The former Rizal Social Club, Little Manila

While on our way to the Little Manila Historic Site, we passed by this building, home of Iloilo Circle. I wasn't previously aware of its existence and snapped the shot only because I suspected it was a Filipino organization.

(Iloilo is a city on the island of Panay (Visayas region of the Philippines)

Iloilo Circle turned out to one of the last three remaining structures along with Daguhoy Lodge and the Dimasalang House all of which were Filipino fraternal societies founded by pioneer bachelor Philippine immigrants who ventured to the U.S. and toiled the agricultural fields in the 1920's and 30's.

The Little Manila Historic Site recognizes the last remaining few buildings in what was once a thriving Filipino community in Stockton, California....

Gone are the mom and pop owned Filipino stores and businesses replaced over the decades by newer stores of a different ethnic persuasion...

Little Manila in Stockton used to encompass four city blocks but has since been bulldozed and fallen into disrepair over the years. The crosstown freeway was built in the late 60's and tore apart the community, buildings and homes were demolished to make way for parking lots and stripmalls.

Not too far from the corner of El Dorado and E. Lafayette St is a row of old buildings. The brick one in particular was the site of the Rizal Social club. The name Rizal comes from Dr. Jose Rizal, considered a national hero in the Philippines.  The buildings are right across from the Crosstown freeway. Several homeless men were across the street watching me as I took photos. Bert was parked nearby making sure I was okay.


The gray building was the former Rizal Social Club while the brick building was the Mariposa Hotel. The club was a 'taxi dance hall' where Filipino laborers would dress up at night clad in their finest suits and spend their hard earned cash to dance with women (usually white). They would pay for rolls of tickets for a dime each and romance the night away with women they were not allowed to marry due to miscegenation laws. There were very few Filipina women who immigrated at the time and the taxi dance halls were often relegated to "the bad parts" of town. This was also due to discriminatory housing practices in which people of color were not allowed to live in certain parts of town. There was also an immigration restriction on Filipinos in the 1930's (Tydings-McDuffy Act of 1934) barring immigration to the U.S. to only 50 persons a year.


It was kind of sad seeing how easily history can be erased and forgotten.

The Mariposa Hotel was a low-income single occupancy residency hotel where many of the "manongs" lived.


These remaining three building include a union hall as well. the AFL-CIO (according to an article linked at the end); I'm assuming it is the current Hispanic market).


The exterior of the Rizal Social Club makes an appearance at :50 and  4:04 in the Black Eyed Peas video, "Bebot (Generation One)" (2006) . The video director, Patrick Ginelsa infused Filipino American history within the video, highlighting Little Manila in Stockton; it was also fitting since one of the members of Black Eyed Peas, APl de Ap, is half Filipino and half black.




Articles:
"Little Manila comes alive" Record.Net, August 4, 2006 (this article details the making of the "Bebot" video)
"Stockton's Little Manila - The Heart of Filipino California" KQED, Sept. 2, 2013
"Q & A - California history shaped by Stockton's Little Manila" SacBee, Oct. 20, 2013
"Little Manila being brought back to life" RecordNet, Jun 14, 2017

This is an older article from 2003 that I found interesting:
"Saving a harsh picture of the past" by John M. Glionna, LA Times, May 31, 2003

Plus this cool article about steamer trunks found in Daguhoy Lodge:
"A trunk-aided version of Filipino history in California's Central Valley" by Jeff Jardine of the ModBee, January 30, 2016

As an accompaniment to the article, check out this cool documentary about the Daguhoy Lodge:


Links:
LittleManila.org

Walking tour of Little Manila (from 2002), compiled by Dr. Dawn Mabalon, SFSU Professor and co-founderof the Little Manila Foundation:
Walking tour map and locations

Little Manila Foundation
Snail Mail:
PO Box 1356
Stockton, CA 95201

Physical location:
521 E. Main St. (downtown Stockton)
(209) 336-6332

Documentary trailer for "Little Manila: Filipinos in California's Heartland":


Full length documentary, "Little Manila: Filipinos in California's Heartland":


I regret that we didn't stop by the Little Manila Center on E. Main St. that day. We were still en route to the west side of the Bay and we had been up since 3 am.  We will have to make another trip up here and maybe combine it with a visit to Agbayani Village in Delano since it's on the way up.