Imagine your dad went to work far north, to cold Alaska, where they catch salmon. He promised to send money so you could go to school and the family would have food. But instead letters arrive saying: there’s so much work your hands hurt and bleed, you only get four hours of sleep, and they pay so little it’s barely enough for bread. And if you try to complain — you’ll be fired with no money and nothing to get home with. That’s how Filipino families in Seattle lived in 1933. But they didn’t give up — they figured out how to fight back using fish boxes, dances, and secret messages.
Work that turned people into machines
In the 1930s thousands of Filipino men went north every summer to work in Alaska’s canneries. It was seasonal work: from May to September they processed caught salmon and packed it into cans, working 16–18 hours a day. The plants were in remote locations reachable only by ship. Workers lived in cramped barracks with less space per person than a school locker.
Cannery owners paid Filipino workers two to three times less than white Americans for the same work. There was also a system of “contractors” — middlemen who took a portion of the already small wages. A worker could work the whole summer and end up with so little that it was barely enough for a ticket home to Seattle. Filleting knives were dull, protective gloves weren’t provided, so cuts and infections were common. If someone got sick or complained, they were simply fired and left in Alaska with no means to return home.
By 1933 Filipino workers had had enough. They decided to strike — to refuse to work until conditions improved. But how do you organize a strike when you’re hundreds of miles from home, on an isolated island, and the bosses control all communication?
Secret mail in fish boxes
Here’s where the most interesting part of the story begins. Filipino workers devised a brilliant system of covert communication. They wrote letters about their plans, about how many people were ready to join the strike, and about what demands to make. They hid these letters in wooden fish boxes sent back to Seattle on ships.
Imagine opening a box and finding, beneath a layer of ice and silver salmon, a letter wrapped in oiled paper. It was like a spy game, but the stakes were real — if the cannery owners discovered these messages, the strike organizers would be fired immediately.
But fish boxes were only half the story. Workers also made arrangements with sailors on the ships running between Alaska and Seattle. Some of those sailors were Filipino themselves or sympathetic to the workers. They passed oral messages and sometimes used code: a certain song sung on deck might mean “the strike will start next Monday,” a particular way of tying a knot on a sack meant “we need more money to support our families.”
When the whole neighborhood became one big family
While the men prepared to strike in Alaska, a battle unfolded in Seattle. The Filipino community in the city lived mostly in an area called the International District. On a few streets lived families from the Philippines, China, Japan — immigrants who came to America seeking a better life.
When the strike began in June 1933, the women and children in those families realized: if the men didn’t work, there would be no money at all. But instead of panicking, they organized. Women, many of whom worked as laundresses, seamstresses, or cleaners, began holding “dance marathons” — events that sold tickets. Money from the tickets went into a common fund to support the strikers.
These dances were more than entertainment. They were a way to show: we are united, we will not give up. Girls your age helped decorate halls and handed out flyers inviting people. Boys delivered food and drinks. Elderly women cooked huge pots of adobo (a Filipino chicken or pork dish) and pancit (noodles), feeding everyone for free. Everyone contributed.
They also set up “solidarity kitchens” — places where any striker or family member could get a hot meal. This was important because the strike lasted not a day or two, but several months. Some families shared the last of what they had. Neighbors who were not wealthy themselves — Chinese small grocery owners, Japanese farmers — brought rice, vegetables, flour.
A victory built together
Cannery owners thought the workers would give up quickly. After all, Filipinos had no money, no powerful friends, and many didn’t speak English well. But the owners had overlooked one thing: the power of a community where everyone was ready to help one another.
The strike attracted newspaper attention. Reporters came to the International District and saw that an entire neighborhood was living like one big family, supporting their workers. This moved many Americans. Other labor unions — associations of workers in different industries — also began to help. Even university students collected money for the strikers.
As a result, in the fall of 1933 the cannery owners agreed to negotiate. The workers won several important improvements: wage increases (though still not equal to white workers), limits on the working day, better conditions in the barracks, and — most importantly — the right to form their own union. The union was called the Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union. It was the first organization on the U.S. West Coast to unite workers of different nationalities — Filipinos, Japanese, Mexicans — to protect common rights.
Why this story matters today
The 1933 strike teaches several important lessons. First, even when you seem weak and powerless, you can change injustice — if you act together. Filipino workers were poor immigrants many Americans then considered “second-class.” But they refused to accept that.
Second, real change happens when the whole community is involved — not only those directly harmed by the problem. Women, children, neighbors of other nationalities — all contributed. A girl who helped decorate a dance hall was as important to the victory as a man standing on the picket line in front of the plant.
Third, creativity and ingenuity can overcome power and money. Secret letters in fish boxes, coded songs, dance marathons — these were ways to bypass the owners’ control and build a support network.
Today there are museums and memorials in Seattle that tell this story. But for a long time the 1933 strike was barely mentioned in textbooks. History is usually written by the winners and the wealthy, and the stories of ordinary workers are often forgotten. Only because the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those strikers preserved family stories, letters, and photos do we now know how an entire Seattle neighborhood came together to fight for justice.
When you see injustice — at school, in your neighborhood, in the world — remember the Filipino families of 1933. They showed that even ordinary people, working together and supporting one another, can change the world for the better. And sometimes that just means being ready to hide an important message in a fish box or to cook an extra pot of food for a neighbor.
