As part of the U.S. Bicentennial celebrations, the Washington State Archives conducted an oral history project focusing on the Filipino American community in Seattle and King County. Conducted in 1975 and 1976, the project features 53 interviews containing audio recordings, transcripts created shortly after the sessions, and photographic negatives. The negatives include portraits of the interviewees as well as images of their personal photographs, clippings, and memorabilia.

Most participants belonged to the manong generation, migrating during the second wave of Filipino immigration when the Philippines was a U.S. territory. As U.S. nationals, they were exempt from the strict immigration restrictions that the Immigration Act of 1917 placed on other Asian groups.

The interviews cover topics such as reasons for leaving the Philippines, education and employment opportunities, migrant labor, cannery work, union organizing, the impact of anti-miscegenation laws, the Repatriation Act of 1935, local organizations, recreational activities, and life during the Great Depression and World War II.

The project interviewers were Dorothy Cordova, Nancy Koslosky, Teresa Cronin, Cynthia Mejia, Frederick Cordova Jr., and Bob Flor.

The Washington State Archives’ Bicentennial Oral History Program included six projects, each involving several interviews. These include the Black Project, the Filipino Project, the Kittitas Project, the Pacific Project, the Wahkiakum Project, and the Whatcom Project. Each project was an investigation of a particular way of life, based on interviews with people having commonalities such as geographic location, occupation, race, timeframe, etc. The results are snapshots of life as it was experienced by several people within a given context.