Bill Text: CA ACR74 | 2011-2012 | Regular Session | Introduced

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

---

Bill Title: Filipino Americans.

Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 50-14)

Status: (Passed) 2011-09-28 - Chaptered by Secretary of State - Res. Chapter 112, Statutes of 2011. [ACR74 Detail]

Download: California-2011-ACR74-Introduced.html

---

BILL NUMBER: ACR 74	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Alejo

                        JUNE 30, 2011

   Relative to Filipino Americans.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   ACR 74, as introduced, Alejo. Filipino Americans.
   This measure would express the Legislature's apology, on behalf of
the people of the state, for violations of the constitutional and
civil rights of Filipino Americans and its regret, on behalf of the
people of the state, for the suffering and hardship endured by
Filipino Americans as a result of government actions and programs.
   Fiscal committee: no.



   WHEREAS, Filipino Americans have a long and documented history of
suffering discrimination, prejudice, and animosity in the State of
California; and
   WHEREAS, Filipino Americans endured past transgressions and wrongs
committed against them through the implementation of state policies
and the passage of certain laws, including the segregation of
Filipino Americans through the use of separate public facilities and
targeted immigration policies; and
   WHEREAS, In the 1920s, sentiment against Filipino Americans was
fueled by the Department of Industrial Relations publishing "Facts
about Filipino Immigration into California" that contained an
introduction describing a "third wave of Filipino immigration," the
pace of which was characterized as being too great, and that implied
the wrong kind of Filipinos were immigrating to the state; and
   WHEREAS, In 1921, the California Legislature passed an amendment
to the Political Code that allowed the legal establishment of
separate schools for children of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or
Mongolian heritage; and
   WHEREAS, Once those schools were built, districts in Sacramento
County maintained separate education facilities in the communities of
Florin, Walnut Grove, Isleton, and Courtland, and Chinese, Japanese,
and Filipino children in these school districts attended segregated
schools until World War II; and
   WHEREAS, In 1929, the California Attorney General wrote an opinion
that was contrary to one written in 1921 by the Los Angeles County
Counsel regarding the question of whether county clerks in Los
Angeles County could issue marriage licenses to Filipinos without
violating the antimiscegenation law, which classified Filipinos as
being Mongolian; and
   WHEREAS, In 1929, the California Legislature passed a resolution
requesting an enactment by the United States Congress to restrict
Filipino immigration; and
   WHEREAS, The Northern Monterey Chamber of Commerce adopted
anti-Filipino resolutions proclaiming that Filipinos were
undesirable, depressed the wage scale of other nationalities,
possessed unhealthy habits, and brought in disease; and
   WHEREAS, In 1930, the most explosive anti-Filipino riot occurred
in Watsonville where Filipinos were relentlessly harassed, and the
riot culminated in the killing of Fermin Tobera; and
   WHEREAS, Anti-Filipino riots quickly spread throughout California
to cities such as Stockton, San Francisco, Salinas, and San Jose; and

   WHEREAS, Anti-Filipino vigilante groups committed acts of violence
due to the beliefs that Filipino field laborers were intermingling
and having intimate relations with Caucasian women, in violation of
the California antimiscegenation laws enacted during that time, and
were depressing wages in the harvest fields and taking jobs belonging
to Americans; and
   WHEREAS, In 1933, the California Legislature amended its
antimiscegenation law to cause any marriage of Caucasians with
"negroes, Mongolians, members of the Malay race, or mulattoes to be
illegal and void"; and
   WHEREAS, In 1934, the federal government passed the
Tydings-McDuffie Act, also known as the Philippine Independence Act,
which limited Filipino immigration to the United States to 50 persons
per year; and
   WHEREAS, Section 8 of the Tydings-McDuffie Act recognized the
Philippine Islands as a separate country and restricted immigration
by considering citizens of the Philippine Islands who were not
citizens of the United States to be aliens; and
   WHEREAS, the Tydings-McDuffie Act paved the way for the Filipino
Repatriation Act of 1935; and
   WHEREAS, In 1935, the United States Congress passed the Filipino
Repatriation Act, which called for the federal government to pressure
Filipinos to return to the Philippines by offering them free passage
there; and
   WHEREAS, In 1946, California voters defeated Proposition 11, which
would have outlawed discrimination based on race, religion, color,
national origin, or ancestry in the area of employment practices and
would have established a Fair Employment Practices Commission to
promote equal opportunity in employment; now, therefore, be it
   Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, the Senate
thereof concurring, That the Legislature, on behalf of the people of
the state, apologizes to Filipino Americans in California for
fundamental violations of basic constitutional and civil rights
through de jure and de facto discrimination committed during the
1920s through the 1940s; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Legislature, on behalf of the people of the
state, apologizes to Filipino Americans for the violations of civil
liberties and constitutional rights committed during the period of
illegal deportation and coerced emigration; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Legislature, on behalf of the people of the
state, expresses regret for the suffering and hardship those
individuals and their families endured as a direct result of the
government-sponsored Repatriation Program of the 1930s; and be it
further
   Resolved, That the Legislature, on behalf of the people of the
state, expresses its regret for the suffering and hardship those
individuals and their families endured as a direct result of
governmental actions taken because of the state's various policies
and laws that it had enacted; and be it further
   Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the Members of the Legislature and to the author
for appropriate distribution.