Filipino Culture

Filipinos first arrived in Louisiana during the Spanish colonial era, likely as early as the 1760s, as sailors aboard galleons that linked the Spanish-colonized Philippines with North America. Today, according to one study, over 16,000 Louisiana households claim Filipino ancestry.

Disembarking, or perhaps deserting, their ships in New Orleans, Filipino sailors established maritime settlements in the marshlands surrounding the city. Two settlements in particular became permanent communities: St. Malo and Manila Village.

Located on the shores of Lake Borgne in St. Bernard Parish, the St. Malo fishing village likely sprang up in the 1830s, though some accounts date its origins decades earlier. The settlement once numbered several hundred Manilamen, as they were often called, alongside others who sought refuge from New Orleans, including self-emancipated people who freed themselves from bondage. Some historians now call the St. Malo community the first permanent Filipino settlement, as well as the first Asian-American settlement, in the United States.

The Spanish-speaking residents lived on the water in small, cypress-built houses supported by stilts. They survived by fishing, trapping, and collecting moss. They built families across ethnic and racial lines: Black, Cajun, Indigenous, and Isleño, the name for the Spanish-era colonists who arrived from the Canary Islands. In 1870, residents founded the nation’s first Filipino-American organization, a benevolent society called the Sociedad de Beneficencia de los Hispanos Filipinos.

Established in the late 19th century, Jefferson Parish’s Manila Village was located on an island in Barataria Bay. The settlement became closely associated with a Filipino cultural contribution that has stuck around in South Louisiana: dried shrimp. A popular ingredient and snack in many Asian cuisines, salted, sun-dried shrimp were introduced to South Louisiana by Chinese entrepreneurs as a preservation technique in the days before electric refrigeration. Though China and the Chinatowns of North America were the primary market for Louisiana dried shrimp, local cooks found ways to incorporate it into gumbo and other dishes.

Both settlements were eventually destroyed by hurricanes: St. Malo in 1915 and Manila Village in 1965. Any structural remnants have been swallowed up by rising tides, but descendants of both communities live throughout the state.

The shrimp were prepared on immense platforms as large as football fields. Workers wearing canvas-sacks on their feet stomped on the crustaceans, methodically separating the shrimp from their shells. Although the Shrimp Dance, as it became known, has been replaced by more modern techniques, the tradition has recently been demonstrated at Houma’s annual Rougarou Fest, celebrating the cultures and folklore of Southeast Louisiana bayou country, in October.

Today, the Filipino American Friends of Acadiana organization sponsors events for members and showcases Pinoy cuisine at local festivals, including at the Global Bites: International Street Food Festival in Lafayette. The Fil-Am Cajun Community of Southern Louisiana group also links Filipino families throughout Acadiana, while in St. Bernard Parish, the Philippine Louisiana Historical Society hosts Fiesta Filipina, featuring traditional food, music, and dance, in October, which is Filipino American History Month.