Interracial Marriages and Transnational Families: Chicago’s Filipinos in the Aftermath of World War II

1 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Cesario Agudo Buensuceso, No. 324592, Oct. 22, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago.

2 Petition for Naturalization by Cesario Agudo Buensuceso, No. 324592, Oct. 22, 1946.

3 United States, 15th Census of the United States, Population Schedule, ED#2308, Proviso, Cook, Illinois, "Zesario Buensvuas," Roll 506, p. 24A.

4 Petition for Naturalization by Cesario Agudo Buensuceso, No. 324592.

5 Barbara M. Posadas, "Crossed Boundaries in Interracial Chicago: Pilipino American Families Since 1925," Amerasia Journal 8 (Fall 1981): 31-52

Posadas, "The Hierarchy of Color and Psychological Adjustment in an Industrial Environment: Filipinos, the Pullman Company and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters," Labor History (Summer 1982): 349-73

Posadas and Roland L. Guyotte, "Unintentional Immigrants: Chicago’s Filipino Foreign Students Become Settlers, 1900-1941," Journal of American Ethnic History 9, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 26-48

Guyotte and Posadas, "Celebrating Rizal Day: The Emergence of a Filipino Tradition in Twentieth Century Chicago," in Genevieve Fabre and Ramon A. Gutierrez, eds., Feasts and Celebrations in North American Ethnic Communities (Albuquerque, NM, 1995), 111-28.

6 This essay is based on our analysis of 442 petitions for naturalization filed by Filipinos with the U.S. District Court in Chicago between July 23,1946, and December 31, 1946.

United States of America, Petitions for Naturalization, Nos. 322217-324599, July 23, 1946-December 31, 1946

7 Roger Daniels, Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850 (Seattle, WA, 1988), 198-99

Xiaojian Zhao, Remaking Chinese America: Immigration, Family, and Community, 1940-1965 (New Brunswick, NJ, 2002).

8 Zhao, op. cit.

Madeline Y. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration Between the United States and South China, 1882-1943 (Stanford, CA, 2000).

11 Barbara M. Posadas and Roland L. Guyotte, "Aspiration and Reality: Occupational and Educational Choice among Filipino Migrants to Chicago, 1900-1935," Illinois Historical Journal 85, no. 2 (Summer 1992): 89-104.

12 Paul G. Cressey, The Taxi-Dance Hall: A Sociological Study in Commercialized Recreation and City Life (Chicago, 1932), especially Chapter 7, "The Filipino and the Taxi-Dance Hall"

Posadas, "Crossed Boundaries."

13 Sophie Schmidt-Rodolfo, Goodbye to Winter: The Autobiography of Sophie Schmidt-Rodolfo, ed. Dolores S. Feria (Quezon City, 1987)

interview with Phyllis Tiongco, Manila, October 1982.

14 Barbara M. Posadas and Roland L. Guyotte, "Why Go Home? Repatriation and Filipinos in the Midwest in the 1930s," Biennial Conference of the Midwest Chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society, Springfield, IL, October 25, 2003.

15 Charlotte Brooks, "In the Twilight Zone Between Black and White: Japanese American Resettlement and Community in Chicago, 1942-1945," Journal of American History 86, no. 4 (2000): 1655-87

Roger Daniels, "Words Do Matter: A Note on Inappropriate Terminology and the Incarceration of the Japanese Americans," in Louis Fiset and Gail Nomura, eds., Nikkei in the Pacific Northwest: Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians in the Twentieth Century (Seattle, WA, 2005), 183-207.

16 Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882 (New York, 2004), 91-93.

17 Emory S. Bogardus, "Citizenship for Filipinos," Sociology and Social Research 29 (Sept.-Oct. 1944): 53.

18 "Naturalization of Filipinos," Hearings before the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, 78th Congress, second session, on H. R. 2012, H R. 2776, H R. 3633, H R. 4003, H R. 4229, and H R. 4826, November 22, 1944.

19 "Statement of E. C. Hallbeck," Ibid., 3-4

Ramon P. Pobre to Hon. Samuel Dickstein, August 9, 1944, Ibid., 55

Harold L. Ickes to Hon. Samuel Dickstein, June 13, 1944, Ibid., 30.

24 Hearings, 17.

26 Patricia Justiniani McReynolds, Almost Americans: A Quest for Dignity (Santa Fe, NM, 1997), 151-202.

27 Petition for Naturalization by Cesario Agudo Buensuceso, No. 324592, Oct. 22, 1946.

28 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Quirino Gilbolenga Polanco, No. 322860, Sept. 5, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago

United States, 15th Census of the United States, Population Schedule, ED#2921, Proviso, Cook, Illinois, "Quirino Polanco," Roll 507, p. 7A

30 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Roman Carbonell, No. 324290, Oct. 2, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago

United States, 15th Census of the United States, Population Schedule, ED#944, Chicago, Cook, Illinois, "Roman Carbonell," Roll 457, p. 16B.

32 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Alfonso Bacalzo, No. 323251, Sept. 5, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago.

33 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Florentino Ravelo, No. 323329, Sept. 5, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago.

35 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Roman Urebio Baladad, No. 323805, Sept. 25, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago.

36 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Guillermo Gonzales Pardo, No. 323297, Aug. 2, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago.

37 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Sabino Jose Aguila, No. 325040, Nov. 20, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago.

38 United States, House of Representatives, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Subcommittee on Health, Hearing on the "Health Care for Filipino World War Two Veterans Act," Statement by Senator Daniel K. Inouye, June 13, 2002, http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/schedule107/jun02/6-13-02/dinouye.html.

39 U.S. Supreme Court, INS v. PANGILINAN, 486 U.S. 875 (1988), http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=486&invol=875.

Barbara M. Posadas, The Filipino Americans (Westport, CT, 1999), 43-44.

40 Hearings, 18.

41 United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Phillip Aguedo Lontoc, No. 324685, Oct. 29,1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago

United States of America, Petition for Naturalization by Ruperto Camacho Genciana, No. 323652, Aug. 23, 1946, Naturalization Records for U.S. District Courts (RG 21) in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin, National Archives and Records Administration, Great Lakes Region, Chicago

Interviews with Phillip A. Lontoc, Chicago, August 10, 1979

Frances Lontoc, Chicago, April 23, 1981.

42 Posadas, "Crossed Boundaries,"

Barbara M. Posadas, "Mestiza Girlhood: Interracial Families in Chicago’s Filipino American Community Since 1930," Judy Yung, ed., Making Waves: Writings about Asian American Women (Boston, 1989), 273-90.