Spotlight

Spring Cleaning and Treasurers Found!

By Terri Torres, FANHS Museum Manager

Terri Torres

Lisa Cunningham holding key.

It’s that time of year when people are doing their spring cleaning or clearing out unwanted items in their homes. We at the FANHS Museum have been very fortunate in receiving some of these items!

When the national non-profit, Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), voted in 1994 to build a national Filipino American history museum in Stockton, California, the local FANHS Stockton chapter started collecting items deemed worthy of telling their stories.

Stockton was chosen as the site because of its historical significance to the Filipino American community across the United States, not just Stockton alone. The call went out to the community and nationwide to send FANHS anything that might tell the important almost 500-year history of Filipinos in the US.

We received thousands of photographs and hundreds of artifacts from those who didn’t want their stories to be lost to time.

Some of the earliest items we received were related to the agricultural history of the San Joaquin Delta area. Tools, furniture, photographs, and stories that talked about the “campo” life – working and living in a labor camp.

Then we received uniforms, medals, paperwork, all relating to the 1st and 2nd Filipino Infantry of World War II – some from those who were still alive to tell their own stories!

A more recent “find” was donated to the FANHS Museum at Stockton’s ArtSplash event in June – an art stroll held on the 2nd Friday night of each month from May to October in downtown Stockton. A visitor, Lisa Cunningham, came into the museum to view and listen to the artists performing that evening, and handed us an old, tarnished key with a metal key fob that had “Manila Hotel” stamped on one side and the number “516” on the other.

Manila Hotel key and fob

Manila Hotel key fob

Our staff was excited to receive this “treasure”. The Manila Hotel was once located at 227-229 South El Dorado Street in downtown Stockton. It was one of the buildings torn down for the Crosstown Freeway that decimated the Asian community’s livelihoods in the late 1960s-early 1970s. Under the hotel was also a bar and gambling hall. While the museum has collected various stories from the “bridge generation” of the area Filipino families that feature the Manila Hotel, we didn’t have any artifacts from it – now we do!

So, when you’re doing your spring cleaning and clearing out your closets of items collected years ago, don’t look at them as “trash” but as “treasure” –it may tell the history of your city, of your home, and/or your life. And contact us at the FANHS Museum if it pertains to Filipino American history! Thank you! [E-mail: fanhsmuseum@aol.com, phone: 209-932-9037]

Linda Claramo, President

Membership applications can be requested by sending an email to: STOCKTONFANHS@outlook.com

@fanhsstockton

www.fanhsstockton.com