Building Filipino American Community

On the third day of Filipino American History Month (FANHS), I proudly write about Louisiana manilamen. ”Manilamen” or Filipino sailors - veterans of the Manila galleon trade (1565-1815) contributed to the shrimp harvesting industry in southern Louisiana by pioneering methods for separating the heads from the shells of dried shrimp.

The earliest permanent Filipino Americans to arrive in the New World landed in 1763, later creating settlements such as Saint Malo, Louisiana and Manila Village in Barataria Bay. These early settlements were composed of formerly pressed sailors escaping from the arduous duties aboard Spansh galleons and were "discovered" in America in 1883 by a Harper's Weekly journalist.

Settlements such as Manila Village in Jefferson Parish and St. Malo in St. Bernard Parish were founded in the mid-nineteenth century and became home to Filipino sailors and laborers. With houses plat-formed on stilts, the fishermen caught and dried their precious commodity, shrimp, for export to Asia, Canada, South and Central America. Weather conditions eventually destroyed St. Malo in 1915 and Manila Village in 1965

On July 24, 1870, the Spanish-speaking residents of St. Malo founded the first Filipino social club called Sociedad de Beneficencia de los Hispano Filipinos to provide relief and support for the group’s members, including the purchasing of a burial places for their deceased.

At the turn of this century, Louisiana was already home of several hundred Filipinos, with over two thousand of the Manilamen in the New Orleans community alone. Inaccurately, the census of 1910 had set the Filipino population in the United States at the low figure of only 160.

The Filipino Cajuns can trace their roots eight generations with many descendants still living in Louisiana today.