Public radio’s longest-running daily global news program.AboutContactDonateMeet the TeamPrivacyTerms of use©2026 The World from PRXPRX is a 501(c)(3) organization recognized by the IRS: #263347402.The migration of fruits and vegetables from the Philippines to the USFilipino migration to San Diego ramped up at the turn of the 20th century, when the Philippines became a US territory. As the US military set up bases in the Philippines, families stationed there planted gardens — and sent tasty island produce home. Elaine Alfaro brings us the story from KPBS in San Diego. DiasporaAugust 3, 2026Updated: August 3, 20265:10Calamansi fruits grow in Alfonso Villamora’s Spring Valley backyard, June 7, 2026.Rudy Recaido’s backyard was lush and green. A wind chime lilted on a light breeze. Gardening tools were strewn about. But you won’t find landscaping like turf grass or concrete hardscape.Instead, sprigs of kamote, or sweet potato, leaves burst from the ground. Sitaw, the Filipino word for string beans, hung from homemade trellises. And there was Recaido’s favorite vegetable to grow, ampalaya, or bitter melon, which he said is the most difficult to grow.Recaido’s garden is not unique in its crops. His garden is part of the collective story of many other Filipino Americans who have set down roots in San Diego, California.Kamote top leaves sprout in Recaido’s backyard in El Cajon, California.Kori Suzuki/KPBSThese home gardens speak to a bigger part of Filipino culture that Joanna La Torre grew up with in her grandparents’ house. Then, she made it central to her PhD research at the University of Washington.“This is just a very important site of cultural reproduction, where they’re not just growing foods; they’re also practicing their culture, a culture of generosity, a culture that they have been practicing since before they got here,” La Torre said. “[It] is how they are raised, and they continue to do it.”Planting the seedRecaido comes from a family of farmers. He joined his parents working in the fields back in Luzon, in the Philippines, when he was 9 years old.“Being a poor family, you know, I have to help my father because he cannot do all the work in the field, so I start young to grow up and help him growing this,” Recaido said.When he thinks back on that experience, he gets emotional. He said joining the US Navy changed his life.Lemons glow in the afternoon light in Modesta Amiling’s backyard in the Paradise Hills neighborhood of San Diego, California, April 22, 2026.Kori Suzuki/KPBS“When I was 16 years old, I planted rice all day from sunrise to sunset, two pieces the whole day,” Recaido said.Recaido said he was paid 10 centavos and the two pieces were equivalent to $1.“I was so lucky,” Recaido said. “I was lucky to join the Navy.”Joining the Navy gave him financial and social status that he did not have before. Through that service, he and his wife moved to the US and he was stationed in San Diego.His story is one much like many other Filipinos in San Diego.Migration of Filipinos to the US’s West Coast dates back to the Manila/Acapulco trade routes between 1565 and 1815. However, Filipino migration to San Diego began in earnest following 1898, when the Philippines became a territory of the United States.The US military set up bases on the Philippine islands. Migration to San Diego was heavily influenced by military enlistment in branches such as the Army and the Navy. Servicemen stationed in San Diego would petition to bring their wives and children to California, settling in areas like Paradise Hills and National City.“When I think about ways of immigration, I always push the Navy influence because of what I saw in terms of how it affected San Diego,” said Salvador Flor, an organizer in San Diego’s Fil-Am community, whose dad was a Navy veteran.When they arrived, servicemen and their wives established these gardens out of a desire to continue to have access to food from their homeland, like kamote, calamansi, lemon, sitaw and ampalaya. All fruits and vegetables from the Philippines are foundational to traditional Filipino dishes like sinigang.Salvador Flor stands for a portrait at the KPBS offices in San Diego, California, on June 9, 2026.Kori Suzuki/KPBSSpring Valley resident and veteran Alfonso Villamora grew up like Recaido, growing crops out of necessity.“My gardening started even overseas; it was in my psyche,” Villamora said. “When I grow up, that’s what I do. Self-sufficiency was what our parents taught us.”That lesson stayed with him even after he joined the US Navy in 1975. Wherever he was stationed during his service — San Diego, Guam and Japan — he’d plant gardens. In 1992, he and his wife purchased their current home in Spring Valley and planted their permanent garden.Villamora said access to Filipino fruits and vegetables in San Diego looked a lot different in 1975.“Back here, I started growing many vegetables,” Villamora said. “At that time we had to go downtown just to buy vegetables and meat. There weren’t a whole lot of Oriental outlets here.”Alfonso Villamora talks about his garden with his daughter Cindy Villamora Henderson and granddaughter Eleanor Rigby Henderson on June 7, 2026.Elaine Alfaro/KPBSRecaido bought his first home in 1974 and began his own garden. He’s moved homes since his first one in Paradise Hills. But the garden in his backyard today is a reminder of where he came from.“If I’m gardening, my mind always go back to the Philippines — where I came from and how I grew up, how poor I was,” Recaido said.For Modesta Gunnawa Amiling, her home garden in Paradise Hills has a similar origin story.“While growing up as a kid, our parents don’t have to tell us to plant. We are already, we are still babies and we know that when we grow up we were going to start doing the soil and plant something for food, for survival,” Gunnawa Amiling said.Setting down rootsBut over the years, Recaido, Villamora and Gunnawa Amiling’s gardens have represented not only survival in both the Philippines and the US, but a connection to home and space for thriving.“When I go to my gardens, it will ease all my mind, you know,” Recaido said. “If I am gardening, my mind is focused to that — my plant. No worries, no car payment, no mortgages.”Modesta Gunnawa Amiling and her daughter, Kirin Macapugay, stand for a portrait in Amiling’s backyard in the Paradise Hills neighborhood of San Diego, California, on April 22, 2026.Kori Suzuki/KPBSIt offers a spiritual connection for Recaido.“It makes you wonder how God gave you this,” Recaido said.Gunnawa Amiling feels a sense of accomplishment with her garden.“I feel rich when I plant my own. I feel like I’m so satisfied with it. I don’t have to go anywhere. I don’t have to go ask for everybody’s vegetables. I have my own in my backyard,” Gunnawa Amiling said.And, her garden is a safe space.“That’s my therapy,” Gunnawa Amiling said. “Yeah, because I can talk to my plants. I love planting.”Villamora said, as he’s gotten older, he’s developed an appreciation for seeing his grandchildren in the garden — 6-year-old Eleanor (Ellie) Rigby Henderson, 12-year-old Abbey Rhode Henderson, 14-year-old Penny Layne Henderson (yes, all inspired by Beatles).The young leaves of kamote, or sweet potatoes, sprout from beds in the backyard of Modesta Gunnawa Amiling’s home in the Paradise Hills neighborhood of San Diego, California, on April 22, 2026.Kori Suzuki/KPBS“They got a lot of memories here,” Villamora said. “It reminds me that they were part of this garden, their lives. Especially this little one crawling over the place. Abbey was always there … this is how I remember them.”Gunnawa Amiling and Villamora said they’ve tried to make their gardens places for their families and future generations. La Torre said these spaces impart generations of cultural history and knowledge.“The garden is a way of maintaining Filipino-ness,” La Torre said. “It’s a way of refusing to be erased and to continue engaging with the foods, of course, but also with the culture.”‘Where I come from’Villamora set aside spaces for his grandchildren in the garden. Abbey Rhode and Penny Layne have their own street signs in the front yard.“I feel a sense of comfort knowing the garden is basically where I come from,” Penny Layne said. “That’s the garden I’ve lived with my whole life.”For Abbey, it’s a space to reset.“I just feel really calm,” Abbey Rhode said. “It’s all quiet and peaceful back there.”Ellie Rigby has her own hideout and strawberry garden.“It feels like love coming from a long way,” Ellie Rigby said.Penny Layne (left), Eleanor Rigby, Cindy, Abbey Rhode and Villamora (right) gather for a photo in Villamora’s backyard on June 7, 2026.Elaine Alfaro/KPBSFor many families, the gardens aren’t only a connection to fresh food, but a long history of cultural practices and traditional medicine. Gunnawa Amiling’s daughter, Kirin Amiling Macapugay, shared what she’s learned from her mom’s garden.“I think it’s important to still be able to hold on to these traditional belief systems, these centuries, centuries of how to plant, how to heal,” Macapugay said. “How did we know that the ginger was good for you? How did we know that the calamansi is going to be good for getting over the flu? I mean, that’s the thing, we don’t always write that stuff down. We’re trying to now.”Food has played a central role in how younger generations maintain their connection to the culture. Both Recaido and Villamora cook food for the grandkids.“I cook in the house 99.999%,” Recaido said. “I could cook five or six dishes without the help of my wife, just me.”His son Ron Recaido describes his dad’s cooking as “top tier.”“Pretty much every single time we have a gathering, my dad is catering the family parties or family get-togethers,” Ron said.Point Loma Nazarene Sociology Professor Jimiliz Valiente-Neighbours researched what “local” food means to Filipino immigrants living in San Diego for her master’s degree.“They don’t think of food as just something to eat,” Valiente-Neighbours said. “They think of it as community building, home building, and whenever my mom knows I’m coming home, they’re always like, ‘What do you want to eat?’ So, it’s like bonding, as well, like that.”For Macapugay, it’s a form of love.Jimiliz Valiente-Neighbors, a professor of sociology at Point Loma Nazarene University, stands for a portrait at her home in San Diego, California, on May 28, 2026.Kori Suzuki/KPBS“When you think about love and what that looks like in the family context, too, it’s little things like that, right?” Macapugay said. “Because in many cultures, it’s not a very verbal type of showing … my grandma used to make tea out of ginger. My other lola, when you had the flu, coughing and colds, [she’d say] the calamansi is good, just a little salt on it.”Villamora isn’t so sure his granddaughters will plant Filipino fruits and vegetables because of the growth of Asian grocery stores like Seafood City. And because they didn’t grow up with that survival and self-sufficiency mindset that motivated his gardening.“We transplanted ourselves here into the new culture,” Villamora said. “I really expected them to be part of that culture, not so much of mine, because mine I lived it. They didn’t.”But he is still tending to the garden with his granddaughters’ futures in mind.“Someday I hope they move in here when I’m gone,” he said. “I planted trees so that someday they can hang a hammock and put a blanket to have that time in the garden.”But the girls intend to continue the lessons their lolo taught them in both gardening and cooking.“When I’m surrounded by traditional fruit and Filipino dishes, I feel most at home because that’s where I know I come from,” Penny Layne said. “That’s where most of my family comes from.”Penny Layne and her sisters dream of the day they’ll have their own spaces to nurture and grow, just like their lolo.“Definitely, I want to learn how to make adobo and I’d like to learn to make sinigang in case this girl or this girl have any kids,” Penny Layne said, pointing to the children. I’d want to make that when they come over.”An earlier version of this story appeared on KPBS.