Filipino Fathers of Varnertown Indians

Filipino Fathers of Varnertown Indians is a deeply moving documentary that uncovers the World War II intermarriages between two marginalized communities in the Jim Crow South that transformed a Native American tribe forever. 

When a group of Filipino U.S. Navy cooks were stationed at a South Carolina shipyard, they found love, livelihood, and belonging with the women of the Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians. In today’s world where the relevance of race and identity continue to be challenged, we discover a true mix of Asian and Native American families in the Deep South. Through their union, this film reveals how their choices as a family through food, faith, education, and proclivities created profound and emotional cultural changes that altered the tribe’s destiny. It gives us a poignant look into how love, survival, and a shared plate of ‘adobo’ forged an unbreakable new community out of the shadows of American history.

The film explores the tribe’s intense insularity and deep commitment to preservation. The Wassamasaw Tribe boasts over 300 years of history and 1,500 documented bloodline descendants, yet it was only recently state recognized. Consisting of multiple Native American lineages in South Carolina, including Etiwan, Edisto, Catawba, Cherokee, and other Settlement Indians, community members can trace kinship to each other through eight family names. Likewise, many Filipino Varnertown families choose to intermarry within the tribe, choosing to preserve their tightly-knit, blended heritage. Furthermore, they choose to remain, for the most part, isolated from and unassociated with Filipinos outside of their tribal borders.

• Social Friction and Segregation: Through personal, intergenerational stories of families, we trace a powerful emotional arc from the initial wartime romances to the painful social frictions within the tribe caused by segregation laws. Viewers will witness the division created when half-Filipino children were granted access to white schools, leaving their fully Native American cousins relegated to strictly segregated Indian schools. The film also explores how some families navigated these profound racial tensions by listing themselves as "Pacific Islander" on official census records.

• A Culinary and Spiritual Blending: At the same time, the film examines a beautiful cultural blending that occurred because of these mixed race families. Traditional tribal meetings were transformed into feasts of traditional Filipino foods like ‘adobo’ and ‘lechon’, and Catholicism became deeply rooted in the community's fabric.

Filipino Fathers of Varnertown Indians moves beyond academic history to offer a living, breathing portrait of this unique South Carolina cultural phenomenon. The documentary will feature intimate interviews with over twenty tribal elders, descendants, and community leaders in their private homes, showcasing personal photographs and family memorabilia.

Visually, the film will be rich with snippets of everyday life in the community, showing vibrant local meeting places, churches, sweeping coastlines, and serene fishing spots. Historic locations like the Navy base, shipyard, and ancestral cemeteries will be featured prominently alongside familial communal dinners and vibrant tribal celebrations like powwows. 

This project fundamentally challenges traditional narratives of Filipino American immigration and assimilation. It asks viewers to expand their understanding of the diaspora, demonstrating how Filipino heritage can survive, adapt, and become inextricably woven into the fabric of a marginalized Indigenous community, even when entirely cut off from mainstream Filipino American culture. Ultimately, the film aims to foster a deeper empathy for the painful and beautiful ways mixed-heritage communities forge bonds to survive systemic erasure, offering a profound reflection on the universal languages of food, love, and survival.

• Chiara Cox (Producer/Co-Director):  A multidisciplinary artist whose film  Mangyan Ambahan  is preserved in the Library of Congress. She is a prominent SC educator and AAPI advocate.

• San-San Onglatco (Producer/Co-Director):  An AFI Conservatory MFA graduate and Sundance Uprise Grantee. Her work focuses on the immigrant experience and has screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

• Achim Mendoza (Editor):  A Sundance-level editor whose credits include the Jodie Foster-produced  ALOK . He specializes in narratives of identity and social impact.

• Yvgeniy Zhuk (Co-Director of Photography):  An AFI-trained cinematographer with over 300 production credits. His work has screened at Outfest and the San Diego Filipino Film Festival.

• Enzo Leventis-Cox (Co-Director of Photography):  A rising talent at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. Recognized by Forbes 30 Under 30 leader as a "creative who gives hope for the next generation," he brings a minimalist, resourceful, and high-aesthetic eye to the project.

Partner: Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians

Sponsor: Filipino American Association of Greater Columbia