Ninety-Eight More Arrive — and Some Already Regret It
The Filipino Forum asks whether anything can stop the stream of young Filipinos crossing the Pacific for Seattle, even as new arrivals discover the hardship the papers warned them about.
In the face of repeated news stories published in Philippine newspapers about the hardships and privations of Filipinos in this country — without mentioning private letters from friends to friends carrying the warning against making the big mistake of supposing that life here is easy — we are again witnessing an influx of Filipinos into Seattle. A few days ago ninety-eight boys arrived in Seattle from the Philippines. Some of them are already expressing their regret for coming over. Others, however, think that life here is wonderful. So, after all, can we ever stop Filipinos from coming to this country? Talk of discouraging them. But they will come. Filipinos are adventurous.
“So, after all, can we ever stop Filipinos from coming to this country? Talk of discouraging them. But they will come. Filipinos are adventurous.”
This is the Filipino Forum's own editorial voice, founded in 1929 in Seattle as the community's mouthpiece. The "influx" it describes was real — thousands of young Filipino men, mostly laborers and students, arrived in Pacific Coast cities in the late 1920s, and the paper's program pledged to "stand for, and demand, justice and square dealing with Filipino labor in the Pacific Northwest." The tension between warning letters home and the pull of adventure is the same one that shapes migration today.
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