In grad school, I took a course in Detective Fiction in 2010. One of the projects we could do at the end of the course was to create our own book proposal for a detective story, and I had one in mind for a long time.
Let's go further back, back when I was studying about Asian-American History when I was an undergrad in 2003 I learned about the Watsonville Riots from Strangers from a Different Shore by Ronald Takaki. From my memory, the title of the chapter about the Watsonville Riots, and the Filipino-American experience in American was called "A Dollar a Day, A Dime a Dance." This is in reference to Filipino farm workers earning a dollar a day, and spending a dime to dance with someone at a dance hall.
But what interested me most about this was this hysteria that Filipino men were dating, loving, and being with white women which was said to be the basis of the riots. Also the idea that one man, Fermin Tehera, was killed in a farm house -- shot through the heart.
That is a very specific detail.
I remember finding out this detail by looking up newspapers of the time, the week of January 19-26 1930, from the San Jose Herald for the detective book proposal:
This would've been the basis of the book -- who actually killed Fermin Tehera. I was able to save 27 articles about the Watsonville Riots. My book proposal was a young white detective with a Filipino butler experiencing two different worlds in America in 1930, are dragged in to solve this murder before tensions build up on both sides. I remember getting positive feedback about it, but never followed through with the book because I went into poetry and didn't know how to make all this information into poetry.
Fast forward to now: Month 2. My initial plan was to write responses to the articles I read so I'd have 1 poem every day (roughly) for each article.
Instead, I wrote poems using the text from the articles word by word thinking I'd black out some or use some line breaks -- which I did, but the core momentum of the moment with the words on the page intrigued me more than anything I can write -- examples:
- “There are few Filipino girls in this country and none of them here, and the Filipinos have to dance with somebody. Filipinos are much more considerate and respectful towards American girls than the Americans are themselves." From the Owner of Palm Beach -- a club that hosted dancing between Filipino men, and white women.
- “At heart we are all good citizens and in this present crisis let immunity that we are law-abiding” he said, “We came here with good intentions. At home we were taught that all men were created equal. Some of us think that we are the equal of Americans, but that is a mistake. They are white and we are brown we cannot be equals." Leo M. Escalante, master of an influential Filipino lodge.
I don't have a response these statements, just more questions. Why villainize Filipino-Men as sexual deviants who go after white women? Are American girls the equivalent to white women? What does it mean to be a good citizen but not have equal rights? I've done more thinking than actually writing new material.
I've only gotten to the 16th article with 11 more to go, but I think I need a break from this subject unless I'm actually serious about writing more about it. I feel writing a poetry sequence about this without getting all my historical data in a row wouldn't be right. But I've always used this excuse to not write about things that might take months/years/decades to compile. It's been 22 years since I've known about the Watsonville Riots -- I just need to be dedicated.
I'm going back and forth. So this next month I'm going to write something different in style and muse. Two months complete, ten more to go.
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