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From Emil Guillermo: Robles and Gomez: American Filipinos

http://www.philippinenews.com/article.php?id=4432

Published: May 24, 2009
Author: Emil Guillermo

You can find Al Robles immortalized on YouTube reading his poetry.

Vincent Gomez? He is still cooking, laying down the bass line at local clubs.

Both are American Filipinos, and every last one of them needs a little love now.

It’s a tad late for Robles, the poet and community activist who never met a struggle he didn’t like. A housing and senior advocate, Robles died May 2. But if you see Gomez or others like him, please give them a hug. In their 70s and 80s, they make up a unique group within the community. They were among the first American Filipinos, kids born here to that initial wave of Manongs and Manangs who came to America in the 1920s and 1930s. Considering how men outnumbered women by greater than 10-1, and how Filipinos weren’t allowed to intermarry, well, you do the math. What kind of evolutionary odds did you beat if you were born a pure Filipino kid?

It was so special, Gomez told me, San Francisco even had a Filipino children’s club. Gomez said the families where mostly in the San Francisco’s predominantly African American Fillmore district. Gomez grew up on the Embarcadero, closer to the markets which attracted the Filipino vegetable growers from the Central Valley. The market was just a few blocks from Kearny Street, the strip known as Manilatown

When I asked Gomez if he knew Robles, he didn’t miss a beat. “Al the poet?” he asked. “He wrote a poem about my mom. She was the ‘Biko’ lady,” Gomez said referring to the sweet rice desert his mom made and sold at the community centers to help put young Vincent through college at University of the Pacific. It was a small world back then. And these American-born Filipinos know how different it was. “I’d go to 5th and Mission where the Chronicle is now and it was all white,” Gomez said. “Now you go there and it’s all Filipino.”

Gomez’s father Vicente Gomez was from Ibajay, Aklan in the Visayan Islands. He came to America as a student. His mother, Catalina Entero, was from Danao, Cebu. She was in Hawaii as a Sakada, then found her way to the mainland. They met in the 30s and lived in the Colchester Hotel. As the family grew, they kept adding rooms, “37, 38, 39,” Gomez said aloud as if he was reading the numbers on the doors.

As a kid, Gomez spoke English and Cebuano. But his parents realized being an American Filipino could be tough. When they saw him playing a coat hanger like a violin, they discovered young Vince’s ticket out—music. He played solos at Galileo and went on to Stockton’s University of the Pacific on a music scholarship. It was a time when Filipinos weren’t allowed to live in certain neighborhoods near campus. Gomez became a public school music teacher, spreading his love of music to young people. Among his joys has been conducting the prestigious state youth orchestra.

I saw him at Pacquiao night at the Giants game, where occasionally he can be seen patrolling the left field line as a “Ball Dude.” But his gigs as a jazz bassist around town are what keep this American Filipino swinging.

American Filipino

Regular readers know I coined the phrase American Filipino because in this country, being an American should come first. The first word modifies the second, one’s Filipinoness. It’s not about being a citizen necessarily; it’s just about being here and a part of this ethnic community. In the most expansive definition, we’re all American Filipino, even the immigrants.

But one subset of the group deserves special mention: The born-here, pure Filipino minted in the USA. The non-immigrants. Born here to immigrant parents, we’re Filipino—and proudly so. But we’re American because of whom and where we are.

There are fewer of us than you think.

For all you immigrants who came after the Marcos years, from the mid-’60s to the ’90s, you’ve spawned a ton of these stateside American Filipinos in the last two generations. But it doesn’t come close to dominating the community. Amid all the continuing immigration, the U.S. Census still puts the national Filipino community at two-thirds foreign born.

The American Filipino then is a minority within our minority. More often than not, they are those who see themselves as too American at times. They know how to eat a lumpia. And they know there’s no chocolate in chocolate meat.

Still, the solid family connection never lets them forget. Sometimes they become an integral part of the community. Sometimes they are just outside moving to their own beat.

But they are part of us, these pioneering American Filipinos. During Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we remember the ones who have passed on like Al Robles. And thank those like Vincent Gomez while we still can.