Some cities suffer amnesia. Stockton, for instance, once hosted the second-largest enclave of Filipinos after Manila: a teeming downtown "Little Manila."


A six-block district, thronged by 7,000 to 10,000 Filipinos, Little Manila flourished in a relatively recent era, 1920s-'60s. Yet few Stockton residents today know anything about it.

Why was Stockton the beachhead for Filipino immigration? What was the Filipino experience? What was this vibrant quarter like? How did it become a lost city?

The answers are found in "Little Manila is in the Heart," a book by Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, a tour de force of important history that was strangely invisible until now.

An assistant history professor at San Francisco State University, Mabalon, 40, is a Stockton native. A descendant of immigrants prominent in the bygone neighborhood.

"Why weren't we standing in front of the bulldozer?" she asked. "Why weren't we chaining ourselves to the front doors?"

Seeking answers, Mabalon researched local and regional archives, colonial records in the U.S. National Archives in Maryland, traveled to the Philippines, and recorded about 50 oral histories from local "manongs" and "manangs," or elders.

The story starts in the Philippines. Natives in this complex country of 7,000 islands spoke 90 to 100 languages and dialects. They did not think of themselves as one people.

The change toward collective identity began when the U.S. won the Spanish-American war. Claiming the Philippines, Uncle Sam set up English language schools.

Americans "racialized" colonial subjects as "brown others" while boasting of an American land of opportunity. Filipinos sold subsistence farms, packed their dreams and departed on steamships.

They chose Stockton for its year-round agricultural jobs, relatively high wages and location midway on the itinerant labor circuit.

American boosters, however, left a few things out: white supremacy, segregation, beliefs that Filipinos were primitive jungle savages fit for exploitation. Racist violence.

"In the face of extreme racial repression on the streets of Little Manila and in the fields of the Delta, Filipinas/os turned to one another and created a complex and vibrant community in Stockton," Mabalon writes.

In this bastion of businesses, fraternal lodges, kin and social networks, men - young, single, rambunctious - outnumbered women 14 to one. Stockton catered to them with jazz, cockfights, gambling, prostitutes and other vices - $2 million worth a year, Mabalon writes.

The sex ratio imbalance also recast female roles. Women, finding themselves at a premium, gained more clout. Stockton became the crucible of new Filipina identity.

Filipinas "could reshape and transform ideas about gender, femininity and family in Stockton," Mabalon writes.

Still, Filipinos remained on the bottom of Stockton's rigid racial hierarchy. World War II changed that. As Japanese-Americans were relocated, Filipinos were cleared to work in the defense industry and given a path to citizenship.

The sacrifice of Filipino soldiers who died beside Americans in places such as Bataan raised Filipinos in American esteem.

The postwar decade was relatively happy and prosperous. The gender imbalance ended. Bold Filipino union organizers led the famous Delano grape strike and boycott, which helped lay the groundwork for what became the United Farm Workers union.

Not that they got any credit. In Stockton, a library is named for Cesar Chavez, a school for Delores Huerta; but key figures such as Larry Itliong remain unknown to Stocktonians.

And Little Manila's days were numbered. Suburbanization lured residents outward. Downtown revitalization masked a racist agenda to evict poor minorities.

The coup de gras was the Crosstown Freeway, which plowed right through Little Manila.

Mabalon writes of the "deep grief, sorrow and loss" Filipinos felt over destruction of their haven.

She quotes one woman: "It was so much fun to hear (the old timers) talk, and they would be so animated, and then afterwards their eyes would get so sad, and I would see them standing on the street, always so sad and lonely."

The void impelled leaders to overcome perennial Filipino factionalism, raise funds and create the Filipino Center.

The subsequent Gateway Project, which brought the wrecking ball back to the vestiges of Little Manila, mobilized Mabalon and others to create the Little Manila Foundation.

The foundation succeeded in persuading the council to declare several surviving buildings historical. Mabalon pursues the goal of more permanent state and federal historic designations. She dreams of opening a museum.

"It's not just about building," Mabalon said. "It's about finding a political voice for Filipinos in Stockton," where to this day there has been only one Filipino council member (Gloria Nomura).

"This book is part of an educational campaign to help Filipinos in Stockton understand their history," Mabalon said. "But also to help all Stocktonians understand their history."
