The Filipino Fishing Work Collective (FFWC)

Mission Statement: The mission of the Filipino Fishing Work Collective (FFWC) is to honor the creativity and resilience of Filipino fisherfolk throughout time, by uncovering personal letters and photos and putting them in conversation with each other.

Goals:

• Showcase the methods of creativity and resilience of Filipino "unskilled" workers in American history
• Unveil the ties of the fishing industry to Filipinos since the early 20th century and how it has progressed
• Provide a beacon of optimism amidst the violence and repression among Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and in this work

Galleries:

1. Fishing Beyond Fish
Boarding many ships across the Pacific Ocean in the early 20th century, many Filipino men sought fishing work for the up-and-coming American fish industry. Embarking out of the Philippines to Alaska, many Filipinos sought out grueling hours in the work of cleaning, sorting, and catching fish. But in that lies even longer hours in hotels and among their peers sharing stories, dreams, and making ideas of “home” amidst the struggle. Ahead, explore the ways in which we remember the Filipino workers who shaped this industry.
2. A Fisherman’s Take on Legal Unity
Caught in the net of labor exploitation and discrimination, the International Longshore Workers’ Union 37 (ILWU 37) emerged to pave a path toward legal unionization, prompted by a Filipino worker body in Alaskan Cannery and Farmwork. By using creative ways to document, educate, and mobilize with each other, their collaboration through struggle to make progress is a clear celebration to recognize their rights. Explore ahead some remnants of placing their dignity as people in their workforces and public news.
3. On Vast Seas, Vast Skills Remain!
While 20th century Filipino cannery workers passionately fought for legal labor protections, the same community carried deep-rooted talents, held events, and shared new ideas around what defined “skill” in this work. By unveiling their livelihoods filled with live music, call-backs to traditional fishing tactics, and rich creativity, it’s clear that many of these stories expand upon much more than just their union memberships or their “unskilled” worker duties (e.g. to clean, sort, can fish). Through artifacts of everyday life, these stories unite them even stronger to Filipinos who live and work overseas in similar titles today and call to be celebrated.
4. Reeling New Dreams
This exhibit explores the expansive world of Filipinos, unbound by their worker struggles or just to Filipino men as laborers with years out of the legal unity built in the early 20th century. In the case of my family with roots in this work, there have been creative ventures taken up by them. With ranching out, FFWC hopes to reimagine collections to highlight the hidden interests/niches deep in Filipino fishing workers but also the very women that have also contributed in the field.
5. Today’s Catch
As a last exhibit, this gallery looks beyond the tides to ask: what does it mean to thrive, not just survive, in the fishing industry today? While honoring the cultural legacy and resilience of Filipino labor in Alaska, it also examines the present—where creativity, community, and skill shape new futures. Fishing may no longer be the sole dream, but it remains a mirror reflecting the ongoing fight for dignity. These stories continue and urge us to imagine work not as confinement, but as possibility.

This museum was curated by Charisse Vales.

Charisse is a sophomore undergraduate student studying Political Science and Anthropology. This is second year joining Knowledge Kapamilya in hopes of expanding her own and peers' perspectives in understanding Filipino culture in the museum space, especially in community.

Particular to the industry of fishing work, Charisse hopes to offer a space for people to learn about the tethered relationship between constructing cultural and political identity.To her, uncovering her family’s migration story from the Philippines was a tough puzzle with the many varying stories and years of discourse that usually glossed over passed family members’ trinkets. In taking up a youth arts program in high school, she decided to uncover this part of her identity in the hidden artifacts and photographs she had discovered. Since then, she’s put them in conversation in the bigger story of Filipino American history and culture. Related to usually “glossed” discourse or avoidance to politics, Charisse views that it is through these very discussions of struggle or challenge that are crucial for community growth! Specifically, not in a filter to divide people, she hopes that piecing political contexts, history, and in the museum space can acknowledge the substance of every individual’s heritage and stories.

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Bibliography

Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center. (n.d.). “Alaskeros: Filipina cannery workers of Alaska.” Extra Tough – Women of the North [Past exhibition]. https://www.anchoragemuseum.org/exhibits/extra-tough-women-of-the-north/women-of-the-north-profiles/alaskeros-filipina-cannery-workers-of-ak/

Buchholdt, Thelma G. 1996. Filipinos in Alaska: 1788–1958. Aboriginal Press.

Bulosan, Carlos. 2014. America Is in the Heart: A personal history. (M. C. Alquizola & L. R. Hirabayashi, Eds.). University of Washington Press.

Dade, Nicole. n.d. “The murders of Virgil Duyungan and Aurelio Simon and the Filipino Cannery Workers’ Union.” Great Depression in Washington State Project, University of Washington. https://depts.washington.edu/depress/canneryworkersunion_murders.shtml

Ellison, Micah. 2005. “The Local 7/Local 27 Story: Filipino American Cannery Unionism in Seattle, 1940-1959.” Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project. Accessed June 2025. https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/local_7.htm

*Images used from Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project website, sourced from Filipino American National History Society (FANHS).http://depts.washington.edu/labpics/zenPhoto/Filipino/fahns_collection__fred_and_dorothy_cordova/

Giordano, Lizz. (2024, March 27). “United Six: Filipino fishermen allege labor trafficking and wage theft in Westport, WA.” KING 5 News, March 27 2024. https://www.king5.com/article/news/community/facing-race/united-six-fishermen-labor-trafficking-westport-mcadams-fish/281-ddee7145-f2af-42e5-aa93-4b5ca176906f

Lopez, A. E. 1930s. Butchering the salmon [Photograph]. National Pinoy Archives, FANHS Collection, Alaska.

Nuesca, Shayne. “Becky Carrillo.” Mana Alaska, March 26, 2024. https://www.manaalaska.com/stories/becky-carrillo

The Label Man. 2025. “Aurora Brand vintage Alaska Packers salmon can label.” TheLabelman.com.