Making Good on a Promise : Filipinos in U.S. Army During WWII Finally Get Their American Citizenship

Rosita Carreon joined the U.S. Army in 1943, working as a medical aide and intelligence agent with American-led guerrilla units in the jungle-covered mountains of the Philippines to fight against Japanese occupation of what was then a U.S. territory. She was 13.

That same year, Zacarias Valencia, who joined the U.S. Army in the Philippines in 1941 and was captured by the Japanese in 1942, was released from a prisoner-of-war camp and rejoined U.S. forces in the mountains of northern Luzon. He served as a U.S. soldier until 1946.

During the war years, American law promised such alien members of the U.S. armed forces the right to become citizens. But when Carreon, now 55, and Valencia, now 69, tried to redeem that pledge in 1946, it was not honored for Filipinos unless they first traveled to the United States to apply.

On Thursday, Carreon of Irvine and Valencia of Los Angeles finally won belated fulfillment of that decades-old American promise. They were part of a group of 62 Filipino U.S. Army veterans who became citizens during a series of ceremonies at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Wednesday and Thursday in which a total of 13,000 immigrants were sworn in as citizens.

After World War II, alien veterans could apply for citizenship directly to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service representatives in their own countries under terms of a 1940 act of Congress.

But for 10 critical months, from October, 1945, to August, 1946, the INS withdrew its representatives from the Philippines at the urging of local authorities about to form an independent government. The authorities feared that “the cream of the country would go to the United States,” explained Avelino Geaga, a supervisor in the Los Angeles INS office.

The law providing for citizenship expired at the end of 1946, and for thousands of veterans like Carreon and Valencia, the opportunity to become Americans was gone.

During the ensuing decades, Valencia became a teacher and rose to be a district supervisor in the Philippine Ministry of Education and Culture, he said.

“But I always wanted to come to a country, which they say is wonderful and rich, and see for myself the United States,” he said.

Carreon worked at a U.S. Navy base, the U.S. Embassy in Manila at a bank and in real estate, she said. She, too, never gave up her dream of becoming an American.

“I was just looking forward that someday the American government and the American people would recognize these guerrillas, who fought side by side with the Americans, and reconsider, and give us this chance to be U.S. citizens,” she said.

When she finally entered the convention hall Thursday, Carreon broke into tears.

“All my sacrifices during World War II, and being separated from my family now, while waiting, is all worthwhile,” she said. “This makes me happy.”

Both Valencia and Carreon left spouses and families in the Philippines while awaiting approval of their citizenship applications, which both filed in 1982. Both said they will now sponsor their spouses for immigrant visas.

Winning citizenship constitutes “a major victory” for the 62 veterans sworn in this week, said Jack Golan, a Los Angeles attorney who handled their applications. But, he added, an estimated 2,000 or 3,000 other Filipino veterans presently in the United States under temporary status with citizenship applications pending face an uncertain future.

INS officials said Thursday that based on mid-1970s court decisions, the agency has been granting citizenship to Filipino veterans who prove they sought to apply before the end of 1946.

INS has no basis for granting citizenship to veterans who cannot prove they tried to apply before the 1946 expiration of the law, according to Ernest Gustafson, INS district director in Los Angeles.

Golan, however, charged INS with taking an “obstinate attitude” and said he sees it as “an issue of the honor of the United States.”

“We are talking about 1942, the darkest days of World War II, when America was beaten on every front, when for non-Americans to serve voluntarily in the military forces of the United States was an act of heroism,” Golan said.

In failing to expedite citizenship for other Filipino veterans, Golan charged, the United States is treating them “as if they were the enemy, instead of giving them what Congress promised 40 years ago.”