Ricardo Ocreto Alvarado, 1914-1976

Ricardo Alvarado immigrated to San Francisco in 1928 from the Philippines. He was part of the wave of Filipino immigrants known as the Manong ("older brother") generation, who came to the United States between 1901 and 1935, after the Spanish American War of 1898 made the islands a U.S. Territory.

At first, he made a living working as a janitor and houseboy. During World War II, he served his new country as a medical technician in the Army's highly decorated First Filipino Infantry Regiment. When he returned from the Pacific, he supported himself as a cook. In many ways, his biography reflects the limited career opportunities so many immigrants encountered in the 1940s and 1950s.