# Another wave of immigration Dr. Conceso Libao at his North Edgewood Clinic. Dr. Libao left The Philippines in 1963 with much of his education complete, and settled in Jacksonville to establish his own clinic. Courtesy of the Jacksonville Public Library.

Candido “Joe” Agbuya recounts how through the 1960s, many of the growing number of Filipinos on American military bases would marry nurses and doctors from the Philippines, while others “married whites.” Social groups formed to preserve Filipino culture and bring the community together. The Filipino Youth of Jacksonville began to serve the mostly American-born children of Filipino immigrants; it hosted a dance every month at the Jacksonville Armory. In 1969, 250 Filipinos formed the first FilAm club, hosting beach picnics that attracted the likes of Hans Tanzler (Jacksonville’s mayor from 1967-1979) and Congressman Charles E. Bennett, who reportedly loved Filipino food.

*University of Florida students Estrella and David Larioza performing the tinikling, a bamboo stick dance, at the 1961 Florida Folk Festival in White Springs. Courtesy of Florida Memory.

By the 1970s, Filipino migration was growing in numbers and complexity. Bibiana “Bingo” Peters, who graduated from Florida State University in 1975, returned to the Philippines after receiving her degree, but with the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, and the declining oil market and civil crisis in 1978, Peters found her way back to Florida, in Jacksonville.

Many Filipino immigrants struggled with their place in American and Floridian society. In the Jacksonville Today article, Enrique “Bob” Araneta, M.D., shared his views that, “to many Filipinos, white is beautiful.” Araneta commented on the lasting effects of Spanish and American colonialism on the Philippines and Jacksonville’s Filipino immigrants. Al Laugio remembered that when he first came to America, he did not see himself as “Asian,” but after his first Naval station assignment in Pensacola, he noticed the “separate facilities for Black and White.” Laugio found his own identity in America was dichotomized, with Jacksonville bathrooms allowing him to use the “Whites” side, while restaurants in Texas would tell him to “use the Black facilities.”

Florida’s largest Filipino community

Erma Celzo giving a cooking demonstration on pancit at John E. Ford Elementary School in 1992. Courtesy of Florida Memory.

As time went on, Filipino immigrants began to seek their place in Jacksonville culture. Maximo Fabella expressed his wish to “assert our rights as American citizens… our share of the pie in city hall,” and Cesar C. Abrajano shared a vision of “a Filipino community that is very influential.”

Reflecting their increasing visibility in Jacksonville, by the 1990s local media coverage of Filipino topics shifted away from topics in the Philippines to coverage of Filipino-Americans in Jacksonville. In October 1994, the Filipino American Community Council of Northeast Florida held a Salute to Jacksonville at the University of North Florida, filled with music, dance, and elements of traditional Filipino culture. In June 1994, the population of Filipinos in Jacksonville was large, and demanding, enough to attract the Filipino musician Gary Valenciano. His performance coincided with Jacksonville’s celebration of Philippine Week and Rizal Day, the commemoration of the Philippines’ independence from Spanish rule on June 12, 1898.

Members of the Filipino-American Cultural and Civic Association (FICCA) meet in the home of Dr. Conceso Libao in 1998. Courtesy of the Jacksonville Public Library.

Through the rest of the late 20th century, Jacksonville’s Filipino residents started businesses and community centers. They were teachers, nurses, doctors and store owners. They raised their children with a sense of their traditional roots and embraced their deserved part in Jacksonville’s community. Today, Duval County has Florida’s largest Filipino population, which is concentrated in two principal hubs, on the Westside and on the Southside north of the University of North Florida. Filipinos make up about 35% of Jacksonville’s Asian population and about 10% of the city’s total immigrant population. At least 15 Filipino-American organizations exist here. Perhaps their numbers can’t be pinpointed, but their presence certainly is, and has always been, felt.

Article by Sarah Dumitrascu.