The forgotten Filipino footprints in America

The gulf was not a welcoming host on the day we visited the edge of Louisiana, USA. At Shell Beach, the wind is a heavy weight and the water churns with mud. It is a logistical failure that feels like a spiritual metaphor. I have traveled halfway across the globe to reach a place that may no longer exist.

I am looking for St. Malo. I am looking for it with the one man who refuses to let it sink into oblivion: Randy Gonzales.

Randy is the author of Settling St. Malo, a work that combines poetry and historical research to document this history. He is a fourth-generation descendant of the "Manilamen," the 18th-century Filipino sailors who jumped ship from the Spanish Galleons in the 1760s to find freedom in the Louisiana reeds. Randy has spent years unearthing the suppressed history of the Manilamen.

Randy, a fourth-generation descendant of the "Manilamen," has dedicated years to uncovering the suppressed history of these 18th-century Filipino sailors. The Manilamen found freedom in the Louisiana reeds after abandoning their posts on Spanish Galleons in the 1760s. 

While history books often start the Asian American experience with the 1850s Gold Rush, Randy follows a timeline that begins in the 1760s, before the existence of the United States of America.

The quiet guardian

If you met Randy at a social gathering, you might miss him. He is shy and seeks out the quiet corners of a room. I saw this at a dinner in New Orleans, where the local Filipino community was alive with laughter and shared stories of the diaspora. Randy stayed on the periphery, a silent observer of the modern life he works to document.

He transforms when you ask about the bayou. When the conversation turns to his ancestors, his voice steadies and his eyes brighten. Randy may not look like the "typical" Pinoy seen in the malls of Manila, but on the shores of Shell Beach, he spoke with a heart more profoundly Filipino than many who live in the islands. He does this because he knows that if he does not speak, the silence of the swamp will become permanent.

A barangay in the bayou

For generations, the narrative of Asian American history was shortened. Randy's research, supported by his work with the members of the Philippine Louisiana Historical Society, has started this timeline by nearly a century. This collaborative effort helped piece together the story of his book, pointing to 1763 as the year Filipinos established St. Malo.

A stanza from Randy’s book evokes the scene:

Past the mouth the bayou turns Asiatic
Hat-shaped eaves string with smoked fish
Cocks clamoring at domed cages
Squat men examining seines.

In 1883, journalist Lafcadio Hearn wrote the first mainstream account for Harper’s Weekly. He described a village of Manilamen living in "true Oriental fashion" in houses built without a single nail. What struck Hearn was the likeness to the bahay kubo found across the Philippine archipelago. The dwellings were constructed high above the swamp's "trembling prairies" on sturdy pilings to withstand tidal surges. The Manilamen built these homes using traditional joinery instead of nails, designed to flex against hurricane winds. They featured thatched roofs and wide windows for effective cross-ventilation, essentially reconstructing a barangay thousands of kilometers from home.

Culinary footprints

The Manila Men helped transform the local economy. Studies from the Louisiana State Museum show that these Filipino settlers introduced the commercial technology for sun-dried shrimp.

Before the Manilamen arrived, shrimp were not a major commercial commodity in Louisiana because they spoiled too quickly in the heat. Filipinos brought the "shrimp dancing" technique. The shrimps were boiled and then dried, after which they were shelled by rhythmically walking on them, much like dancing.

Randy describes the labor in his book as a rhythmic waltz:

Burlap-covered feet
Waltz exoskeletons
As shells
Dust to bran
No missed steps
Guitar or not
They marched
Slid tired
Jubilant feet
Across orange fields

By the late 1800s, Louisiana was exporting millions of pounds of dried shrimp to Asia and the Americas. This industry was built on Filipino expertise and remains a staple snack, and ingredient in Louisiana’s gumbo, jambalaya, and other iconic dishes.

A disappearing history

Today, the physical ground of St. Malo is under threat. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has been losing coastal wetlands at a rate of a football field every 100 minutes. The land that once supported the Manilamen’s stilt houses has largely transitioned into open water or fragmented marsh. The settlement itself was physically destroyed by a massive hurricane in 1915, and ongoing erosion means the original shoreline has receded significantly.