Preserving ‘White Purity’: California Once Barred Filipino Men to Marry White Women
The anti-miscegenation law against the “manongs”
Over four million Filipinos live across the United States of America, with most of them residing in the State of California. When the Philippines became America’s colony in Southeast Asia in the early 20th century, the government started to attract Filipinos to migrate to the U.S. to pursue the American Dream.
Such framing of what America would be like for the Filipinos captured the interest of many young men. These lads left everything in the Philippines and worked in California. However, when they arrived, people of color, like them, were not welcomed.
They were belittled, mistreated, and even barred from marrying white women. To preserve the “pureness” of the white race, the California officials amended the anti-miscegenation law, stating a Filipino man cannot espouse a Caucasian woman.
This article is about the first Filipino young men who settled in California in the early 20th century, also known as the “manongs.”
Manongs Arrival in America
After the Philippine-American War in 1902, around 200,000 Filipinos died in the Philippines. President William Howard Taft launched a…
