The history of Filipino Martial Arts (FMA), known commonly as arnis, escrima, or kali, is deeply interwoven with the agricultural landscape of Stockton, California. 

The Lure of “El Dorado”

The first wave of Filipino immigration to the United States occurred between 1906 and 1934, driven by the promise of opportunity and the need to earn money for families back home. Many immigrants, mostly young men and teenagers (“Pinoys”¹)  from poor farming families, were “Lured to the United States in the 1920s, one immigrant told an interviewer…‘Back home, we thought California was the Eldorado [sic]’ – the legendary land of gold.”²

San Francisco, California served as a primary entry point.  Many newcomers were quickly transported via taxi to Stockton in the San Joaquin Valley and the heart of California’s agricultural region.³  More than half of all Filipinos in the United States worked in agriculture, organized into work crews led by Filipino labor contractors.⁴

“During the 1930s, approximately twenty-five thousand Pinoys worked the crops in the San Joaquin Valley alone.  The valley’s mecca was Stockton with its Pinoy-storied Eldorado [sic] Street.”⁵  “Many people settled in Stockton because of the farming community you know.  So you got all these warrior men here because all of them in some form or another know some kind of martial arts.  Naturally, they brought their martial arts.”⁶

Life in the fields were often lonely for the Pinoys.  “Most Filipino farm laborers went into town on weekends…Filipinos hunted for excitement in gambling joints and dance halls.  Or they loitered on the streets in front of the Filipino barbershop, where they could sit around and share stories. Or they hung out in the pool halls, a popular pastime.”⁷

Seeking connection, many Pinoys would join social organizations and lodges, which provided a secure social group.  These social organizations called lodges, “were packed and filled with many first-generation immigrant Pinoys, forty percent served our country during World War II and all of them had the working knowledge of Arnis Escrima.”⁸ 

The Art of Secrecy

Some farm laborers brought with them their martial arts  knowledge and experience and used their free time in the campo (“fields”) to covertly practice FMA. The coming together of Visayans, Tagalogs and Ilocanoas/os in Stockton also brought regional escrima systems together, for the first time in some cases.”⁹

These martial artists lacked traditional weapons like the bolo (long swords), rattan sticks, or balisong blades, these practitioners improvised. They adapted everyday farming tools, such as grape knives, for their practice. The asparagus knife was particularly favored for practicing Escrima.¹⁰ Guro Dan Inosanto of Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts, as a child, recalled seeing agricultural workers practicing with 26-inch-long asparagus knives at lunchtime on the farmland, hearing the “clang of the knives and the sticks”.¹¹

The knowledge of Escrima was highly secretive. Training sessions were strictly closed-door affairs. Knowledge of the art was “secured,” and many World War II veterans who had a working knowledge of Escrima did not share it with the public or even with their own family members—spouses, sons, or daughters.¹²

Secrecy was meticulously guarded:

• Each farm camp typically had one expert (who specialized in the “cabaroan or the cadaanan systems, which had their origins in the Ilocos region; the methods of the Cebuano system or Bohol and Elustrisimo systems; or such other styles as serrada, espada y daga, decuerdas, or cadena de mano.”), and this expert’s identity was kept secret.¹³
• Many men belonging to powerful social groups, like the fraternal orders, were Escrima experts.
• After lodge meetings, they would gather to practice (“play”) behind closed doors or deep in the orchards and fields.
• Grandmaster Leo Giron of Bahala Na Martial Arts Association recalled that after Legionarios’ meetings, he was not allowed upstairs, but could hear the sounds of sticks clanging. A person guarded the door with a real sword, and anyone approaching had to provide the correct password or knock to enter. Afterward, men would come downstairs carrying long swords and sometimes spears, merely saying they were “just playing”.¹⁴

Key figures such as Grandmaster Giron (a member of the General Luna Lodge) and Grandmaster Angel Cabales of Cabales Serrada Eskrima (a member of the Grand Oriente Filipino Lodge) maintained their skills during this time, dedicated to the highest degree of secrecy.¹⁵

Transitioning into the Public

By the 1960s, the tradition began to shift. Grandmaster Cabales, who had worked as a foreman in the Stockton asparagus fields¹⁶, was asked repeatedly to teach his art openly. Initially uneasy about teaching others how to counter the very skills that had kept him alive, Cabales eventually and reluctantly agreed.¹⁷

Grandmaster Carlito Bonjoc of Mata Sa Bagyo, who was a student of Grandmaster Cabales, noted that Angel Cabales was teaching by 1962 and officially opened his school in 1966.¹⁸ Prompted by his friend and business partner Max Sarmiento, who argued that “the future of Escrima rested in his hands,” Cabales opened the first public Filipino martial arts academy in the United States in 1966.¹⁹  Other accounts state the opening was actually in March of 1967. Regardless of the exact year, this action earned Angel Cabales the title, “Father of Escrima on the Mainland USA”.^{20 21} 

Cabales’s club became a pivotal location where he welcomed other legendary Eskrimadors—including Grandmaster Giron, Grandmaster Gilbert Tenio of Tenio’s Decuerdas Eskrima Concepts, and Grandmaster John LaCoste of LaCoste Kali—to come and teach. This marked the first time that Filipino martial arts were taught outside the tight-knit Filipino community.²²

Grandmaster Giron was also instrumental in this public shift. He was one of the first instructors to teach the art to the Filipino community in northern California, and one of the first to share his knowledge outside of it.²³  In 1968, he decided to open a club in Tracy, California (later moving to Stockton), renting an old jailhouse from the Veterans of Foreign Wars for the purpose of teaching escrima as an effective art of self-defense.²⁴

Filipino martial art’s transition to a public art was cemented when Guro Inosanto arrived in Stockton to conduct his research. His subsequent book The Filipino Martial Arts included many of the Eskrimadors who were openly teaching, which helped solidify Stockton’s reputation as a famous center for Filipino martial arts.²⁵

Thankful

In the book Sonny Umpad’s Eskrima: The Life and Teachings of a Filipino Martial Arts Master it stated “…eskrima was making the transition from an underground, combative method to a commercial martial art.  In America, Filipino martial art masters such as Grandmaster Angel Cabales, Grandmaster Leo Giron, Guro Daniel Inosanto, Grandmaster Raymond Tobosa, and others were making the art accessible to civilian society at large, instead of keeping it as the sole property of clandestine family systems.”²⁶  And society should be thankful they did share their knowledge, their experience, their art.

I am.

Thank you. Pugay²⁷ Grandmasters.

Addendum – Finding El Dorado

There is a street named El Dorado in Stockton, CA.  The southern portion of the road  was the center of the Little Manila district that once had many Filipino-owned businesses and cultural spaces located on or near it.  The area, which once stretched for several blocks, once served as a hub for the Filipino population.   “Few people know when they take the cross-town freeway through Stockton, California, they’re passing through the remnants of a once-bustling community.  All roads in America, with Filipinos, led to Stockton.  It was home to the largest Filipino population outside of the Philippines, a neighborhood whose little-known history was integral to the development of Central California.”²⁸

Dawn Bohulano Mabalon’s book Little Manila is in the Heart has a map of 1940s Stockton’s Little Manila and it showed the various Filipino opened businesses on and around South El Dorado Street on page 116-117.   Or view a map in Images of America: Filipinos in Stockton also by Dawn B. Mahalon, page 46.

I could not find the exact naming date for El Dorado Street in Stockton, CA.  According to internet search results, it may have been in existence by the 1850s.

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1. The young Filipino men called themselves “Pinoys”, according to Giron Escrima Memories of a Bladed Warrior, by Grandmaster Leo M. Giron, Empire Books, 2006, p. 59. ↩︎
2. In the Heart of Filipino America: Immigrants from the Pacific Isles, by Ronald Takaki, Chelsea House Publishers, 1995, p. 25 ↩︎
3. In the Heart of Filipino America: Immigrants from the Pacific Isles, by Ronald Takaki, Chelsea House Publishers, 1995, p. 31 ↩︎
4. In the Heart of Filipino America: Immigrants from the Pacific Isles, by Ronald Takaki, Chelsea House Publishers, 1995, p. 35 ↩︎
5. Filipinos: Forgotten Asian Americans, by Fred Cordova, Demonstration Project for Asian Americans, 1983, p. 38. ↩︎
6. They Sent Farmers, They Got Warriors: The Story of Filipino Martial Arts in Stockton California, Aperture Fight Focused, YouTube, July 5, 1029. ↩︎
7. In the Heart of Filipino America: Immigrants from the Pacific Isles, by Ronald Takaki, Chelsea House Publishers, 1995, p. 65 ↩︎
8. Giron Escrima Memories of a Bladed Warrior, by Grandmaster Leo M. Giron, Empire Books, 2006, p. 61. ↩︎
9. Little Manila is in the Heart, Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, Duke University Press, 2013, p. 82-83. ↩︎
10. Little Manila is in the Heart, Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, Duke University Press, 2013, p. 82-83. ↩︎
11. Dan Inosanto the Man, the Teacher, the Artist, by Perry William Kelly, Paladin Press, 2000, p.5. ↩︎
12. The Secrets of Giron Arnis Escrima, by Antonio E. Somera, Forward by Dan Inosanto, Tuttle Publishing, 1998, p. 83-84. ↩︎
13. Little Manila is in the Heart, Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, Duke University Press, 2013, p. 83-84. ↩︎
14. Giron Escrima Memories of a Bladed Warrior, by Grandmaster Leo M. Giron, Empire Books, 2006, p. 84. ↩︎
15. Giron Escrima Memories of a Bladed Warrior, by Grandmaster Leo M. Giron, Empire Books, 2006, p. 85-86. ↩︎
16. The Secrets of Cabales Serrada Escrima, by Mark V. Wiley, Tuttle Publishing, 1999, p. 14. ↩︎
17. Filipino Martial Arts Cabales Serrada Escrima, by Mark V. Wiley, Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1994, p. 28. ↩︎
18. The Stockton FMA History | GM Carlito Bonjoc Explains…, Paulo Rubio, YouTube, Jan 6, 2021 ↩︎
19. Filipino Martial Culture, by Mark Wiley, Tuttle Publishing, 1997, p. 61 ↩︎
20. Filipino Martial Arts Cabales Serrada Escrima, by Mark V. Wiley, Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1994, p. 28. ↩︎
21. The Secrets of Cabales Serrada Escrima, by Mark V. Wiley, Tuttle Publishing, 1999. P. 15. ↩︎
22. They Sent Farmers, They Got Warriors: The Story of Filipino Martial Arts in Stockton California, Aperture Fight Focused, YouTube, July 5, 2019. ↩︎
23. The Secrets of Giron Arnis Escrima, by Antonio E. Somera, Tuttle Publishing, 1998, p. 11. ↩︎
24. Giron Escrima Memories of a Bladed Warrior, by Grandmaster Leo M. Giron, Empire Books, 2006, p. 50. ↩︎
25. They Sent Farmers, They Got Warriors: The Story of Filipino Martial Arts in Stockton California, Aperture Fight Focused, YouTube, July 5, 2019. ↩︎
26. Sonny Umpad’s Eskrima: The Life and Teachings of a Filipino Martial Arts Master, by George M. Yore, Blue Snake Books, 2012, p. 12. ↩︎
27. “Pugay” is a Tagalog word meaning “salute” or “gesture of respect”. ↩︎
28. Little Manila: Filipinos in California’s Heartland – KVIE, PBS KVIE, YouTube, October 1, 2013. ↩︎