Dollar a Day, Ten Cents a Dance

This is the "forgotten story" of Filipino American farmworkers in the Monterey Bay area. Lured by dreams of fortune, over one hundred thousand Filipinos, mostly men, migrated to the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s. What they found was not the endless opportunity of the American dream but discrimination fueled by a Depression-era economy. And, due to the lack of Filipino women, they also faced lifelong bachelorhood. Many of these men had left their ancestral farms in search of pleasure and prosperity, little knowing that what awaited them were the farmlands of America. The irony is not lost on the manongs, first-generation emigrés, who are interviewed in the film. They tell a story that is at once personal and political of the turmoil that led to the Watsonville riots of 1930, and the later participation of Filipino Americans in the formation of the United Farm Workers.

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