Stanley Garibay Biography

Born on May 9, 1905 in the Philippines, Stanley Garibay headed for America via the Dollar Line President Jackson ship when he was 21 years old along with 226 other Filipinos. He worked his way through high school in Alaska and Washington, taking jobs in manual labor until he graduated in 1928. Two years later, he was working in Utah for $1.75 an hour and led the first Philipino strike in the United States in August 1930. During the strike, he got contracted along with 177 other Philipinos in Lincoln, Idaho. With the money he earned in Idaho, he attended the University of Utah at Salt Lake City. He supplemented his savings with extra money he earned as a houseboy.

Unfortunately, Garibay wasn’t able to get his degree because he fell ill and moved back to California and warmer weather. He tried his hand at owning a business: The Chicken Inn Restaurant, but it failed. Garibay moved to Los Angeles and held various jobs as a domestic servant, cook and agricultural laborer. In 1941, he started publishing news magazines with the Pacific Pathfinder, later the Pacific Frontier and the Philippines. But in 1948, he was forced to leave the Los Angeles area because of a lack of money. For a year, he picked grapes in Delano and Fresno. In 1949, Garibay moved to Stockton, where Carlos Bulosan was living, and cut asparagus. He worked many different jobs until 1955, when he started publishing again and worked for himself as a gardener. He attended Vallejo Junior College, later named Solano Community College, and became certified in industrial management. Even though he had his degree, Garibay couldn’t get a good job because he was not a citizen. He eventually got his BA and MA from CSU Sonoma and his life teaching certificate to teach Horticulture at the Junior College level. When he finally returned to the Philippines for a month of vacation in late 1975, he got very sick and moved to Santa Maria to recuperate. In 1978, he moved to the small town of Guadalupe, where he met Joe and Margie Talaugon. He lived with the couple for eight years and opened up a printing shop with Joe. The first Guadalupe Community Reporter was published by the duo in October of 1978. Stanley Garibay lived out the rest of his life in Guadalupe, even after his retirement from publishing, writing and teaching. Some of his most notable publications are “My Long Trail to America,” “Filipino Heart Throbs,” and “The America That I Found.”

Information courtesy of Stanley Garibay's "Short Narrative of my Life" (1978) and a personal interview with Margie Talaugon.