Mr. ALLEN. Have they said it to the Filipinos in California? The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Phillips. Mr. ELLIOTT. Mr. Phillips, I gather you are interested only in H. R. 4279, introduced by Mr. Sheppard? Mr. PHILLIPS. I tell you frankly that is the only bill I knew of when I came over here. I did not realize that you had a series of bills all bearing on the same subject. That is the one I am interested in. I have not studied the other bills. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any other departments for or against the bills or any other organizations for or against the bills? If so, will you please stand up? Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. I would like to make a suggestion, Mr. Chairman, but unfortunately I do not have my files with me. However, I am familiar with the McGehee bill and the other bills and I would suggest that the amendment offered by the State Department be adopted, to dispense with the certificate of arrival. The Interior Department, I believe, has recommended that the declaration of intention to become a citizen be waived on the theory that these folks have lived here so many years prior to becoming citizens now the accomplishment of the desire should be expedited as much as possible. I have no objection to offer to that and am just calling it to the attention of the committee that it perhaps puts them in a little preferred status, those who have been here for some time; the difference, of course, being that the other aliens could have declared their intention many years ago and the Filipinos could not. So much for that. There is one other slight amendment I would suggest in regard to section 303, which defines in the Nationality Act of 1940 the persons who may become citizens of the United States having racial eligibility. There is the proviso, the first part of which can go out because it relates to the Filipino; that has been taken care of, but it says: Providing nothing in this section shall prevent the naturalization of former citizens of the United States who are otherwise eligible for naturalization under the provisions of section 317. That is to take care, for example, of a few women who married persons ineligible for citizenship and lost their citizenship and now are made eligible by other statutes to reacquire their citizenship. Leaving this provision or language out of section 303, it was an oversight on the part of the Department, or whoever drafted the McGehee bill. With those two amendments, gentlemen, I have nothing more to say. The CHAIRMAN. Then what bill of this group would you recommend our adopting? Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. The McGehee bill is an over-all proposition. It takes care of those in here now and the comparatively few who would come in under the very limited quota. The CHAIRMAN. Are you in favor of the amendment asked for by the Department of State providing that no certificate of arrival would be required? Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. That would be satisfactory. The CHAIRMAN. Are you also in favor of the amendment to eliminate the declaration of intention? Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. Generally speaking. Mr. Allen, wouldn't that be satisfactory? I am not arguing against it. Mr. ALLEN. It seems that the declaration of intention is important. Otherwise, isn't it a fact they cannot be naturalized for about 2 years? Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. I am not arguing against it. The CHAIRMAN. Then they do not need their first papers or the certificate of arrival. Mr. ELY. No. The CHAIRMAN. What is the use of going through a lot of red tape on this matter? Mr. ELY. I do not think they need a certificate of arrival now. The CHAIRMAN. No; if they are here and are of good moral character, why can't they be naturalized instead of holding them up for 2 more years? Mr. ELY. That is why we recommended the waiver. Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. Those who came after 1934 are subject to our requirements in regard to the declaration of intention and the certificate of arrival. Mr. ELY. Our position has been that they could not declare their intention to become citizens, and unless you waive that now they have now got to go into court and cannot be naturalized without considerable delay. Mr. ALLEN. Why couldn't they have filed a declaration of intention? Mr. ELY. They were ineligible under the law. Mr. SHAUGHNESSY. May I offer this as a practical proposition: When the East Indian bill was being considered by the Senate committee, that committee was disinclined to waive declarations of intention. Now if you waive a declaration of intention, that is something that will have to be considered further by the Senate committee. I offer that suggestion for what it may be worth. I was present at the Senate committee hearing. Mr. ELY. These people always owed allegiance to the United States. I think the fact that the Filipinos always owed allegiance to the United States puts them in a different status. The CHAIRMAN. Is Dr. Yap present? Dr. YAP. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed. STATEMENT OF DR. DIOSDADO M. YAP, REPRESENTING FILIPINOS IN THE UNITED STATES AND HAWAII Dr. YAP. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee; I would like to present the views of Filipinos in this country and Hawaii. I represent 37 Filipino organizations in the United States and the Territory of Hawaii. The CHAIRMAN. Whom do you represent? Dr. YAP. I represent the Filipino Inter-Community Organizations of the Western States, the Filipino Federation of America, Honolulu, Hawaii, and the Filipino Executive Council, of Washington, D. C.; and I have been requested to represent the various posts of the Filipino Veterans of Foreign Wars in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The CHAIRMAN. You cover quite a bit of territory. Dr. YAP. I do, Mr. Chairman. I have spent more than half of my life in this country, and visited almost all Filipino communities in the United States, Hawaii, and Alaska. I will first give you my personal experience and observations. I am a doctor of philosophy, Mr. Chairman. I am the editor and publisher of the Bataan magazine. I would like to answer any question before I proceed, if the Congressmen have any further queries. Mr. ALLEN. Proceed. Dr. YAP. As a native Filipino who has had the privilege of spending more than half of my life in America and as one who has had the rare opportunity of visiting almost all Filipino communities in the United States, Hawaii, and Alaska from which I gained personal experience concerning their anomalous legal and social positions, I come here today at the insistence of my countrymen for whom I have sincere and grave concern over their welfare, and who are, in a very special sense, your countrymen too. I was glad to hear this morning the witnesses who are in favor of this legislation or rather the spirit of it. I recall, Mr. Chairman, 15 years ago I was also in your presence when you discussed the Filipino Expulsion Act. The CHAIRMAN. Was I here then? Dr. YAP. Yes; you were the chairman. You were 8 years chairman of this committee and I followed it, Mr. Chairman, until now. No other people in the world are more closely attached to the people of the United States than the Filipinos. For almost half a century, the bonds of friendship between the two peoples have been growing stronger and stronger. Today, as for many years, Filipinos, and I speak of those in the homeland as well as those in America, are adopting American ideas on all phases of their lives-economic, cultural, political, and social. They are following in America's footsteps in establishing in the islands, behind the conquering strides of General MacArthur, a representative and democratic government based on the principles of liberty, equality, and justice with freedom for all. This is a most opportune time for the Congress of the United States to consider the legislation under discussion, for at no other time in our mutual history have our peoples been so close together. Today, as we meet here, Filipinos are dying side by side with their American comrades in the very province of my birth, in the island of Leyte, as together they push back the Nipponese and clear the Philippines of the invader for the ultimate purpose of reestablishing throughout the archipelago the unchallenged principles of sovereignty. Speaking on behalf of more than 100,000 Filipinos in this country, Hawaii, and Alaska, I respectfully submit the following points, which, in my judgment, prove that it is nothing more or less than simple justice to pass the legislation under consideration, the naturalization of Filipinos. The first point is that the Filipinos now in America, Hawaii, and Alaska migrated at the invitation of Americans. Coming to this country at the suggestion and instigation of the American people, the Filipinos have engaged in all types of legitimate occupations— domestic, agricultural, industrial, and governmental. It is a matter of record that the Filipinos here have been law abiding, energetic, and patriotic residents of America. Thousands of these Filipinos have graduated from American universities where they made their way as self-supporting students, and all of them have learned to rely upon the traditional sense of fairness and justice of the American people. 65987-44- 3 As the gentleman from California [Mr. Phillips] testified, the Filipinos are law-abiding citizens, but we are in a very peculiar position. Constitutionally the Constitution of the United States does not offer citizenship to the Filipinos, because under the Constitution the Filipino is neither white nor of African descent. So he cannot become an American citizen. Internationally, by treaties with the United States, citizens of the Philippine Islands are considered citizens of the United States. Mr. ALLEN. May I interrupt to ask you a question for the record? Dr. YAP. Yes. Mr. ALLEN. For the purpose of the record, and not to be critical, what are the Filipinos? From what racial stock are they? I ask because I do not know. Dr. YAP. The best I can refer you to, Mr. Chairman, is the work of Dr. Otley Beyer, probably the leading ethnologist in the world, who made a special study of the Filipino race. Dr. Beyer has classified Filipinos under three subdivisions-Mongoloid, Caucassoit, and the Negroid. In simple language, the Filipino belongs to the Malay race, which is the brown race, but for American interpretation we are considered as white men. Í have taken several civil-service examinations for Government positions and am considered a white man. Definitely we do not belong to the Mongolian race, the decisions of the courts to the contrary. The CHAIRMAN. I do not understand just what those races are? Mr. ALLEN. That is the point. You belong to the brown race? Mr. ALLEN. And you do not belong to the Negro race? Dr. YAP. No. Mr. ALLEN. And you do not belong to the Negro race? Dr. YAP. We do not. Mr. ALLEN. Now do not get offended, but what is the racial connection, if any, between the Filipino and the Japanese? Dr. YAP. There is no racial connection whatsoever. Mr. ALLEN. No racial connection? Dr. YAP. Except that we eat rice and the Japanese eat rice. Racially there is no similarity or connection. Mr. ALLEN. You have common origin? Dr. YAP. We have no common origin. Mr. ALLEN. How long have you Filipinos been on the islands? Dr. YAP. Twenty-nine years after America was discovered-you were discovered in 1492-the Philippine Islands were discovered in 1521. The Filipinos were there then and they are there now. Mr. ALLEN. And where did the Filipinos come from who settled, or were occupying the Philippine Islands at that time? Dr. YAP. Nobody knows; just like in America. We only know American Indians were here. Mr. ALLEN. In other words when the Philippine Islands were discovered in 1521, the Filipinos were there then? Dr. YAP. Yes. Mr. ALLEN. And where you came from nobody knows? Dr. YAP. I will report it that way, Congressman. Mr. ALLEN. I want it for my own information. Dr. YAP. Yes. Mr. ALLEN. When we bring this legislation up on the floor of the House someone may want to know. Go ahead. Dr. YAP. As I pointed out, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, constitutionally we are ineligible to American citizenship because we are neither white or of African descent, but internationally we are considered American citizens; that is, we can secure an American passport and we can demand diplomatic protection when in a foreign country. 1 The CHAIRMAN. You are getting it now. Dr. YAP. That is not accorded to aliens. Like the immigrants of 1620, the Filipinos have rebelled against the pricks of life. They have adventured half way around the world in search of more acceptable conditions, facing exile and uncertainty and the terrors of the untried. Awaiting God's miracle of human happiness in the grisly darkness of the mines, under the fierce glare of the sun, in the shriveling heat of the salmon cannery steam ovens in Alaska, besides roaring engines in nerve-racking factories and shipyards, Filipinos came, saw, and conquered America. In World War I, Filipinos here and in the homeland volunteered to fight against the German hordes. Many were killed in battle fighting for freedom's sake in that historic struggle, and remember well that they were volunteers. In this war, the record of the Filipino is well known to every newspaper reader so that it is almost superfluous for me to point it out to you. In the Battle of the Philippines the Filipino people sealed with their blood their loyalty to America and to the very ideals and principles for which Americanism symbolize. They proved without a doubt that when freedom was an issue they would never falter, they would never fail. Here in America, when the original National Selective Service Act was passed in 1940, it made no provision for the induction of Filipinos, who were then, as they are now, neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, neither citizens nor aliens in the accepted usage of the two words. I personally prepared and submitted a memorandum to the legal officer of the Selective Service headquarters which caused the act to be amended administratively to allow Filipinos in America to be inducted into the armed forces. Many of them were precluded from being inducted on account of age or certain minor physical infirmities, but these did not deter them in volunteering. Thousands of them who could remain at home today are fighting and dying in the Philippines under the American flag. Under the provisions of the Nationality Act of 1940, as amended, any Filipino who serves at least 3 months in the armed forces of the United States may become an American citizen, but this is an obvious injustice to those who tried to serve but could not pass the physical examination and who remained in the home front engaged in essential war activities either in the production of armaments or ships or in the production of food for victory. It is an apparent discrimination to their parents, relatives, and countrymen who are here in America, loyal and hard working, but still aliens in a country of their adoption, a country they loved and cherished so dearly. General MacArthur has paid glowing tribute to the thousands of Filipinos who were residents in the United States and specially trained in California and then volunteered to be sent to the Philippines in |