The Filipino Americans

The Filipino Americans
The People of North America Seriesby Jennifer Stern

The earliest Filipino Americans to arrive in the New World landed in 1763 and created a settlement in Saint Malo, Louisiana. They were pressed sailors escaping from the cruelty of Spanish galleons and were "discovered" in America in 1883 by a Harper's Weekly journalist. Other Filipino American settlements appeared throughout the bayous of Louisiana with the Manila Village in Barataria Bay being the largest. Some immigration occurred with the need for menial rural labor in the late 1800s, with Filipino Americans settling primarily in Hawaii and California. Roughly another two hundred years would pass before significant numbers arrived in the Americas in the last half of the 20th century starting in the 1970s, mostly settling in California and the South. Some came looking for political freedom, but most arrived looking for employment and a better life for their families.