When the Philippines was a colony of the United States of America, the people of the Philippines could come to the U.S. freely as nationals. They often travelled by ship and landed in San Francisco, California.
When the Tydings-McDuffie Act was introduced and being voted upon, ships carrying around 350 Filipinos were in transit from the Philippines. They landed at Angel Island, and the fate of these individuals was to be determined by the vote.
Well, the individuals were allowed to proceed to the mainland before the vote was finished. When the Tydings-McDuffie Act passed, they were supposed to be deported back to the Philippines. However, most of them had already left and blended into the culture. For the next fifteen to twenty years, the Immigration and Naturalization Services searched for their whereabouts, and was only able to deport one individual.
Judy Yung from the University of California, Santa Cruz, is co-authoring a book about these individuals and is looking for descendants and family members of them. I can not wait to read their stories.
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