Oral History Collaborations

In this interview, originally recorded in-person, Anastacio "Stosh" Asunción speaks with Watsonville is in the Heart team member Meleia Simon-Reynolds. Stosh starts by telling the story of his father, Anastacio Polistico Asunción's life in the Philippines, his migration to the United States through Hawai'i, and his involvement in both World Wars before eventually settling in Watsonville, California where he worked as a sharecropper for Reiter Berry Company. He discusses his father's hobbies of gardening and fishing and remembers his mother, Paula Montelongo Asunción's cooking. Stosh reflects on how growing up within a multiethnic community at a labor camp located on San Andreas Road impacted his early views on his parents' interracial marriage. He describes how he explored his mixed-race identity in college at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He discusses reading Carlos Bulosan's America is in the Heart and his experience writing an undergraduate research paper titled, "Watsonville's Filipino Bachelor Community" in 1970. Stosh talks about his experience working in the strawberry fields as a child, and reflects on the long term effects agricultural pesticides had on his father and other workers. He also provides vivid details about cockfights that were held in the Pajaro Valley. Stosh ends the interview by reflecting on fond memories of spending time with his parents, including going fishing with his father and having picnics with his mother.