How L.A.'s Little Manila Disappeared Without a Trace

When Gerald Gubatan and his siblings were young children, their father would take them to the Linda Lea Theater on Main Street in Downtown Los Angeles to watch Tagalog movies.

Next door was a barbershop where his father often took him and his brothers to get hair cuts.

The family lived in a house in Los Angeles' Historic Filipinotown neighborhood, but Gubatan realized his father was drawn to establishments in downtown L.A. where a Little Manila district thrived in the 1920s and 1930s.

"Maybe it was a sense of familiarity that drew him there," he said, though today, "there are no more traces of Little Manila except for a few fading memories and photographs."

The district is a part of Filipino American history in Los Angeles that is often a footnote in narratives that tend to center on Historic Filipinotown, said Joseph Bernardo, who wrote adissertation about Little Manila. It's a piece of the community's history that many aren't aware of.

"My mom worked at the [Los Angeles Department of Water and Power] for like, 30 years. And she said that there were a lot of Filipinos who work there," he said. "Nobody knew that that area used to be a Filipino area, and it's just heartbreaking that folks don't know that history."

Filipinos began migrating in large numbers to Los Angeles after the1924 Immigration Act, Bernardo said. The legislation capped the number of immigrants who could enter the United States, but the Philippines was exempt from the 1924 law at the time because it was a U.S. colony, and citizens were considered U.S. nationals who could travel freely to the country. As the demand for cheap labor grew, the pool dwindled due to the legislation, and Filipinos filled the need for able-bodied workers. Filipinos who came during the time tended to settle around First Street and Main Street, and the Weller Court area, which is located in present day Little Tokyo.

They arrived on the West Coast as low-wage agricultural and service industry workers, according to the dissertation, and established businesses that catered to transitory bachelors. These included employment agencies, pool halls, taxi dance halls, barber shops and restaurants.

Little Manila was one of several tenderloin districts up and down the West Coast for Filipino workers, many of whom migrated across cities and states for agricultural work. A map in Bernardo's dissertation shows a number of Filipino establishments that existed from 1924 to 1939 largely within the boundaries of Temple Street, Hill Street, 3rd Street and San Pedro Street, with the most prominent clusters along 1st Street and in present day Weller Court in Little Tokyo.

Other districts were found in Seattle, Sacramento, Stockton, San Francisco, Salinas, Delano, San Diego and San Pedro. Workers would also travel to Alaska to work in salmon canneries, then migrate back south to restart the cycle.

But not all Filipino workers passed through Little Manila before going to another city.

Gubatan said documents show that his father first set foot in Seattle in 1929 before making his way to Los Angeles, where Gubatan’s father lived the entire time he was in the country. (Gubatan said he was surprised to see documentation that his father landed in Seattle and believes his father had always been in L.A.) His father also kept meticulous records, including employment applications, which revealed that among jobs he held included a seasonal agricultural worker (he picked citrus and lemons in the San Fernando Valley), a short order cook in downtown L.A. and a crane operator in Long Beach.

Other places his father frequented included a restaurant called LVM Cafe — the letters LVM represented the three main island regions of the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao — where he hung out with his compadres, and Traveler's Cafe — now the Tribal Cafe, reportedly afavorite hangout spot for Filipino American writer Carlos Bulosan — where his father would take Gubatan and his siblings.

Gubatan was 15 years old when his father died, so his knowledge about Little Manila came through what he calls a "process of discovery." After attending UCLA, he deepened his engagement with the Filipino American community and began remembering moments from his childhood, such as getting his hair cut at a barbershop where the district used to be.

Little Manila's existence began to diminish as developments in the area took place in the 1950s.

By then, most Filipinos had migrated to congregate around Temple Street and Figueroa Street, and had also begun moving to Historic Filipinotown, Bernardo said. Little Manila remained a center for the Filipino community up until that point, but it was also a time when construction of new highways and buildings began. The 110 freeway was constructed in 1952, the section of the 101 freeway from Hollywood to downtown L.A. was completed in1954 and theLos Angeles Department of Water and Power building was established in 1965.

The freeways and buildings didn't destroy the Temple-Figueroa intersection, but being adjacent to them ruined the neighborhood, Bernardo said.

"Those redevelopment projects kind of really nailed the coffin in that area," he said.

Gubatan, who is an urban planner for the City of Los Angeles, noted that part of the community's migration westward was due to the Civic Center Master Plan and redevelopment of Bunker Hill. Yet communities living in the area could not vote on them.

Bernardo said it's difficult to say whether or not Little Manila may have continued to exist in the absence of those projects. But he said the "historical amnesia" of Little Manila's existence is the more important part of the Filipino American experience in Los Angeles.

"Its treatment, its removal, its erasure is indicative of Filipino American experiences," he said.

He argued in his dissertation that the district came into existence as a result of U.S. imperialism, and wrote that Filipinos were deemed a "racial problem" — a historical fact that is largely unknown. He also said that Filipinos have long demonstrated resilience in the face of changing circumstances, including displacement. Yet he noted that conversations about resilience are incomplete without conversations about oppression.

Both Bernardo and Gubutan say recognition of Little Manila's existence is important. Bernardo said he hopes that there will someday be a plaque to mark where the district used to be.

Filipino and Filipino American history matters, Gubutan said, because it speaks to who the people and community are.

"Literally, Little Manila was erased by virtue of redevelopment," he said. "And what do we have left except our own memories?"

"It's important to tell the story, or we'll forget," he said.