WELCOME TO THE INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND

WELCOME TO THE INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND WELCOME TO THE INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND WELCOME TO THE INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND

WELCOME TO THE INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND

WELCOME TO THE INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND WELCOME TO THE INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND WELCOME TO THE INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our Mission
    • History
    • Board of Directors
    • More about Us
  • Honor Thy Mother Film
  • Projects and Events
    • 100 Percent Project
    • Indipino Oral Histories
    • Indigenous Peoples Day
    • Kitsap Historical Museum
    • Traveling Exhibit
    • Past Events
  • Store
  • Support
    • Our Supporters
    • Donate
  • Blank
  • More
    • Home
    • About Us
      • Our Mission
      • History
      • Board of Directors
      • More about Us
    • Honor Thy Mother Film
    • Projects and Events
      • 100 Percent Project
      • Indipino Oral Histories
      • Indigenous Peoples Day
      • Kitsap Historical Museum
      • Traveling Exhibit
      • Past Events
    • Store
    • Support
      • Our Supporters
      • Donate
    • Blank

  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our Mission
    • History
    • Board of Directors
    • More about Us
  • Honor Thy Mother Film
  • Projects and Events
    • 100 Percent Project
    • Indipino Oral Histories
    • Indigenous Peoples Day
    • Kitsap Historical Museum
    • Traveling Exhibit
    • Past Events
  • Store
  • Support
    • Our Supporters
    • Donate
  • Blank

The Filipino Hall

Because Filipinos had been working for the Japanese American farmers for almost a decade, many  saved enough money to purchase their own farms individually and/or collectively. Over 40 farms,  some over 20 acres, were owned by Filipinos and their wives throughout the years. Needing help  to run their farms, they invited their unmarried “manongs” to live on their property in shacks or  converted chicken coops. A few Filipino men were gifted land from Japanese American farmers  for tending their farms during their internment.  


In 1935, BI Filipino farmers formed the Filipino Growers Association and purchased the old Island  Fair Community Hall on 10 acres located on High School Road. Behind the hall was a packing  shed where farmers brought their strawberries and raspberries to be picked up by large trucks to  take to canneries. The community hall, made of lumber milled at the Port Blakely Mill in the  1870s, was deemed in 1995 worthy of preservation and included on the National Register of  Historic Places. 


After the war, the Filipino Growers Association incorporated as the Filipino American (Fil-Am)  Community of BI and Vicinity and used the hall for both social gatherings and agricultural  purposes. In social gatherings at the hall, Ilocano was spoken (therefore keeping the dialect intact,) Filipino food served, and Filipino traditional folk dances performed by Indipino children. In  contrast, Indigenous mothers did not converse in their original Coast Salish language nor practice  their cultural traditions of drumming and dancing. Indigenous languages were therefore lost and  not transmitted to their Indipino children. Most Indipino children were raised with a Filipino/Asian  cultural orientation and sometimes encouraged by their parents to not identify as  Indian/Indigenous. Berry farming as a living disappeared with the Indipino generation as many  sought work in the Bremerton Naval Shipyard having no desire to raise their children in poverty as they were raised. Many Indipino homes had no indoor plumbing, heating, electricity or running  water which was an embarrassment to their Indipino children who attended school with mostly  upper-class white children. 


In the early 1960s, the US Government requested 8.1 acres from the Fil-Am to use as an Army  Nike (military) site and the Fil-Am agreed to sell the land. The government later declared the land  as surplus, sold it to the Bainbridge Island Park and Recreation District who named it Strawberry  Hill Park.  

the history of the indipino community

Overview

The genesis of the Indipino Community of Bainbridge Island began when thirty-six Indigenous  women from nineteen different tribes in Canada, Washington State and Alaska migrated to  Bainbridge Island, Washington to pick berries for Japanese American farmers in late 1930s and  early 1940s. There they met and married young Filipino immigrant bachelors and settled on the Puget Sound Island located in the traditional territory of the Suquamish people.  

Written by Gina Corpuz, M.Ed., pictured here.

Indigenous Women Border Crossing

When the Filipino immigrant field bosses went recruiting berry pickers from British Columbia’s  lower mainland and Vancouver Island, First Nation families seized the opportunity to cross the US  Canadian border and earn some extra cash. Some agreed to go for a temporary escape from social  injustices and poverty on their reserves and others were merely seeking an adventure. Because of  the Jay Treaty signed in 1794 between Great Britain and the United States, they were entitled to  travel freely across the international boundary for purposes of employment.  


Most First Nation adults who traveled to Bainbridge Island to harvest berry crops were survivors  of Indian Residential Schools. Both the United States and Canadian governments in the 1800s  enacted legislation to systematically destroy Indigenous communities by taking their children and  isolating them in boarding schools. To help carry out Residential School legislation in Canada’s  1876 Indian Act, the Department of Indian Affairs established government schools run by  Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian Churches. The churches were ordered to get rid of the “Indian  problem” by forcing Indigenous children to assimilate into mainstream Canadian Society.  Beginning in the 1880s and through 1996, approximately 150,000 Indigenous children were taken  from their families as young as age 5 and forced to attend Indian residential schools. Some ran  away from school and died while trying to escape and thousands of others never returned home as  approximately 3,200 children died from untreated tuberculosis and other diseases. In these  schools, children were punished for speaking their native languages and practicing their cultural  traditions. Many children were sexually, emotionally and mentally abused and carried this  unresolved trauma for their entire lives, passing their trauma on to the next generation.  


This taking of children disrupted Indigenous families for generations, severed the ties through  which culture is taught and sustained, and contributed to a general loss of language and culture.  As a result of their isolation from their families, many children grew up without ever experiencing  a nurturing family life and without the knowledge and skills to raise their own families. Those  students who survived Indian Residential Schools were released at age 15 with barely a 5th grade  education as their instructors were not certified teachers. Education was secondary to maintaining  the school and school grounds as children were required to scrub floors, wash clothes, cook and  perform outdoor duties as well. Some returned home to their once flourishing, self-sustaining  reservations to find their communities now burdened with poverty and alcoholism. In 2015, the  Truth and Reconciliation Commission argued that the Indian Residential School system amounted  to cultural genocide. Seven of the original thirty-six Indigenous women who married Filipino immigrants and settled  on Bainbridge were from the Nooksack and Lummi tribes in Northern Washington and one woman  came from the Yakama tribe in eastern Washington. Another came from as far as the Tlingit  Village in Alaska. Other indigenous women and their families were recruited from First Nation  reserves in British Columbia, Canada. Of the women who stayed on Bainbridge, five came from  Squamish, three from Matsqui, three from Sechelt and six women from Vancouver Island’s  Cowichan and Snuneymuxw reserves. Other indigenous women came from British Columbia’s  lower mainland reserves, Halalt, Kwikwetlem, Samish, Nlaka’pamux, Semiahmoo, Leq’a:mel,  Seabird Island, Skwah, Shxwha:y Village, and Tsawout. Because they were all Coast Salish people  from the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, they were ethnically connected and were Salish  speaking people. 


Their decision to marry a man with non-Indian status (i.e., Filipino immigrant) carried a heavy  penalty. Most were removed from their Indian Band list by the government, losing membership in their own  tribe. This gender-based (affecting women only) discriminatory legislation was part of a legal  process under the 1876 Indian Act. They were allowed to return home to Canada for family visits  only but many were banned from participating in traditional ceremonies and cultural events. This  ban created both a physical and cultural distance from their indigenous way of life negatively  affecting their ability to transfer cultural knowledge on to their Indipino children. Indigenous men,  however, were not penalized for marrying a non-status woman. In 1985, sections of the Indian Act  were repealed and status was restored to these women through Bill-C31. Therefore, their mixed  heritage Indipino children could apply for Indian Status and membership in their bands/tribes after  the passing of Bill-C31. Many Bainbridge Indipinos currently hold Indian status in Canada and  are voting members of their First Nations and/or their US tribes.  

Filipino Men Border Crossing

The first known Filipino in the Seattle area worked at the Port Blakely Lumber Mill on  Bainbridge Island in Washington Territory around 1883. He was called Manila as in the largest  city in the Philippines. When the Philippines became a US Territory in 1898, Filipinos became  US Nationals and could enter the US without passports, exempt from immigration restrictions. Although the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924 severely curtailed immigration of Chinese and  Japanese to the United States, it did not affect Filipinos because of their unique status as  nationals rather than aliens. Between 1906 and 1946, the first wave of Filipino immigrants were  contract workers called the Sakadas who landed in Hawaii to work on sugar cane plantations. In  the 1920s and 1930s, because of a limited US labor pool along the west coast, from Seattle to  San Francisco, the Department of Labor recruited Filipinos from rural areas in the Philippines to  work in agriculture, primarily fruit and vegetable harvesting. They were ideal recruits because  they were accustomed to working from sunrise to sunset in rice fields and promises of monetary  success motivated them to immigrate. This second major wave of Filipino immigrants were  mostly young male Filipinos with at best an eighth-grade education and dismal economic futures.  Because they attended English speaking only American-modeled schools, they thought they were  prepared for American life but were rudely awakened when met with racial discrimination and  violence in America. Women, children and wives were not allowed to immigrate as they might  distract men from their duties in the field. Most men immigrated as bachelors; however, a few married men left their wives and children in the Philippines hoping to earn enough money to  send back to them. During World War II, many Filipino men seized the opportunity to become  US citizens by enlisting in the US military which allowed their Filipina brides to immigrate with  them. 


Most Filipino men who settled on Bainbridge Island came from La Union, a province in the  Philippines located in the Ilocos Region on the Island of Luzon. Many were from the same  family lineage e.g., Corpuz, Almojuela, Oligario, Romero families who owned berry farms and  married Indigenous women. They spoke the same Ilocano dialect and called each other  “manongs” a term of affection and respect which is best translated as “older brother” as most  were really brothers or cousins. Many sailed together to Seattle on the steamship called the  Presidenta or the President McKinley. After docking at the Port of Seattle, they pooled their  money together to pay for a hotel room in Seattle’s International District. Following harvest  seasons, many traveled to Yakima in eastern Washington and others went south to California. In  the off season, they worked in the Alaska fish canneries. A few young men, wanting to further  their education, worked as house boys (housekeepers) in Everett and earned their high school  diploma at Everett High School.  


Eventually, Seattle-based Filipinos were recruited by Bainbridge Island Japanese American  farmers as berry pickers and field bosses. They lived on the farms staying in bunkhouses and  built a strong working relationship with the Japanese American community. The bombing of  Pearl Harbor disrupted this working relationship when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt  issued Executive Order 9066 ordering the removal of all Americans of Japanese ancestry from  the West Coast and relocating them to concentration camps during WWII. While the Japanese  American farmers were interned, Filipino workers cared for their farms. Left on their own, many  Filipinos experienced prejudice and hostility from some Islanders who threw rocks at the  bunkhouses where Filipinos slept.   

The Intermarriage

Over sixty-five Filipino immigrant men worked on Bainbridge in agriculture during the 1940s  and 1950s. Of those sixty-five men, thirty-six married Indigenous women and raised over 150  Indipino children. A few married Caucasian or Mexican women and some went back to the  Philippines and returned with Filipina wives. Some Filipinas were second wives when  Indigenous mothers left or divorced their Filipino husbands. A few outspoken Filipinas,  bringing with them their colonial mentality, resented the Indigenous women and their mixed-race  children calling them “injuns” or “half-breeds, making them feel unwelcome in the Filipino Hall. Additionally, Indipino children were targeted by hate groups on Bainbridge Island and suffered  from racial slurs and bullying. During the Vietnam War, “Gooks Stink” was spray painted on  New Brooklyn Road where many Indipino farms were located. 

The Indipino Community

Indipino children self-identified as Filipino American until they were ready to accept their  mixed-race heritage. A strong sense of their Indigenous identity emerged, in addition to a need  to honor their Indigenous mothers who endured racism and oppression far beyond their release  from Indian Residential Schools. While still lifetime members of the Filipino-American  Community of Bainbridge Island, an 80-year-old legacy left by their Filipino immigrant fathers,  some Indipinos formed a new non-profit called the “Indipinos of Bainbridge Island and Vicinity” whose purpose is to educate and inform the Island community and beyond of their Indigenous  mother’s sacrifice and resiliency and to provide a platform for other mixed-race communities.  

Further Readings

Brave Heart, M. Y., & DeBruyn, L. M. (1998). The American Indian Holocaust: healing historical unresolved grief. American Indian and Alaska native mental health research: Journal of the National Center, 8(2), 56–78. 


Cordova, Fred (1983) Filipino American: Forgotten Asian Americans, Dorothy Cordova 


David, E. J. R. (2013). Brown skin, white minds: Filipino / American postcolonial psychology.  Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. 


Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015), Honouring the Truth,  Reconciling for the future, "Canada’s residential schools: Missing Children and Unmarked  Burials." Vol.4, www.trc.ca 


Fujita-Rony, Dorothy B (2003) American Workers, Colonial Power, Philippine Seattle and the  Transpacific West, 1919-1941, University of California Press 


Hufana, A., & Morgan, M. L. (2020). “I push through and stick with it”: Exploring resilience  among Filipino American adults. Asian American Journal of Psychology, 11(1), 3–13. doi:  10.1037/aap0000171 


Joseph, Bob (2018) 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians  Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality, Indigenous Relations Press, 52-63. National Register of Historic Places, Bainbridge Island Filipino Community Hall, Bainbridge  Island, WA, Kitsap County, National Register #95000193. 

Movies to Watch

 “Honor Thy Mother: The Untold Story of Aboriginal Women and their Indipino Children,” 2021,  Ostrander and Corpuz 


“We were Children”, 2013, Wolochatiuk 


“Where the Spirit Lives”, 1990, Pittma 

  • Donate
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions

Copyright © 2025 INDIPINO COMMUNITY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND AND VICINITY - All Rights Reserved.

Powered by

This website uses cookies.

We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.

Accept