Author: Jeff Madruga

October 31, 1955 – The tuna clippers “WEST POINT” & “STAR CREST” were the first two San Diego tunaboats to unload at VAN CAMP SEA FOOD CO. after a 4-MONTH LONG LABOR STRIKE (by AFL Steam Boiler Engineers) ended, and 600 Van Camp employees started work two days later. Demanding wage parity with their peers working in SAN PEDRO, the Engineers secured 52 hours of pay for a guaranteed 48-hour work week at $140.40 per week (for a Chief Engineer – equivalent to $1,360 per week / $5,440 monthly / $65,280 annually today [2021] – ed.), and $122.20 per week for Watch Engineers (equivalent to $1,183 per week / $4,732 monthly / $56,784 annually today [2020] – ed. — *For comparison: the Average Annual Wage in San Diego in 2020 is $77,000,000).
Meanwhile, the HIGH SEAS TUNA CO. Cannery (in Point Loma) also started up it’s boilers for unloading tuna and packing that same day, after having been *CLOSED ALL YEAR* due to a protracted cannery worker’s strike. Four hundred (400) employees returned to their jobs there. – A.T.A. (American Tunaboat Assn.) Mgr. Harold Cary was quoted as saying 26,000 tons of tuna worth more than $7,000,000 (equivalent to $67,770,900 today [2021] – ed.) were IN tunaboat holds when unloading finally began.
*Note: The mid-1950s were very tough years for San Diego’s tuna fishing industry, much of it due to fishermen being undercut by the canneries buying cheaper, imported, tariff-free Japanese (& other nations to a lesser degree) tuna since the late 1940s (quite ironically after American taxpayers helped rebuild that island nation’s economy / tuna industry after defeating them in WWII – ed.).

In his book “THE PORTUGUESE-AMERICANS”, published in 1976, author Mr. LEO PAP cites POINT LOMA’S (a bayside neighborhood in San Diego, CA) PORTUGUESE ethnic enclave as the WEALTHIEST (per capita) IN THE NATION! During these “boom times” when the book was written, fishing was lucrative beyond all expectation! — …and while male relatives fished off the coasts of Mexico and South America for two or three months at a time, women raised their children on the same Point Loma streets on which their parents and grandparents lived.
San Diego’s tuna fleet then numbered 200 vessels and accounted for 80% of the world’s catch. Nearly 50% the boats were owned by PORTUGUESE “family dynasties“ that had been living in Point Loma for several generations. Crew members, nearly 75% of whom were PORTUGUESE, and addressed each other in the idioms of their native villages while they laid the huge black purse seine nets on the Embarcadero docks. — During this “boom“, there were two weekly Portuguese-language radio broadcasts from San Diego-based stations.

*Editorial Note: Nearly NO ONE in San Diego would have guessed that the productive *END* of the SAN DIEGO TUNA FISHING FLEET was less than a decade away!? 🙁

On October 26, 1986, a 21′-high bronze & granite TUNAMAN’S MEMORIAL STATUE was erected on SAN DIEGO’s SHELTER ISLAND. A “dream come true” initiated by a proud San Diego tuna fisherman (& Provincetown, Massachusetts native) Capt. ANTHONY MASCARENHAS, in conjuction with his (beautiful, but short-lived) dream of a TUNA HALL OF PROGRESS; but which he sadly did not live to see erected. The Memorial includes the names (currently 46) of SAN DIEGO TUNA FISHERMEN who DIED during tuna fishing operations in the San Diego fleet, as well as names of many tuna industry FOUNDERS and PIONEERS of San Diego’s once proud tuna fishing fleet, a fleet synonymous with San Diego once being recognized as the “TUNA CAPITAL OF THE WORLD“, and the (largely Portuguese-American) Point Loma neighborhood of that city known as, “TUNAVILLE“. The bronze statue was sculpted by artist Franco Vianello, who himself once fished for tuna in the bait boat days, and purposefully shows a Portuguese, Italian, and Japanese fisherman in the rack, as these nationalities and/or their ancestors tended to dominate in this fishery.

1988 – Another of the “Big Three” U.S. Tuna Producing company, the once iconic CHICKEN OF THE SEA brand, started by Mr. Frank Van Kamp in 1914, moves almost ALL of it’s operations to an INDONESIAN corporation P.T. MANTRUST (whose primary creditor was Prudential Life Insurance) after 74 years of operation in the UNITED STATES.
In 1997 Chicken of the Sea morphed into the investment group TRI-UNION SEAFOODS LLC, made up of three partners: (1.) THAI UNION INTERNATIONAL INC., a Thai conglomerate based in BANGKOK, Thailand and the (then) largest tuna packer in ASIA and second-largest in the world, and; (2.) Mr. EDMUND A. GANN (formerly Goncalves), the American owner of CARIBBEAN MARINE SERVICE, CO. INC., a tuna-fishing fleet, and; (3.) TRI-MARINE INTERNATIONAL INC., a global trading company formed in SINGAPORE in 1972 dealing with tuna and headed by Mr. RENALTO CURTO, President and Majority Shareholder. These three changed the name of the company to CHICKEN OF THE SEA INTERNATIONAL.
In 2000 Tri-Marine International Inc. & Edmund A. Gann *SOLD* their 50% interest to THAI UNION INTERNATIONAL, INC., leaving THAI UNION as the sole owner, that also included a merger.
With a 2003 acquisition of EMPRESS INTERNATIONAL (an importer of shrimp & shellfish) Chicken of the Sea International annual sales climbed to $600,000,000.
In 2015 came the collusion and “price fixing” charges; which *STUCK*, and cancelled a planned BUMBLE BEE/CHICKEN OF THE SEA merger.
In May of 2018 – Chicken of the Sea finally moved their “headquarters” from SAN DIEGO to El Segundo, California.

*EDITORIAL NOTE: The iconic Chicken of the Sea MERMAID (named “Catalina“) introduced in ads in the 1950s was *first* portrayed by actress and singer Ms. Grace Lee Whitney; whom many “baby-boomers” and STAR TREK fans may remembers better from her many appearances in both the original TV show and Star Trek Conventions.

1988 – Famous and/or Infamous “environmentalist” and self-promotor SAM LaBUDDE, fresh from Indiana University, secretly videotapes the KILLING OF DOLPHINS IN THE NET of a * PANAMANIAN * (I repeat here for emphasis: “PANAMANIAN”!!!) purse seining tuna boat, and willfully spreads them throughout the news media and before Congress. Horror and Outrage ensues! But the repercussions effect the U.S. DOMESTIC tuna fishing fleet much, MUCH more than any effects in Panama. A tragic overreach, even if (?) initially well-intended; that helps destroy the local tuna fishing industry, the U.S. fleet, and (saddest of all) the very dolphins and marine animals it “proposed” to protect. A fully and tragically stupid and self-centered series of events; where only the honest and successful are punished, the corrupt rewarded, and the “Safety” trumpeted was actually forfeited.

1989 – Once one of the “Big Three” Tuna processors in the UNITED STATES since 1899, iconic brand BUMBLE BEE (after a whirlwind of stock market gymnastics, etc.) is purchased by a THAILAND conglomerate UNICORD, essentially ending U.S. domestic operation after 90 years (1899, starting with salmon), but they still maintain their “Bumble Bee Headquarters” offices in SAN DIEGO, California.
After further changes, Bumble Bee went bankrupt in 1997, and again went through a series of business and ownership changes.
In August of 2015, Bumble Bee Foods was sued, accused of illegally COLLUDING (i.e. “price fixing”) with the other two of the “Big Three” U.S.-based Tuna Producers; CHICKEN OF THE SEA and STARKIST to FIX prices to cheat consumers.
Bumble Bee’s former CEO, Mr. Christopher Lischewski, was indicted in May 2018 for price fixing. After pleading not guilty he was found guilty of indeed conspiring to fix prices of cans of tuna sold in the U.S. from November 2010 to December 2013. A truly SHAMEFUL, awful ending for a once-proud tuna fleet and highly successful labor force of fisherman and cannery workers IN the U.S..
In 2015 Bumble Bee Foods was even in talks to MERGE with Chicken of the Sea, but the merger was called off on December 2015 for Antitrust concerns.
*Note: Not too long afterward (but *outside* the U.S.), the BUMBLE BEE *NAME* is later acquired by the TAIWANESE company FCF Ltd. (now the largest tuna trader in the world), yet still maintains those “company headquarters office” in SAN DIEGO, California (ed.-?!).

The iconic GLOUCESTER, Massachusetts CODFISH fishery (*even older than any tuna fishery on the West Coast of the U.S.) has it’s CODFISH annual QUOTAS *slashed* 77% in ONE year to “protect from overfishing“. Sadly, this famous OLDE FISHERY, once an American Success Story, is now ALSO at risk of literal extinction.

1850 – The “mysterious” Mrs. EMILIA NAGHEL (aka. Mrs. Ann Emily Sinclair Nagel of…, Maryland?), age 18, is shown as born in PORTUGAL *and* the wife of shipmaster Capt. Samuel M. Nagel (b. 1817 in Baltimore, Maryland?) and is the FIRST local “Portuguese” listed in the (first) 1850 San Diego U.S. Census here. – *Editorial Note: She died of an “enlarged heart” in 1870, in San Francisco, California.

In 1921 (and completed in 1922) the move to organize a local Festa do Divino Espírito Santo (Feast of the Holy Spirit) IRMANDADE (Brotherhood) and a new, permanent Feast/serving Hall site was led by Manuel Oliveira (aka “M.O.”) Medina and the Medina Family. Lore has it that M.O. Medina’s father made the statement (referring to the previously used Cabrillo Pavilion) that, “O Senhor Espirito Santo nao paga renda a ninguem” (translation: “The Holy Spirit pays rent to no one.“) – The first major goal was to purchase the property for this Portuguese community hall and Chapel (aka Imperio Capella). Donations were solicited from the local Portuguese community, as well as from other Portuguese communities dispersed throughout California (perhaps following Manuel F. Cabral’s example 30 years before??? – ed.). – Two men, Mr. MANUEL CORREIA from Madeira and Mr. JOE RODGERS (José Rodrigues) from Pico, Azores; stepped forward and offered to lend $500 each (equivalent to $6,345 each today) to buy a suitable property, 2818 Addison St., with the stipulation that they would be reimbursed by the Irmandade. In order to clear the debt, tuna fishermen pledged one day’s catch in the summer of 1921. As construction on the new hall began, each boat also pledged the labor of one fisherman for the duration of the construction, making sure that that the fisherman fully shared on that trip’s catch.
Of special interest is the Império Capella (aka Chapel) located adjacent to the hall. It was constructed by Mr. JOSEPH ATHAYDE (aka. José Ataide, a carpenter), Mr. JOHN LUCAS (aka. João Lucas, a mason), and Mr. FRANK BROWN (aka. Francisco Brum,), a painter. The design of the Chapel (Imperio Capella) draws on the architecture of the Império Capelas in the Azores Islands. – Thus was created (in 1922) the United Portuguese Sociedade do Espirito Santo (U.P.S.E.S, Inc.), in Roseville, Point Loma, San Diego. The U.P.S.E.S., also known as “the Hall” or “Portuguese Hall” is governed by thirty members, elected by secret vote at the annual business meeting or Festa das Contas. This board in turn elects it’s own President, Vice-President, Secretary & Treasurer. – The U.P.S.E.S. is a Non-Profit (501C-3) Corporation and is located at 2818 Avenida de Portugal (formerly Addison St.), Point Loma, San Diego. – The purposes of the U.P.S.E.S. are as follows:
A. To Encourage Religious and Civic activities.
B. To Promote, Further and Support the Welfare of the Community.
C. To Foster Sociability and Develop a Fraternal Spirit among the people of the Community.
Membership in the U.P.S.E.S. is open to all members of the Portuguese community and their families by signing the membership book. There is no cost or fee to be a member.

1853 – A devastating oidium tuckeri FUNGUS ruins all the VINEYARDS in Pico, Azores; destroying their best cash crop, undermining the economy, and spurring immigration. – This need for new sources for the economy and increased desire for immigration seemed to perhaps especially effect the island of Pico, Azores. That islands previous main economic driver was vineyards, but after 1853 turned increasingly to whaling (shore & otherwise), with that resulting in many Picoense finding their way to the Americas. It is written that this island would hold an comparatively dominant involvement in that business from the 1890s to the mid-1950s.