oving to South Carolina twenty years ago, I remember an aunt asking me, “South Carolina? Why South Carolina? Why not California or New York? There are no Filipinos in South Carolina!”
Ah but there are!
In fact, there is a mixed-heritage Filipino and Native American community in the Charleston area that dates to the 1930s. During World War II years, Filipino U.S. Navy Cooks were stationed at the Charleston Navy Shipyard when Jim Crow laws prohibited them from marrying White women. Instead, they piled a dozen men in a car to visit the women of the Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians who welcomed their attention. The interracial marriages between these Native American women and Filipino men created a community in the Deep South, similar to the Indipinos* in Bainbridge Island, Washington in the Pacific Northwest.
The Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians are bloodline descendants of the Etiwan, Edisto, Catawba, Cherokee, and other Settlement Indians. Today, there are around 1,500 documented members who are deeply committed to preserving their over 300 years of history. An intensely insular group, community members can trace kinship to each other through eight family names. Through the Filipino U.S. Navy Men, the Abdon, Alvarado, Alfaro, Arriola, Belmonte, Bugarin, Bugausin, Bustamonte, Calimag, Domingo, Ferrer, Gallardo, Garcia, Guerzon, Maggay, Ricafrente, and Villanueva family names have also become integral lines in the Tribe.
As a Filipino who now calls South Carolina home, I am very excited that the Wassamasaw Tribe has partnered with me to document this largely unknown history of their Filipino Fathers. Production is currently in progress. For now, I can say that what truly fascinates me is that despite being somewhat cut-off from mainstream Filipino and/or Filipino American culture, these families demonstrate how Filipino heritage can survive, adapt, and become inextricably woven into the fabric of an American Indigenous community. And yes, they have been eating lechon and adobo since the World War II era.
*Indipinos is a term that combines the words (American) Indians and Filipinos and is used to describe their mixed-race children.
