked to a global history. Global
history of the developing imperialist powers to conquer the world market. “Globalization”
of the capitalist market—the world economy which changed into monopoly
capitalism at the turn of the 20th century. And this is the point where Filiipnos began
their anti-racist struggle. An
anti-racism that is rooted in anti-imperialism.
In 1938, a 17-year old
Filipino boy was shot, by an angry mob of 500 white persons. Race riots against Filipinos erupted in
Stockton, Exeter, Watsonville and other cities in California.
And what was the answer
of the Filipinos? First, was to
immediately quell the riots—organize church persons and community leaders to
denounce the anti-Filipino rioters.
But at a deeper level,
some Filipinos heeded the call of their times.
They joined the Communist Party.
The Communist Party of the USA, in the 1930s, which was filled with
immigrants who demanded justice.
Because, they saw in the Communist Party that racism and imperialism
were linked. One ism existed because of
the other. This is the experience of
the anti-imperialist and anti-racist Filipinos in the US at that time. And speaking of one of the most prominent
and well-known Filipino anti-imperialist and Communists, is none other than
Carlos Bulosan. The author of “America is in the Heart.” For Bulosan had heeded the call for struggle
against US monopoly capitalism. And, he
wrote first-hand of his experiences of racial oppression and subjugation in the
US. And, Bulosan was not alone in
joining the CPUSA, hundreds of other Filipino workers in the US joined.
And, let us not forget,
that the Communist Party of the Philippines was founded by Crisanto
Evangelista, shortly before the writings of Bulosan. Meaning that, the steady stream of new Filipino immigrants to the
US would bring with them the militant tradition of anti-imperialist resistance
to join in the anti-racist struggles.
“The people are the makers of history. The people are the agents of change.”
After the Second
Imperialist War, a.k.a. World War II—in the 1950s, Filipinos in the US
continued their anti-imperialist struggles.
For one, the struggle of Union Local 7, an Alaskan Cannery Workers
Union, which encompassed 3,000 Filipino workers, stood as a threat to the
stability of US monopoly-capitalist business-as-usual.
A
Union Had to be Anti-Imperialist
Filipinos answered the
call of Unionization, and from the mass perspective of Filipino immigrants, a
Union had to be anti-imperialist. And
because Union Local 7 was anti-imperialist, the US government launched a campaign
to bust the Union. They launched a
unique campaign, only one in which an imperialist oppressor can take advantage
of its Third World immigrant workforce.
One by one, the US
government had indicted Filipino Unionists of Local 7 in an attempt to brand
them subversives and deport them back to the Philippines. The US tactic was to use the McArren Act,
otherwise known as the Internal Security Act of 1950. The McArren Act was McCarthyism aimed at immigrants. It contained clauses of “alien subversion” and “espionage.” Soon after the indictments, raids and
arrests began to take place by state police and government agents against
Filipino Unionists of Local 7.
The US government cooked
up the “Communist bogey man” and the “red scare.” And the US imperialists were on the defensive, because by this
time 2/3 of all the world’s peoples were led by Communist Parties; and, for
this the US feared the anti-imperialist Unionism of Local 7. Brown brothers in the US connected to Yellow
brothers of Mao Zedong’s revolution, connected to the Soviet Brothers under the
Stalin administration. The Local 7
anti-imperialist Filipino unionism of fish cannery workers stood as a David vs.
Goliath within the belly of the US imperialist beast—but it stood as a single
branch of a great tree that included the majority of the world’s peoples
undergoing socialist construction.
In the ‘60’s, the US
imperialist invasion of Vietnam was a pill of its own destruction. The Vietnamese people rose up in arms, and
this, coupled with the Chinese Revolution led by Mao Zedong, had an enormous
impact on Filipinos in the US, and Filipinos in the Philippines. The legacy of Mao Zedong Thought continued
to ricochet across many Third World nations, and inspired and sparked
revolutions against US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
The anti-war movement in
the US radicalized a generation of Filipinos, and Americans. Many of whom are standing in this room
together with us today. And too, China
and Vietnam were inspirations to the reestablishment of the Communist Party of
the Philippines in 1968.
The radicalization of
Filipinos in the US in the ‘60s and the newly launched national-democratic
movement of the Philippines produced more mass activists for the
anti-imperialist struggles of Filipinos in the US.
As the world crisis and
Philippine crisis intensified, so did Filipino migration to the US
intensify. More and more Filipinos,
forced to leave their homeland as economic refugees, were fast becoming the
number one Asian immigrant population in the US. And, the constant flow of immigrant experience in organizing
against fascism and dictatorship of the US-Marcos regime became a pool of
knowledge and experience, from which thirsty activists could quench their
thirst for strategies, tactics and political leadership.
Filipino anti-imperialist
unity was broad, deep and wide, putting into action Filipinos across sectoral
and class lines. Filipino professionals
and students as well as Filipino workers and their families took to the streets
and protested against US imperialism.
Before, it was “US Out of
Vietnam!” and then it was “US Out of
the Philippines!”
Anti-Imperialist
Consciousness Taking Root
The seeds of a new
burgeoning anti-imperialist consciousness had taken their root.
The new anti-imperialist
consciousness of Filipinos was based and rooted in the new-democratic struggle
of the Filipino people in the Philippines.
The new-democratic struggle of the Filipino people outlined the
principles for a national-democratic movement—for sovereignty from foreign
imperialism and genuine people’s democracy.
It analyzed the three
basic problems of the Philippines to be feudalism, imperialism and bureaucrat
capitalism. And, it was this analysis
and the mass mobilizations of Philippine peasants and workers in the face of
death squads, salvagings, and vigilante violence, that spurred the
anti-imperialist solidarity movement in the US, both among Filipinos and among
all other races, to free the Philippines, and rid it of its three basic evils.
Because the Filipino
masses in the US were eager to join in anti-imperialist solidarity with the
Filipino people, anti-imperialist organizations and their chapters spread in
the ‘70s and ‘80s. The Katipunan ng mga Democratikong Pilipino,
CAMD, IAFP, then later, Ugnayan, IMDP, APC—all these organizations were sparked
and ignited by the Philippine national-democratic movement and ND activists
alive and kicking in the US.
But not all the
organizations mentioned, in the end, would embrace the true cause of the
Filipino masses. Some were left to
whither away, while others continued, learned lessons, and developed their
practice sharper and sharper in order to arouse, organize and mobilize
Filipinos in the US, Americans, and those living in the US for the
anti-imperialist struggle to free the Philippines. And, they are with us at this conference today!!!
The anti-imperialist
solidarity movement swelled like a tidal wave.
And some contradictions brought national attention to some and also
embarrassment to others. The Filipino labor
leader, Philip Vera Cruz, left the militant United Farm Workers of America,
because the “progressive” Cesar
Chavez accepted money and awards from the killer despot Ferdinand Marcos. Vera Cruz put his Union position as
Vice-President of the UFW on the line for the Filipino people. He put the very principles of
anti-imperialism, and the human right to live free of dictatorship, above the
narrow-mindedness of local Union glory.
It was a matter of principle.
The torrential wave of
the Filipino anti-imperialist movement played its respective role in the ouster
of the killer despot Marcos in 1986.
And the dedicated masses continued to fight against the new US-backed
puppet, Cory Aquino. The Filipino
anti-imperialist movement in the US also saw the ouster of the US military
bases in 1991. And it furthered its
resolution to fight the US-Ramos regime and presently today the US-Estrada
regime.
“The people are the makers of history! And they are the true agents of change!”
And as we speak of the
US-Filipinos call to action that “to
fight racism means to fight imperialism”
And, as we speak of anti-imperialist Unionism. And, as we speak of the solidarity movement to support the
national-democratic struggle of the people of the Philippines. One great lesson has come about. One great lesson in the struggle of
implementing political principles, in the rise and fall of anti-imperialist
organizations, in the struggle of action, in the struggle of experience. One great lesson.
US
Monopoly Capitalism Is the Enemy of All People
And that is this: US
monopoly capitalism is the enemy of the people—all people. This is not a new lesson. It’s the same lesson. It is the same lesson that Mao Zedong
felt. The same lesson that Lenin
felt. The same lesson that Sally from
the Church down the street felt.
It is this one great
lesson that we have all felt—when we walked the picket line for higher
wages. Felt when we tucked our children
in bed and whispered “sweet dreams.” Felt when we saw the plunders of Third World
strip-mining of the environment. Felt
when we passed through customs and got our visa’s stamped. Felt when we heard that Joseph Ileto was
shot dead by a white supremacist.
Anti-imperialism is in
our hearts. It is a driving force of
political consciousness that leads us to new friends, new bonds of solidarity,
and new experiences in anti-imperialist struggle.
I salute all of you here
today, who have come together to celebrate this anti-imperialist unity. We are all here today to say NO to the
WTO! NO to the WTO! The WTO is the executive committee of
imperialism! Down with
imperialism!
And I am also proud
today, to see that the People’s Assembly 1999, is part of the Filipino people’s
anti-imperialist struggle in the US.
And, it is a joining of all our forces, from countries and peoples
around the world.
Together we make change. “The
people are the makers of history. And
today, we have done just that!”
DOWN WITH THE WTO!
DOWN WITH US IMPERIALISM!
LONG LIVE THE UNITED
PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION AND GENUINE DEMOCRACY!!!
Thank you.