Depression-Era Vigilantes and Filipino Farmworkers in Salinas

The beginning of Filipino History Month is marked for me by an Oct. 1, 1934 report in the Philippines Mail newspaper of a vigilante attack. According to testimonials, some 50 men torched Rufo Canete’s Filipino labor camp near Salinas (Spreckels) Sept. 21, and fired gunshots at the inhabitants, as if to prevent about 60 men, women, and at least two children from escaping or putting out the fire. Rufo Canete was a labor contractor and leader in the Filipino Labor Union (F.L.U.). At about the same time of the attack, police were raiding the Filipino Union Hall at 100 Lake St.

Digital photo of microfilm copy, UC Berkeley Periodicals Library

On Sept. 22, the Salinas Index-Journal published an article, “Sheriff Says Whites Did Not Start Flame,” reporting that it was the opinion of the local sheriff and “some growers and shippers” that “the blaze was started by Filipinos.” (front page)

On October 1st the Philippines Mail, then edited by Delfin Cruz (originally founded by labor activist and newspaperman Luis Agudo), published several first-person testimonies by Filipinos who experienced the event. Mrs. Margarita Vitacion reported:

The whole night was a horrible nightmare to me. I felt life was ebbing away every passing minute, especially when bullets continuously whizzed by my ears, shoulders and back. The first bullet that went through our room grazed my scalp slightly and burned part of my hair on the left side. Hardly had I recovered from the shock, when another one, with weird shrilling sound, swiftly passed through my hair again. I was almost unconscious. My husband pulled me out of the room. He was running—Dragging me along. I was taken to the volleyball court where everyone had gathered.

…While sitting in our car at the volleyball ground I was half-dazed by the shock and nervousness. I was thinking of the fate that might have befallen upon our only son, Ubing. We have not seen him since the camp was set on fire.

We stayed at the volleyball court all night. At 3 o’clock in the morning we were again attacked by a band from behind the garage. The men were shooting very low. My husband and I jumped off our car and ran to the ditch. There we stayed the rest of the morning hours

Ciriaco Cruz reported:

. . . At 8 o’clock that evening, after engaging in a conversation with some boys at the kitchen, I went to my room and got ready to go to bed. I had about 40 minutes chat with my room-mates before preparing to retire. We were relating stories that happened in the Philippines. We were all having a jolly time and never thought that anything was going to happen at the camp that night.

At about 9 o’clock I was taking off my shoes when I heard people talking at a distance. Their conversation was audible, but not comprehensible.

A few minutes after, I heard a volley of shots. Some bullets went through our window, broke the glasses [sic] and hit the walls of our room. I managed to get out—rolled myself out of the door as bullets were hissing by. If I walked out standing I knew I had no chance to escape being hit, as bullets were coming thick and fast.

The attackers were scattered at the rabbits’ yard. From the door I crawled towards the chicken coop. While crawling a bullet hit my cap and carried it away. I then laid flat on the ground and rolled towards the chicken coop, near the pig pen. There I remained motionless for some minutes.

While at the coop—only a few yards from where the attackers were—I was struck with fear when I saw a good number of men. I believed they were over 50. They were making a lot of noise. They were all white men. I could see them very clearly but I could not recognize any of them.

While others were shooting, some were throwing bottles of [illegible] or gasoline at our bunkhouse. This was followed by lighted bottles which were stuffed, I believed, with rags to light the gas-bathed bunkhouse. (front page)

On the same front page that contained the testimonials, the Philippines Mail published a photograph of the Canete Camp (described as a “model” camp by Carey McWilliams, a lawyer and writer who later became the Chief of the Calif. Division of Immigration and Housing), and a map and diagram showing the locations of the shooters. None of the Filipino workers at the camp were killed.

The attack took place several months after Filipino and white workers began participating together in the Salinas Lettuce Strike. The white workers negotiated a settlement, but the Filipino workers were not satisfied and continued with their own strike in August, even when the prosperous sugar beet season began in Spreckels.

The writers and editors of the Philippines Mail during this period (and in fact during the entire Depression Era) were courageous; they literally put their lives at risk in order to report what they felt was the truth of their situation. The Salinas Index-Journal of Sept. 24 reported that Rufo Canete, whose camp was torched, was jailed the next day for “inciting to riot,” when he attempted to retrieve his truck from the police. “Meanwhile 47 other Filipinos were in the county jail on similar charges.” The front page editorial of The Philippines Mail summed up the indignation and anxieties of the Filipinos in the Salinas area:

Law Must Be Respected
(Editorial)

The foundation and structure of all civilized and enlightened countries is a code of laws for their government. Without laws everything would be chaos and anarchy. Even the most primitive tribes have laws for their government.

The laws of the United States of America are fashioned after the laws of England and Great Britain, but we do not have the same law and order in the United States as in England and Great Britain, for the simple reason that the people of this country have not the same respect for the law as they have in those countries. Nor do the governmental agencies of this country enforce the law with the same vigor as do the governmental agencies in Britain. Hence, vigilante outbreaks with lawless attacks on inoffensive people, accompanied by shooting and burning of dwellings, such as the recent vigilante attacks on the Filipino workers in the vicinity of Salinas during the past week.

The cancer that is eating at the heart of the American Republic is disrespect for the law, non enforcement of the law by governmental executive officers, resulting in vigilante outrages. No government can stand under these conditions.

Kidnapping and holding for ransom has become a highly lucrative profession in this country earning its operators millions of dollars annually, paid in tribute by American citizens. Forty years ago the press of this country regularly printed articles of the banditry in the Balkan States of Europe and Turkey, but those states are like quiet peaceful New England villages in comparison with the United States today.

The deplorable part of the recent attack on the home of R. C. Canete is that the men who made the attack and burned down his bunkhouses occupied by over 60 Filipino field laborers were bent on murder of the most brutal and atrocious type—shooting and burning alive. They shot into the private dwelling house of Canete, occupied by Canete, his wife and two young children, who narrowly escaped death.

It brings back to memory the Indian raids of murder, rapine and burning of the early days on the western plains of the United States.

That men of education, wealth and social position should revert to acts of primitive savages in this day and age is beyond all comprehension. But the people of the Salinas valley should take stock of this situation and call on their officers to enforce the law before an act is done which shall shock the community and disgrace them before the world.