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After immigrating in the 1920s, Victorio Velasco became a participant and leader in many facets of Filipino-American life over the next half century. Velasco was perhaps best known as a leader of Seattle’s Filipino community. He published and edited the local Filipino Forum and served as the head of numerous Seattle Filipino community organizations. Because of his leadership in the Filipino community, many local and statewide organizations seeking to improve race relations sought him out to serve on their boards and committees. In addition to his leadership among Seattle’s Filipinos, Velasco also participated in the Filipino American labor movement. Like many other Filipinos during his time, Velasco spent most of his summers working in Alaska canneries and participated in the cannery unions’ turbulent internal politics.

Velasco was born in Asingan, Pangasinan, The Philippines, ca. 1903. After graduating from high school he taught in Manila and worked as a reporter for the Manila Times before emigrating to the U.S. in 1924. There he attended five colleges in Washington State before earning his B.A., M.A., and fulfilling some of the requirements for a Ph.D. at the University of Washington. Velasco had begun writing poetry in high school and early on was successful at finding publishers for his work. By the time of his death Velasco’s poetry had appeared in eleven anthologies and various newspapers and magazines.

After coming to the U.S., Velasco spent his summers working in the canneries alongside other Filipinos, who had begun filling most cannery positions after the loss of Japanese immigrants in the 1920s. Cannery work was known for being particularly strenuous and the employers often tried to take advantage of their Asian immigrant laborers, but the Filipinos developed a strong union to engage in collective bargaining with the employers. The Seattle branch of the Cannery Workers’ and Farm Laborers’ Union was organized in 1933 and represented Filipino-American cannery workers. However, the Filipino workers became frustrated with the AFL because of its stand on racial issues and in 1937 affiliated themselves with the CIO’s United Cannery, Agricultural, Packinghouse and Allied Workers of America, Local 7.

With union representation, the cannery workers were able to win concessions and improve wages and working conditions, but Local 7’s internal politics were often bitter. Many of the union elections featured personal insults and redbaiting. Velasco was involved in many of the elections both as a candidate and as a supporter of others running for office, but until the late 1940s, his attempts at winning a union office were unsuccessful. Velasco also was involved in a major split in Local 7 during the immediate postwar period. Many Local 7 members accused officers of corruption, which led to an investigation by its international union, which suspended or expelled three of Local 7’s top officers. These ousted officers formed a rival organization, the Seafood Workers’ Union (SFWU) and conducted a membership drive to try to displace Local 7. Although Velasco was not implicated in the Local 7 investigation, he joined the SFWU and became its secretary. There are a number of possibilities for why he might have joined.

One factor might have been the persistent regionalism within the Filipino-American community. Many of the people who joined the SFWU were from Velasco’s region of the Philippines. Ideology and politics may also have been a factor in Velasco’s decision, as members of the SFWU used anti-Communist rhetoric to attack Local 7. Velasco’s politics were consistently conservative and he saw Communism as a grave threat.

After merging with the AFL Alaska Fish Cannery Workers’ Union, the SFWU was able to enter a NLRB election that would allow cannery workers to determine which union would represent them. Redbaiting became a weapon in the campaign against Local 7, which affiliated with the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU). In 1950 the ILWU finally won collective bargaining rights and subsequently became Local 37 of the ILWU. Velasco then joined Local 37 and remained a member for the rest of his life, serving frequently as a delegate and as secretary-treasurer.

Newspaper publishing was also a large component of Velasco’s life. In the early 1920s Velasco worked as editor for the Philippine Seattle Colonist and as the Seattle correspondent for the Philippine Republic . In 1928 he became the founder, editor, and publisher of the Filipino Forum , which served as a newspaper for the Seattle Filipino community. In 1937 Velasco had to suspend publication, but resumed printing the Forum after the outbreak of World War II. During the interim he published or wrote for various other Filipino newspapers, including the Seattle Filipino Outlook , Northwest Forum , Philippine Review , and the Philippine Advocate .

Throughout his life in Seattle Velasco was heavily involved in local civic organizations, mostly within the Filipino community. In 1928 he was part of a group of UW Filipino students who founded the Seattle Filipino Clubhouse Fund. The Fund was intended to raise enough money to build a center for Filipino students at the university, but the plans never materialized. However, Velasco later changed the organization’s name to Filipino Community of Seattle, Inc., and set out to build a center for the entire Seattle Filipino community. Decades later, in 1965, the center was finally completed and was open for social events and recreation. Velasco also was a founder, president, and board member of the UW Filipino Alumni Association after World War II and founded both the Pangasinan Association of the Pacific Northwest and the Asinganian Club, which were comprised of people who came from his region of the Philippines.

Velasco also served other civic organizations that were not targeted specifically at Filipinos. Many of these groups were trying to reach out to the city’s and state’s diverse groups to try to improve race relations. He helped found the Jackson Street Community Council in 1946 and served as its first secretary and then as a board member. Other community organizations that Velasco served include the King County Advisory Council of the Washington State Board Against Discrimination, and the Board of Trustees of the Neighborhood House, which served inner-city youth.

Velasco died in Waterfall Alaska in 1968. He had been working at a cannery there when the bunkhouse caught on fire. After escaping safely, Velasco went back to retrieve his typewriter but was unable to escape a second time.