Saritaan
Saritaan: Filipino and Filipino American Stories of Ilocandia and the Pajaro Valley is a community-engaged research initiative that documents transnational stories of migration, agrarian life, and kinship. Titled after the Ilokano word for “talk story,” Saritaan (pronounced sah-ree-TAH-ahn) builds upon the Watsonville is in the Heart (WIITH) project, a public history initiative to preserve and uplift stories of Filipino migration and labor in the city of Watsonville and the greater Pajaro Valley. In this next phase, Saritaan shifts the research focus across the Pacific, anchoring new efforts in the Ilocos Region of the Philippines—where many Filipino American migration stories begin. Most of the WIITH community partners in the Pajaro Valley are ethnically Ilokano and have reconnected with kin through the team’s on-going research, and these connections have helped lay the groundwork for Saritaan.
Funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and housed at The Humanities Institute, Saritaan will be a research initiative and traveling art and history exhibition with educational resources. Saritaan will feature oral history recordings, contemporary art, and material culture objects to uplift narratives of Filipino migration.
The project forges novel collaborative research ties between two key nodes of historical Philippine-US migration: the Ilocos region, the top migrant-sending area in the early and mid- twentieth century, and the Pajaro Valley, the fifth largest agricultural hub in California developed in part by early Filipino migrants. Saritaan contributes a key, transnational dimension to the studies of historical Philippine migration. The team will work directly with Ilocos-based community and scholarly partners based at Pangasinan Polytechnic College and a bi-national team of undergraduate researchers to collect oral histories and primary materials. This research and collaboration will extend WIITH’s existing digital community archive to include impacts on and conditions in sending communities; deepen the team’s relationships with Ilocos-based partners; expand the experiential learning of Philippine-based and UCSC students through humanistic research; and culminate in an art and history exhibit that will travel throughout the Ilocos region.
The project team includes UC Santa Cruz Professors Kathleen Cruz Gutierrez (History) and Steve McKay (Sociology, Center for Labor and Community), postdoctoral fellow Meleia Simon-Reynolds (History), Pangasinan Polytechnic College (PPC) Board Secretary and International Relations Officer Nicanor D. Germono Jr., Asian Pacific American Collections Specialist for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art Dr. Christina Ayson Plank (Visual Studies), Tobera Project founder Roy Recio, Jr., THI Research Programs and Communications Director Saskia Nauenberg Dunkell, and undergraduate fellows.
Recent News
Saritaan: Preserving Filipino Migration Stories Across Oceans and Generations May 2025
Banner photo: Philippines-based family members often sent photos to their US-based friends and kin. This photo was sent to Juanita’s father with an inscription that reads, “This is the picture of some of our comadres and compadres which was taken east of our house w/ love Quirino, Puring, and Fely.” Sources like these will help WIITH and PPC researchers engage with community partners in the Ilocos. Courtesy of Juanita Sulay Wilson and the WIITH Digital Archive.