[1] After Spain relinquished the Philippine Islands to the U.S. under the Treaty of Paris in 1898, Filipinos became American nationals and had the ability to migrate to the U.S. to find a better life, while providing cheap labor for the agriculture and fish cannery industries.
In the canneries, Filipinos worked with other groups of Asians loading and unloading trucks; and line jobs consisting of sorting, gutting, cleaning, and packing fish.
Filipinos were dependent on whatever the Chinese and Japanese contractors made available to them, and their lack of proficiency in the English language as well as the difference in wages between the U.S. and the Philippines left them to be taken advantage of.
[5] Alaskeros faced less discrimination in Alaska than in the Lower 48, mostly due to the native Eskimos and the large Asian community that was already present in the area.
Filipinos were often portrayed as sexual threats that wanted to mix with white and Mexican women, and concerns over "hybridization" caused several race riots to come to a head.
The incident near Watsonville, California, in 1930 was the most publicized- involving 400 white vigilantes targeted a Filipino dance club, beating many and killing one.
In 1953, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of union member Ernesto Mangaoang, who was jailed along with 30 other Alaskeros over communist implications, and established residency rights for thousands of Filipino Americans who entered the U.S. before the Philippines gained their independence in 1946.
[8] Wages for low-skilled jobs like those in the Alaskan cannery deteriorated after the stock market crash in 1929, in the onset of the Great Depression.
Luckily, because of the strong sense of community in the Filipino culture, many Alaskeros were able to rely on their traditional system of mutual aid to help pull them through these hard times.
Many of the cannery workers were enlisting in the military or finding jobs in defense industries, while governmental emergency controls banned strikes and initiated a wage freeze.