WEBVTT

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Watsonville California UP.

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January 23rd, 1930,
Salinas Index Journal.

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The race riots between whites
and Filipinos in this vicinity

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today had cost the
life of one Filipino.

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Fermin Tovera, 22,
was found dead in bed

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in a bunkhouse on
the John Murphy ranch

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six miles from here.

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A bullet through his heart.

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I hate technology.

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Most recently, I've
been looking at the race

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riots in Watsonville in
1930, which in short resulted

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in the shooting of lettuce
picker Fermin Tovera

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by a gang of white
residents of the town.

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The violence erupted because
Filipino laborers regularly

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socialized with white
women, at taxi dancehalls.

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The mobs rioted in
January of 1930.

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One posse driving four miles
east to a Filipino labor

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encampment, shooting up a
bunkhouse, and killing Tovera.

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The incident led to
congressional hearings on quote

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unquote the Filipino problem.

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America wanted the
labor, but no families.

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Filipinos had no
clear racial category

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for existing miscegenation laws,
and women from the Philippines

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were all but excluded
from migrating to the US.

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The murder was an
international issue.

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It was so big it led
to the Tydings McDuffie

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Act, which limited immigration
to as few as 50 Filipinos

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a year.

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Eventually, it led
to the independence

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of the Philippines.

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That is to say Philippine
sovereignty was not

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granted based on some
moral awakening by the US.

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But rather because
industrial interests

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in the West Coast
agriculture found Filipinos

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more of a social problem
than a solution to labor.

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Specifically,
Philippine independence

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became manifest as a
virtually direct result

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of the murder of Tovera.

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The white community in
Watsonville and California

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had projected their sexual
and economic anxieties

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onto this 22-year-old worker,
and dancer, and dandy.

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The killers were convicted,
but never jailed.

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A few years ago, I'd been deep
in an epic study of Philippine

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and Filipino American history.

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And I didn't know how far
it was going to pull me in.

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I was often irritable.

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Not just cranky, but angry
inner storm or something.

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Sometimes I would just
cry when I was home alone

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or shout cruelties at myself.

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Other times, I had
fits of laughter.

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I would burst into dance.

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I even got myself
a shrink again.

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That work is ongoing.

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But I started to wonder if all
that something was history.

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And not just history
and the fact or artifact

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or encyclopedic record, but in
its spirit or more accurately

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in its spirits.

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This has got to be
crazy I thought.

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Was there a spirit of history
that could materialize?

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More specifically, could I
in my living time on Earth

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access the sound and feeling of
people who had lived before me?

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And now, I'm learning, after me.

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Were they knocking
at my various doors?

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