Maria Abastilla Beltran
Public Health & Hospital Nurse
Maria Abastilla Beltran was born in 1902 in Naguilian, La Union, Philippines. When she began her nursing career it is reported that she worked in the Philippines Chapter of the American Red Cross (per author Choy) and the Philippines General Hospital (per author Barkan). She came to the United States in 1929. She was encouraged to make the journey by Major Richards, a medical advisor to Governor-General Leonard Wood. (Leonard Wood was a United States Army major general, physician, and public official, who served as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, Military Governor of Cuba, and Governor General of the Philippines). After spending time in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Chicago, she completed her Bachelor of Arts in Public Health Nursing in 1931 in Seattle. The same year she married a Filipino from Ilocos Norte and ultimately settled in Seattle where she obtained a job in a hospital.
The couple lived and worked through the Great Depression and would share meals with those impacted by it. During this time restricted covenants prohibited house sales to non-white residents, but when this policy was rescinded, they were able to purchase a home to raise their three children. In 1935 the Philippines passed a Repatriation Law to incentivize citizens to return home by paying their passage back. Though over 2,000 citizens returned, Maria and her family opted to stay. Philippine citizens were not eligible to apply for full U.S. citizenship until 1946. She received her citizenship in 1947. She also participated in the establishment of a Filipino Women’s Club (since renamed Filipino-American Women’s Club), which became part of the nascent Filipino-American community. She died in 1987 and is representative of the first wave of Philippine nurses to put down roots in the U.S. Components of her life are discussed in three books: Empire of Care, From All Points: America’s Immigrant West, 1870s-1952 (Chapter 20), and Women in Pacific Northwest History: Revised Edition.
Further Reading
To learn more about nursing in the Philippines, read here.
Learn about the Philippine Nurse Association of America here.
Honor the Philippine healthcare workers who have died in the pandemic here.
To support Asian Americans for Equality, click here.
Sources
Information from the above was sourced from Facebook, Empire of Care, From All Points, and My Heritage.
Learn More
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Know Your History
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
Examine Bias
- NurseManifest to attend live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism or to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
- Revolutionary Love Learning Hub provides free tools for learners and educators to use love as fuel towards ourselves, our opponents, and to others so that we can embody a world where we see no strangers.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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