A mystery sparks Rina Ayuyang’s graphic novel about California’s Filipino farm workers

Thousands of immigrants from the Philippines tended farms in California’s Central Valley, but their story isn’t well known.

Recruited in waves by the U.S. after its annexation of the Philippines at the turn of the century, these often well-educated workers arrived in California to seek opportunities but ended up propping up the country’s agricultural economy with their manual labor. This history is the backdrop to which Rina Ayuyang sets her latest graphic novel, “The Man in the McIntosh Suit,” out now from Drawn & Quarterly.

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A fast-paced mystery that pays homage to film noir and classic Hollywood, the book is set in 1929 and follows a lawyer-turned-fruit picker named Bobot who is desperately searching for his missing wife. After getting a tip from a cousin, he travels to Manilatown in San Francisco and is soon immersed in its seedy underbelly, contending with gangster nightclub owners, beautiful singers with secrets, and old friends who might have ulterior motives.

However, all the characters have something in common – they’re chasing their dreams in a country that sold them a vision and then excluded them. Ayuyang literally draws a picture of this moment in time, of her ancestors and family and a community that’s been central to making California and the U.S. what it is today.

An image from Rina Ayuyang’s graphic novel, “The Man in the McIntosh Suit.” (Courtesy of Drawn & Quarterly)

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. Can you talk about learning the history of Filipinos in California? 

I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, so it wasn’t taught there. After high school, I moved to San Francisco for college – San Francisco State, which had the first-ever Ethnic Studies Department in the nation. That’s where I learned about Filipino immigrants coming in by way of California. My whole family came – their immigration story started in the 1920s, around this time period that the book focuses on. 

Initially, I just wanted to do a simple homage to classic Hollywood and to have Asian and Filipino representation in my story. At first, I thought of a bubble world where these characters were already established, but I think I realized that I had to talk about the real-life history of their immigration to the U.S., and how their lives were affected by this time period in the ‘20s when they were dealing with anti-Asian sentiment and hostility, as we still are today.

Q. What research did you do for this book? Do you have any books to recommend?

I took inspiration from authors like Carlos Bulosan, who wrote “America Is in the Heart.” He was an immigrant during the same time period, and that book is like required reading for Filipino ethnic studies.

Speaking of, what’s cool about all the ethnic studies programs in the Bay Area and in LA is that they have these great online archives where they’ve collected stories and photos about the lives of Filipino farm workers. I’m grateful for all the historians and professors and students who took time to document and to archive all this history and to put it someplace that is accessible. 

I also interviewed my mom and my aunt – they talked about their dads coming to the US in the 1920s, and they told me about all the places they worked and where they lived. I found a photo album with all these amazing photos of these dapper men and their suits and their families having dinners and having parties. So it was just really easy to get into that world through all of those different resources.

Q. How did you develop your art style? On your website, it says you liked the Sunday comics in the newspaper.

I always wanted to be a comic strip artist; I wasn’t too big on superhero comics.  

When I was in school, I loved “Peanuts” and the clean lines of “Doonesbury.” I also loved the tone and humor. I also loved the details in “Family Circus,” such as all the clutter that was always around in each panel. 

I also loved the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, and there were so many great comic illustrators that did work for those – like Ralph Reese, who also did “National Lampoon.”

Q. What was the inspiration for the noir atmosphere of the book? What made you choose a mystery about a missing wife? 

I’ve always been enamored by classic Hollywood noir films from the ’30s and ’40s, like “Laura” with Gene Tierney, and “The Big Sleep” and “Naked City.” I also really wanted to create a detective comic series. 

I came up with the character of Bobot 10 years ago – I actually had this idea to have a Filipino detective who would just go around his neighborhood and take cases from his friend and solve crimes. It took me until now to really tackle that story. 

Q. There was one panel near the climax of the book in which a character said, basically, “I want to fight.” It expressed to me how so many of the characters in the books were fighting in their own way: to love the partner of their choice, to have their own business and to make a decent life. 

Historically, that moment in time is a watershed one for Filipinos, because of what followed: the Watsonville riots (On Jan. 19, 1930, mobs of White men attacked Filipino farmworkers after some had been seen dancing with White women at a dance hall). The start of the Depression and the hostilities between White and Filipino Americans were a powder keg waiting to go off.   

You know, I was writing this during the pandemic right around the time anti-Asian violence was increasing. It was a really heavy thing for me to see that this kind of pattern of animosity was still going on, a hundred years later, very similar to what I was researching for the book.

I’m not a historian at all, but I wanted my book to be a gateway for people to go out and learn more about the history of Filipinos in the U.S. It’s history that schools don’t really make a priority, and it’s kind of repeating itself – this ongoing pattern of xenophobia and scapegoating and fear-mongering and colonialism. Stuff that Americans aren’t proud of and like to push under the rug.

Q. What would you like readers to leave with on finishing this novel?

I’ve always wanted to tell stories about Filipino people and communities and see them represented in media and comics and entertainment. I want Filipinos like me to feel seen and take pride in what they’ve built.

I also want people to know that Filipinos were a part of U.S. history; they’re part of what makes America, America. The “McIntosh Suit” is a nod to there being a history of tailors in San Francisco who would make custom suits for farmworkers and the Filipino community – even though they were working in the fields, they made sure to look their best when going out on the town, maintain a sense of sophistication. The suit was symbolic of the hopes and dreams and aspirations that these people had.

I feel that as an artist, I want to use my platform to open doors to people wanting to learn history – because there are stories they probably haven’t heard yet.