Joseph Latoza
English 165
Dec. 13,
2005
Ms. Erpelo
Final Draft
“Enduring
this Land of Opportunities”
Discrimination
and racism have been going on forever. According
to the American Heritage Dictionary, discrimination means to make a clear
distinction, differentiate, to act on the basis of prejudice. A lot of people, especially immigrants and
minorities came to the United
States and experienced these cruel and
unnecessary actions from other human beings who felt their kind are the only
ones that should exist (1). Immigrants
such as Asians have been discriminated in America as early as the 1900’s. Asians have faced discrimination including during
incidents of finding a job, finding a lack of service at stores and restaurants,
being beaten as well as killed for no reason, and much more. Therefore
it is difficult for Asian immigrants including Filipinos to adapt living in the
United States,
not just due to the variety of people, but also the discrimination faced. Thus, America in reality should not be easily
projected to others that it is simply “land of opportunities;” rather a place
one may not obtain equal opportunities and as a result, it is necessary to
stand strong and work twice as hard to succeed.
According to
the website entitled, “Understanding Discrimination against Asian Americans,” there
are about 9 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States,
making up 3 % of the population. Most of
them are living in California, New York, and Hawaii.
They make up about 65% of the world population. Asian Americans have been
stereotyped as the "model minority" because the most of them are college-educated
with middle- or upper-income occupations.
Nevertheless, an estimated 12%, are working in low-paying service jobs
or sweatshops. An Asian American is one and a half times more likely to have a
bachelor's degree than a white non-Latino, and Asian-Americans, in general, have average or
above-average income levels (an estimated 30% higher than whites, according to
some figures). Asian American immigrant history is essentially labor history
(1).
In
an article found on asian-nation.org, the cite referred to a PBS documentary
series “Ancestors in the Americas” that states the first
Asians to come to the western hemisphere were Chinese Filipinos who settled in Mexico. In time, Filipino sailors were the first to
settle in the U.S. around
1750 in what is now Louisiana.
However, to compensate for the shortage of slaves from Africa, in 1840, the
British and Spanish brought over slaves also known as "coolies" from China, India,
and the Philippines to the
Caribbean, Peru, Ecuador, and other countries in South America. However,
the first large-scale immigration of Asians into the U.S. didn't happen until 1848 (1).
Specifically,
Filipino immigration has been historically linked to the need for cheap labor several
places of the United States
for many years. This generally includes
the sugar plantations of Hawaii, agriculture
in California, and fish canneries in Washington and Alaska.
They are considered the most "Americanized" of Asian immigrants
because the Philippines
have essentially been an American colony since 1902 and their school system is
highly Americanized. There was some injustice done when MacArthur swore 250,000
of them into service, but Congress recinded the order. The following personal
account is of an individual’s endurance going through being an immigrant and
witnessing discrimination in the environment as coming and living in America
(Understanding Discrimination…1).
First
of all, my interviewee, Jose M. Latoza, was born in Manila, Philippines
on November 11, 1953. While growing up, he lived in a big city
environment consisting of around 15 million people. He started grammar school when he was six
years old and started his college education at San Sebastion College in the Philippines
when he was 17 years old. Manila was very fast
paced, busy, lots of people, cars, and buses everywhere. He said that he had “street smarts,” which
was necessary in a place where there were individuals of various economic standings
including rich and poor. Many of the
poor people would steal on the streets therefore it was difficult to trust. Nevertheless, Manila was a place to have many friends, including
neighbors. You grow up with your
neighbors and become real close friends with them. The weather was very warm, and he had lots of
fun growing up there.
At
the age of 19, Jose desired to come to America searching for adventure and
to experience something different.
Because he was considered well off in the Philippines, he was able to fulfill
this goal. Therefore, Jose came to America
with his two cousins on January of 1973.
The
immigration process was easy for Jose because his mother was already an
American citizen. He personally did not
have to go through the whole immigration process unlike other immigrants. His mother took care of the papers in the
American Embassy located in Manila,
and then he was set to go.
The
first place he lived in was Portland,
Oregon because he had a cousin
that already lived in the area. After a couple of months, Jose got his own
apartment with the cousins who accompanied him to the United States. Before Jose arrived in America, he thought it was all big cities with big
tall buildings, but at the time Portland
was just a small, cold city that constantly rained.
Jose
was so used to the many people and the loud lifestyle in Manila.
Therefore, he was surprised how the environment of Portland was so quiet and had less people on
the streets. His first job was at a hotel
setting up tables and chairs for events that toke place. During the time, he said it was easy to get
that job at the hotel but it was just a part-time job. He was also applying at other major companies
in the city and eventually got a job a couple months later at a telephone
company.
Another
aspect of the environment that Jose had to adjust to was the fact that there
were hardly any Filipinos let alone minorities on the streets. He felt racism and discrimination was very
common at the time. Jose said that he
received slight racial comments, but was not discriminated against to the
extent of being physically and emotionally harmed. However, he heard about several racial and
discriminatory events involving his family members, specifically his sister and
her husband. For instance, his sister
and her husband went to an expensive, fancy restaurant and noticed other couples
who later came after them were seated first.
She then realized everyone at the restaurant were Caucasian and were
taken care of immediately due to their skin color. Jose said that he would not have been surprised
if he experienced a situation like this.
Discrimination
of Asians in America was very
common at the time Jose arrived in America. Discrimination died down around the sixties
but Jose said it was still common. The
law of discrimination was not yet enforced.
When racism was ongoing, white people showed great negativity toward the
Asians. Many were very ignorant and
showed that they did not care about anyone else but themselves. For example, in 1955, whites were allowed to
sit wherever they wanted on the bus and the minorities had to stand, which was very
unfair and shows strong racism. Rosa
Parks, although was not Asian, was still a minority that did not give up her
seat and ended up in jail just for not giving up her seat on the bus that she
sat on first (Wikipedia 1).
The
segregation laws were very unfair at the time.
White people had full power over any minority. The white people got to sit anywhere they
wanted on the bus, while minorities had to stand; white people got a clean and
refrigerated water fountain, while right next to it was water fountains for the
colored skin people, which was a dirty and filthy water fountain. Colored people were not allowed to eat at
certain restaurants just because of the color of their skin, when the whites
can eat anywhere they wanted to. I personally
do not even know why these laws were enforced in the first place. It is so unfair and very cruel and unnecessary.
Jose
feels that these situations were very unjust and cannot believe that those
segregation laws were a part of reality.
Jose told me that he heard many stories in the Philippines about how racist it was in America
at the time but did not take it seriously because he did not see it first hand. Jose knew the consequences of coming to America
of how he could possibly experience some kind of discrimination even though the
segregation laws were over. He said he
still decided to come to America
because of the opportunities, the adventure, and also he was very close with
his cousins and did not want to be separated with them yet. When coming to America, Jose wondered and thought
about if he and his cousins would experience a lot of discrimination.
Luckily,
Jose and his cousins did not experience discrimination or racism first
hand. However, they did encounter a
couple incidents where it happened.
While in Portland,
Jose and his two cousins were walking around the city where there were not a
lot of Asians and crossed a park where there were basketball courts. There were six white teenagers and two Asian
teenagers. Jose and his cousins passed
by to see that the whites would not let the Asians play basketball at the park
even though there were two courts. The
whites would constantly call the Asians racist names like “chinks” and “yellow
men”. The Asians decided to ignore the
whites and started playing basketball at the other court. One of the white people approached the Asians
and said that the park was only for the whites to play. The Asians kept ignoring them, which got the
whites mad and started attacking the Asians.
Jose and his cousins felt really bad for the Asians, so they went to the
nearest store which was a coffee shop and told them to call the cops because
there a fight going on at the park. The
police officers came quickly and stopped the fight, which resulted in the
arrest of the white people. Luckily,
none of the Asians were seriously injured.
After
witnessing a disturbing incident, Jose and his cousins felt unsafe. They believed they did the right thing by not
getting involved as much as they wanted to.
Jose said that after this incident, he and his cousins thought about
going back to the Philippines. Jose and his cousins were talking about
racism and what was happening to them and after a lot of thinking, Jose decided
to stay positive and not let racial incident get to his head. He knew that he was stronger, smarter, and
that fighting back is not the answer at all.
It is better to stay positive and not make it seem that the whites have
control over you. Although we endure
racism, it is important to stay strong. Jose also said that everytime he witnessed or
heard about any racism with whites toward the Asians, he would just think in
his head that the whites were just jealous of the Asians. Asians are a lot
smarter and we were taking all their jobs from white people is what helped Jose
feel a lot better and also made him feel he had to work a lot harder than the
whites to succeed.
Jose
says that throughout all his experiences, moving to America at an early age and going
through a time where racism and discrimination has made him a stronger and
smarter man. Since Jose knew he was a
minority, he knew he had to work harder than usual because he wanted to show
that he was better than the whites. Jose
worked hard all the time and went through these difficult times without the
support of his parents, who were still in the Philippines. Jose said that a lot of people his age at the
Philippines were too scared
to go to America
at the time, but he and his cousins showed courage to move to a country where
they knew they would be different and could benefit themselves by getting a
good job. With all the intelligence Jose
picked up while growing up while being on his own in Portland, he managed to
get a good job successfully by working extra hard and not paying attention to
all the discrimination that was going on.
He just put himself in the same category as everyone else and everything
worked out fine. After a year of growing
up in Portland, Jose moved to San Francisco where there were many
minorities already and continued his working.
He got married in 1982 and had four boys. Jose is now successfully retired from the
telephone company. Jose says his success
has a lot to do with what he went through when he was younger and how he stayed
positive even when discrimination was around.
He says that all the hard work was worth it and staying true to your
self can lead to success.
Jose’s
experience and life is an inspiration to me.
He was on his own at a very young age and matured into a man very
quickly. I also want to have a
successful job at a young age and retire early like Jose did. Jose says he does not regret moving to America
at an early age. He said that it has
helped become the man he is today. I
learned that the Filipino American experience is not an easy thing and had to
go through a lot more than people my generation had to go through. They had the challenge of learning to speak
English as good as the natives as well as studying hard and looking for a job
in a place of discrimination. However,
in my generation, the minorities that are born in the United States have an advantage
because we do not have to go through harsh racism as before or learning how to
speak English. All we have to
concentrate on is getting our education.
During and upon completing
this project, I learned the struggle and hardship a Filipino immigrant faced
when coming and living in America. I had the opportunity to learn the difference
between how they and I grew up here in the United States. But I now know that the challenges I go
through today does not come close to the struggles Jose has gone through.
Looking
back on the past, the outlook that “America is the land of
opportunities” was soon revealed to those who began to live there that it is a clouded
and rejected belief. This is due to the
fact that even though one tries to fit in and make a better life for him or
herself, they are held back and faced with challenges due to
discrimination. As a result, I am
personally glad that I did not live during those times and experienced
discriminating events but at the same time, I feel sympathy for others of my
heritage and other minorities that went through it.
Works Cited
“Discrimination.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language: 4th ed. 2000 Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, New York. 2 December 2005
<http://www.bartleby.com/cgibin/texis/webinator/ahdsearch?search_type=enty&query=discrimination&db=ahd>.
Le, C.N. “The First Asian Americans.” Asian-Nation; The Landscape of Asian America. 18 February 2001. 2 December 2005
<http://www.asian-nation.org/first.shtml>.
Latoza, Jose. Personal interview.
1 December 2005
“Rosa Parks.” Wikipedia 2005. Wikipedia. 2
December 2005
<en.wikipedia,org/wiki/Rosa_Parks>.
“Understanding Discrimination Against Asian
Americans.” Fall 2004. North Carolina Wesleyan
College. 3 December 2005
<http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/soc/355lect10.htm>.