The Filipino Community
Historic Cannery Row
Filipinos were attracted in large numbers to California after the 1924 Immigration Act excluded Japanese, who had been the major part of the state’s agricultural labor force. By 1930, as many as 35,000 Pinoys – young, single, male Filipino laborers – were working in California’s fields, hotels, restaurants and private homes. During World War II, a number of Filipinos from the island of Luzon, north of Manila, worked in the canneries and reductions plants.
When Filipino laborers weren’t operating screw-cookers, rotary kilns or grinders, they might be found playing cards with friends or socializing in one of the Monterey Chinatown flower-dancing clubs. The Salinas-based newspaper Philppines Mail reported on the life in the large Filipino community.
Marker can be reached from Bruce Ariss Way near Recreation Trail.
Courtesy hmdb.org
