CALIFORNIAN RACE RIOTS

Evening Star, Issue 20422, 1 March 1930, Page 3

CALIFORNIAN RACE RIOTS

FILIPINOS MURDERED [From Dur Own Correspondent.] SAN FRANCISCO, February 3. Sanguinary race riots, which broke out in Northern California, as the direct result of the importation of cheap labour into the mainland industrial districts, have given the authorities at Washington serious perturbation. The climax was reached with the discovery of the murder of a f ilipino worker as the result of a race riot starting in Watsonville, the centre of the apple orchard district of California So tense did the situation become that the Santa Cruz County officials considered appealing to Governor Young for State troops to quell the widespread disturbance. Ferbin Tobera, 22-year-qld 1' ilipino, was found murdered shortly after noon on the John Murphy ranch, six miles south of Watsonville. The killing added tenseness to the situation following bloody clashes between several hundred Filipinos and a mob of white men later in the day. Tobera’s body was riddled with bullets. Chief of Police Robert Hastings, of Watsonville, was of the opinion that Tobera was the victim, or an armed white mob that swept through the ranch firing promiscuously. Directly news of the murder became circulated scores of Filipinos fled from the Watsonville region in fear of thenlives, while thirty others were being treated in Watsonville hospitals for injuries inflicted upon them by the enraged Americans. Fifty more, remained huddled all day in the Watson? ville City Hall, under protection of armed guards, who later'escorted them to their homes , . ... In Pajaro, south of Watsonville, seven youths were arrested as alleged participants in the rioting. They were members of a mob of more than and were captured as they tied from the Storm ranch, winch employs several Filipinos in the fields.

FILIPINOS AND WHITE GIRLS. In the meantime, leaders of the Filipino colony issued a statement in which they insisted tliat they had not intended to offend the white citizens of the region. The riots, flaring up after a group of men learned that white girls were being employed as dance partners in the Northern Monterey Filipino Club at Palm Beach, near Watsonville, were the climax to a wave of resentment that had been smouldering for several weeks. The last straw, according to some of the white rioters, was the arrival at Watsonville of a hundred r ilipino workers for the lettuce fields. Scores of white workers, they complained, were ousted because the islanders laboured for such small wages. The Filipino Club at Palm Beach boro part of the brunt of the rioting. Its owners, however, William and Edward Locke-Paddon, of San Francisco, defied the authorities to close the place, refusing to leave and to shoot trespasers. Sheriff Nick P. bmnott, of Santa Cruz, said the two men had fired several shots at the mob. Antonio Cruz, president of the club, when asked why Pilipirio girls were not employed instead of white girls, said: “Because there are not enough hmpino girls hero, and besides, Filipino men like the white girls better, Irihpino men have been educated as Americans, and American girls understand them. Wo are courteous to them, and treat them as they should be treated. As a result-they like us, and it makes the white men jealous. One of our dancers here is married to a Filipino, and she has always been very happy with him.” HEAVILY ARMED MOB.

The riot broke out shortly after 8 o’clock at night, when a group of men slowly gathered numbers in the Watsonville business district as if by prearrangement. In a few minutes the mob had swelled to nearly 500, many of whom were armed with clubs and revolvers. Muttering threats against the Filipinos and urging the mob to 4 run them out of town,” the leaders of the whit© crowd led the men to a I'ihpino community house on the San Juan road. Crashing through the doors and breaking windows, the rioters drove a crowd of Filipinos into the street and beat them. Others were found hiding on the roof and in the basement of the building. They were dragged out and severely clubbed. From there the rioters advanced to a two-story frame house at the foot of the San Juan road. Hurling large stones through the windows, the whites stormed the place and captured a number of Filipinos, At this moment police reserves reached the scene, and, drawing their guns, stood guard over the house. Mumbling defiance, the rioters slowly dispersed and disappeared, only to reform the mob, a short distance away. Then, while the police were caring for the mjilred Filipinos, the mob surged to a house on Van Ness avenue, where they repeated the attack and sought to enter the place. They met unexpected resistance from the defiant Filipinos, who fired shots from the windows and hurled pieces of furniture at the whites. The arrival of police reinforcements prevented bloodshed. MORE BEATEN. The Federal Government requested Governor Young for a full report on the American-Filipino race riots that broke out in Watsonville and spend,to San Jose, with a toll of two Filipino deaths, one American dying, and scores of Filipinos being injured. One Filipino, fleeing from the war zone, crashed into a telegraph polo in his motor car and was killed at Mountain View, between San Jos© and San Francisco. In addition,,half a dozen Filipnos were painfully beaten in the fights precipitated in San Jose, when a group of young Americans attacked Filipinos and ordered them to leave the town. The dying American was Alfred Johnson, twenty-two, who was stabbed in a riot that broke out in front of the San Jose post office. As be fell unconscious his comrades, reinforced by others who went to his assituncc, attacked a score or so of Filipinos, forcing them to flee under a shower of brides and clubs. ]n connection with the arrest of seven youths in Watsonville owing to the killing of Fcrmin Tobera, the Filipino lettuce picker, one of the arrested youths stated that while he was walkYxirr on a Watsonville street with Miss Elsie Trevison on Sunday, a Filipino youth accosted thorn and called vile epithets at the girl. After a battle, during which Smith struck the Filipino, the latter fled. It was after this that •the organised mob went to “ get ” the Filipinos for “ insulting a white girl,” the arrested youths said. At this stage of the race riots Representative Arthur M. Free, of San Jose, announced in Washington that the race riot situation was the result of dens run by Filipinos. _ “ The alleged slaughter of a Filipino in a riot between white labourers and members of the Filipino colony was in reality the forceful expresion of a community craving to rid itself of vice dens run by the Filipino colonists/’ he said. 41 The

Filipinos of the Watsonville district aio of the very lowest type,” he continued. “ The so-called rioters were sorely tried by the vicious practices of the rxhpmos in luring white girls into degradation.”

DEMAND FOR INDEPENDENCE. Considerable inflammatory matter filtered through by cable from the Philippines, where leaders made the riots an opportunity to revoice their opinions on the independence question. In Los Angeles, where there is a large colony of Filipinos, feeling ran high, and special police patrols were detailed on reports that white men had been threatened with attack if they entered the Filipino districts of the The race riots reached San Francisco at a later stage, and two street fights between Filipinos and whites occurred.