Hostilities formerly kept simmering beneath the surface were laid bare when racial violence against California’s Filipino workers erupted into open flame on October, 1929 in Exeter. The furor had burst open after Americans working the grape and fig harvest were replaced by the imported Filipinos hired to work for lesser wages. That night, an enraged mob invaded the workers’ camp, burned down a barn and bludgeoned about 50 of the Philippine citizens. The Exeter rampage wasn’t the first outrage, but from that point, anti-Filipino hatred spread, especially after Filipino men tried to join white social activities and escort white girls to public dances. Before long, an exclusion bill restricting Filipino Labor was being proposed in the U.S. Senate and the Congress.
Tensions mounted across the state, none more so than in Watsonville where, on the night of Jan. 20, 1930, about 200 citizens attacked the Filipino Club with clubs and staves, intending to burn the place down. The night began with a long procession of automobiles, which, on signal, moved toward the nightspot. The crowd’s overt intent was to empty the place of nine white women dancers.
White men had protested the entertainers’ presence at the club, claiming white women should not have been consorting with the foreign workers. For their part, the Filipino men claimed that they always treated the women in a gentlemanly way, and that, lacking females of their own culture to dance with, they were just seeking some polite companionship. No one, they claimed, had forced the white women to come to the club, or to dance with them. Besides, the Filipinos claimed, their club was legally incorporated and they could entertain whom they wished.
The Filipino Club, a leased dance hall in the Palm Beach section, located seven miles southwest of Watsonville, belonged to William and Charles Locke-Paddon. As the mob descended on the property, the owners, with five white assistants, all heavily armed, warned the rioters they would shoot if attacked.
As the mob began to gather outside the club and moved in closer, many shouted “Goo-goo Lovers,” at the men standing guard. Then shots were fired. Two persons were hit, one in the hand, the other in the cheek and shoulder. Soon, Sheriff Sinnott was summoned and arrived with deputies and traffic officers, and tear gas bombs to break up the mob. They removed the Filipino Club members and drove them into Watsonville to drop them off at their homes.
The club’s co-owner, William Locke-Paddon, in an interview said he and his men were just defending the property. Whatever shells were fired, he claimed, were first just filled with rice, later with lead.
While events were going on at Palm Beach, in downtown Watsonville, a house full of Filipinos was terrorized when a mob threw a brick through a window. An attached note warned them to leave white girls alone and get out of town. Later the same evening, mobs of high school age youth roamed Watsonville streets.
Three nights later, Fermin Tobera, a Filipino worker, was shot through the heart when a crowd of rioters went out to the Murphy ranch about 6 miles along the San Juan Road. The mob fired into a bunkhouse of sleeping Filipinos. A shot ricocheted off the ceiling, striking Tobera dead while he slept.
As if the state had caught fire, on Jan. 28, 1930, a Filipino clubhouse in Stockton was dynamited. In August another camp of sleeping Filipinos was attacked near Reedley. Before long, riots in San Francisco, Salinas and San Jose were making news headlines. Filipinos were blamed for taking over jobs belonging to Americans, and for the decline of wages in the harvest fields.
Meantime, in Watsonville, vigilante terrorism raged. Two days following the march on the Filipino Club, a mob of 700 convened on Filipino gathering places, assaulting and beating many and dragging others out of their homes. Crowds raged out into the countryside, attacking Filipino workers on ranches. After several laborers were thrown off the Pajaro River Bridge, officers rounded up all the Filipinos they could find and sequestered them at City Hall for their own protection.
In Washington, DC, the Filipino Commissioner, Pedro Quevara, addressed the House of Representatives. He denounced the whites’ treatment of his fellow countrymen. Especially following events in Watsonville and Salinas, he said, events constituted an argument for complete independence of his country from the United States.
With events grown so out of control in Watsonville, members of the American Legion were deputized to accompany patrolling law officers. As the stabbings and beatings continued, the Rotary, Kiwanis, Veterans of the Spanish American War, the Merchants Association and women’s clubs, all called for law and order.
Picking up on the Watsonville frenzy, a race war spread to San Jose after two Filipinos were attacked near the post office.
By the end of January, with both Santa Cruz and Monterey County law officers trying to hold the line against the riots in Watsonville, there was talk of bringing in federal force to quell the rampage.
In Gilroy, a group of vigilantes ordered a Japanese farmer to fire his Filipino workers. Police were called in to provide protection for the hired men.
Lurid accounts of the Watsonville riots made the Manila newspapers following news of Fermin Toberas’ bunkhouse murder. He achieved martyr status in his homeland, where his body was returned, to lie in state while crowds of mourners filed past.
The Watsonville anti-Filipino riots did lasting damage to Filipino immigration to America. Besides causing havoc along the Central Coast, the impact changed California’s attitude toward imported Asian labor. Slowly, following the 1930 riots, the face of agriculture workers changed in California, as Filipino workers began to be replaced by Mexican labor.
Meantime, in Watsonville, following the riots, the Filipino Club was closed and padlocked, after officials discovered the spot had been operating without a valid license.
