This page is dedicated to gardening vegetables. It reminds me of the times my father would grow fruits and vegetables in the backyard when I was a kid and the joy of harvesting them for our meals. Today I find it rewarding when I can plant vegetables in the backyard and use them to eat or give away to friends and neighbors. It’s now a personal tradition of mine and a hobby I spend a lot of time tending to.

When my father first came to America from the Philippines as a teenager he worked in the sugarcane fields on the island of Kauai. This was when the Philippines was a commonwealth and migration of Filipinos primarily from the Ilocos region were recruited to work on the Hawaiian plantations. These migrant workers were called Sakadas. My father came over in 1924, he was fifteen. After working in Hawaii he migrated to California as a farmworkerand followed the crops up and down central California before joining the army in WWII.

Here are some links on Sakadas:

Labor migration in Hawaii

The Filipino American Story Sakada

First Filipino migration to Hawaii

The Delano Manongs

The APL song (WWII Veterans saga)

Black Eyed Peas - Bebot (Generation One)