Summary

Identity card or union card issued to Agapito Castillo by the United States Coastguard in his position as a seaman, dated 22 April, 1952. It lists Agapito's address as Brooklyn, New York, and his place of birth and citizenship as the Philippines. Around this time Agapito was trying to gain permission to re-enter Australia to visit his wife and children in Melbourne.

Philippines-born Agapito Castillo had married Aileen McColl in Melbourne while he was working for the British Phosphate Company and was detained there during World War II.

This item is part of a collection of material relating to the migration and settlement experiences of seamen from the Philippines during the post World War II era in Australia; and the experiences of the local Anglo-Australian women they married.

Physical Description

Laminated card with identity photograph on one side, thumbprint on the other and typed information.

Significance

This collection and story represents an important narrative in Australia's migration history, regarding the challenges faced by seamen from the Philippines caught in Melbourne during the outbreak of World War II and unable to return home, trying to settle in Melbourne and marry locally-born women of Anglo-Australian background. It also shows the prejudice these women themselves faced. The collection reveals a community of these men and women and their families, connected through family relationships; and it demonstrates the vagaries of bureaucracy, and the influence of the White Australia policy, still officially in force at that time.

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