In the early twentieth century—not long after 1898, when the United States claimed the Philippines as an American colony—Filipinas/os became a vital part of the agricultural economy of California's fertile San Joaquin Delta. In downtown Stockton, they created Little Manila, a vibrant community of hotels, pool halls, dance halls, restaurants, grocery stores, churches, union halls, and barbershops. Little Manila was home to the largest community of Filipinas/os outside of the Philippines until the neighborhood was decimated by urban redevelopment in the 1960s. Narrating a history spanning much of the twentieth century, Dawn Bohulano Mabalon traces the growth of Stockton's Filipina/o American community, the birth and eventual destruction of Little Manila, and recent efforts to remember and preserve it.
Mabalon draws on oral histories, newspapers, photographs, personal archives, and her own family's history in Stockton. She reveals how Filipina/o immigrants created a community and ethnic culture shaped by their identities as colonial subjects of the United States, their racialization in Stockton as brown people, and their collective experiences in the fields and in the Little Manila neighborhood. In the process, Mabalon places Filipinas/os at the center of the development of California agriculture and the urban West.
Dawn Bohulano Mabalon is Associate Professor of History at San Francisco State University.
Table of Contents
Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction. Remembering Little Manila 1
Part I. Putting Down Roots: 1898–1940s 23
1. From the Provinces to the Delta: Life on the Eve of Emigration to the United States 25
2. Toiling in the "Valley of Opportunity" 61
3. Making a Filipina/o American World in Stockton 101
Part II. Growing a Community: 1930s–1960s 149
4. Women, Families, and the Second Generation 151
5. Searching for Spiritual Sustenance 192
6. The Watershed of World War II 217
Part III. Destruction and Displacement: 1950s–2010 267
7. Losing El Dorado Street 269
8. Building a Filipina/o American Movement in Stockton 299
Epilogue. Coming Home to Little Manila 335
Notes 351
Bibliography 403
Index 423
What People are Saying About This
American Workers, Colonial Power: Philippine Seattle and the Transpacific West, 1919–1941 - Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony
"Offering new and exciting insights into the Filipina/o American experience, Little Manila Is in the Heart is a painstakingly researched history of the Filipina/o American community in Stockton. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon connects that local history to national and global phenomena; examines in depth the roles of gender, religion, and community organizing within Stockton's Filipina/o American community; and carefully documents the role of development on an urban Asian American community over the past several decades."
Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History - Catherine Ceniza Choy
"Little Manila Is in the Heart is a triumph of Filipina/o American history and American studies. There is no other scholarly analysis of the dynamic and vibrant Filipina/o American experience central to the development of Stockton's urban life and the larger San Joaquin Delta, a key area of California's agribusiness. Moreover, Dawn Bohulano Mabalon is a masterful storyteller. She draws on oral histories to illuminate the pain and joy of building, sustaining, losing, and attempting to preserve Little Manila in Stockton, weaving in with great finesse family history, archival research, and her own activism on behalf of Little Manila's preservation."
