Speech #1090063308

Mr. Speaker. I rise today to introduce. together with 29 of my colleagues. a concurrent resolution to formally recognize the 2006 centennial of sustained Filipino immigration to the United States. acknowledge the many achievements of our FilipinoAmerican community. and reflect on the productive and enduring relationship between the United States and the Philippines over the past century. The FilipinoAmerican experience and the evolving yet always close relationship between the Philippines and the United States began in earnest in 1906. when fifteen Filipino contract laborers arrived in the thenTerritory of Hawaii to work on the islands sugar plantations. This marked the start of an emigration from the Philippines to the United States which. during the subsequent century. has numbered upwards of 60.000 a year. making Filipinos our secondlargest immigrant group from the AsiaPacific region. The year 1906 was also when the first class of two hundred "pensionados" arrived from the Philippines to obtain a United States education with the intent of returning to the Philippines. Many. however. stayed to become American citizens. forming. with the "sakadas" who emigrated to my Hawaii. the foundation of todays FilipinoAmerican community. The story of Americas FilipinoAmerican community is little known and rarely told. Yet it is the quintessential immigrant story of early struggle. pain. sacrifice. and broken dreams. leading eventually to success in overcoming ethnic. social. economic. political. and legal barriers to win a welldeserved place in American society. Today. 2.4 million Americans of Filipino ancestry live throughout our Nation. including the two top states: Califomia. where 1.1 million reside. and Hawaii. my home state. where some 275.000 live (140.000 in my Second Congressional District alone. making it home to the largest number of Filipino Americans of any congressional district). Members of this community have made great contributions to America. and have achieved success and distinction in. among other things. labor. business. politics. media and the arts. medicine. and the armed forces.