1936 to 1938 was the darkest time of my life in the United States. It was then I discovered how ungrateful, inhuman, and prejudiced man can be. It was then I discovered how a trade union, while professing to protect the rights and welfare of its members, becomes their oppressors and persecutors. It was then I discovered that the best friend I have in this material world is my pocketbook. It was then I resolved to practice frugality in its ultimate form. It was two years of extreme hardship that were ended by a miracle.

     Shirley and I rented a four room house in Prichard. With inside plumbing, electricity, and the rest of the modern conveniences, it was a great improvement over her former home. We went to New Orleans to visit Mim and her two daughters. They took Shirley to their hearts at first sight. Mim and Roman had divorced and he had returned to the Philippines. We stayed with her two weeks, honeymooning, then returned to our Prichard home.

     Big Daddy gave us a house near his own home in the country, eight miles west of Mobile, and we moved there. We were a happy family: Mama, Toby, Shirley, and I. The birth of our first child, Felipe, Jr., on December 3, 1935, made our happiness complete. Alas, this did not last even a year!

     The last of June, Mr. Harry Fagan, Waterman's port steward, assigned me to the S.S. Kenowis to replace the current Chief Steward on who was not doing a satisfactory job. The Kenowis sailed out of Mobile the early part of July and made two trips before developing engine trouble again. She had to be drydocked for some time, so the crew was laid up.

     In less than two weeks, I was assigned to another converted cargo passenger ship: the S.S. Afoundria. Her Chief Steward had been fired for incompetence.

     Even if other chief stewards had been on the beach longer than I had, the company always gave me first priority for a job. This was because of my low feeding cost and minimum complaints from crew members and passengers. When the unions became powerful, I would pay dearly for my industry and the company's partiality to me. So would all other Filipino seamen aboard Waterman ships.

     As a working man who depended upon sweat, honest work, and industry to raise and support my family, I should be a foremost exponent of organized labor. But my disillusionment with maritime labor in the 30's continues to make me worry about these groups: not because of their mission, but because of their leaders who became intoxicated with power, who became more oppressive and greedy than the employers they professed to protect the workers from.

     In the early months of 1936, I lost my hard earned standing as a Chief Steward of distinction and could no longer be assigned by the companies to any job. Maritime unions were organized, along with other American industries, and the companies were compelled by law to deal with them not only about wages and working conditions, but also about job assignments. The company could no longer hire me. I had to go through the union hiring hall, which assigned workers on a rotary basis.

     Two other events coincided with this union struggle to make it almost impossible for Filipino seamen to work. In July 1936, the Philippines was granted independence by the United States giving all Filipinos living here, who were not naturalized citizens, the status of aliens. At the same time, a new maritime law took effect. It provided that American ships that were receiving government subsidies must have American citizen crews. This law wrought havoc and extreme hardships among us Filipino non citizens. I was aboard the passenger cargo ship Afoundria when this law was passed. When the voyage ended, so did my job.

     Though Shirley and I had just bought a new car and had bills to pay, I was not worried. We had a little savings. We could economize. Besides, Waterman had four non subsidized coastwise ships on which we non citizens could be employed. Moreover, the union business agent was William "Scotty" Ross, whom I had known for years.

     I had known Scotty Ross, a white stevedore, since 1929, when I was chief steward on the Antinous. He was a former seaman who kept his membership in the West Coast district of the International Seamen's Union. This union was, at one time, the most powerful maritime union in America; but it became almost extinct when it lost a strike after the First World War.

     In 1933, when the Roosevelt Administration granted workers the right to form unions, the West Coast Union officials began organizing the seamen on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. In 1935, Scotty Ross was assigned to organize the seamen in Mobile. He told me about his new job and borrowed twenty five dollars to pay the first month's rent on a building to be used for the union hall. Besides my loaning him the twenty five dollars, I influenced my entire Filipino steward department on the Afoundria to join the union. We paid a five dollar initiation fee and one dollar monthly dues. Other Filipino seamen joined without question, when they found out that we had. Non Filipino seamen were joining reluctantly. Some even had to be coerced.

     On a personal level, Scotty and I had lived in the same rooming house in Mobile. He used to invite me to his room to drink his landlady's homebrew. I, in turn, let him eat on the ship, in my cabin, when he was working on the docks. And, there were the "piss offs" I'd given him, as was the custom among seamen. At the end of a voyage, we'd give a few dollars to old seamen friends who were unemployed "on the beach". We called this a "piss off". I was confident my old friend Scotty Ross would help me. How wrong I was!

     The Waterman port steward, Mr. Harry Fagan, promised me that he would assign me as chief steward on the first coastwise ship that had an opening. He, too, assumed that Scotty Ross would help us Filipinos who were taken off subsidized ships. Fagan was wrong, too.

     I could not believe my ears when Mr. Fagan told me that Scotty Ross would not give me and my "gang" the job that had just become available. He told Mr. Fagan that if the company insisted on placing me on this coastwise ship, the entire deck and engine departments would walk off the ship.

     I went to Scotty immediately to determine the facts. I presented our case, pointing out that we Filipinos were entitled to the union's protection and help. That we were not taking any jobs from the Americans. We were merely swapping jobs with them, as American had replaced us on the Afoundria. I became personal and reminded him the part I played in the early organization of our union, hinting at the twenty five dollar unpaid loan. He tried to pay me the money, but I left it on his desk.

     All the power of reasoning and persuasion at my command came to nought. I even called a special meeting in our union hall to appeal to the general membership so called "union brothers". When one of them said, "You Filipinos should go home to the Philippines if you don't like the way we run things here.", I ceased my appeal. Scotty Ross failed us completely. I felt sure that if he had supported us, the result would have been positive.

     I wondered, too, if I had failed. Or was it the color of my skin and my accent that failed us? The voices of the few former shipmates who tried to speak on our behalf were drowned out by the clamor of selfishness, greed, and prejudice. And a group of loyal and faithful union workers were deprived of their jobs. Filipinos became the victims, not only of a governmental decree, but also of the avarice and evil of their fellow workers. For me, seafaring, for the time being, was out of the question. I would seek work in other areas.