Freemason blog

It’s the hiss of the needle finding the record’s groove. It’s the feeling in your chest as the organ’s bass rumbles to life. It’s the drone of the bagpipe filling with air. It’s the sound of anticipation, of the hair on your arms rising to life. Music isn’t just entertainment. It’s a sensation, a celebration of metaphysical connections that finds extra resonance within the mystical realm of Freemasonry.

In this special issue of California Freemason Magazine, we delve into the unique power of music—the power to heighten the ritual, to find and make meaning, and to bring people together. From world-touring hip-hop acts to amateur organists to master instrument craftsmen, it’s a surround-sound deep dive into the invisible force that animates so much of our lives.

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Between the traffic and the sprawl, pretty much every Southern Californian is resigned to spending several hours per week in a car. “That’s just the price we pay,” says Miguel Vazquez, who lives in the heart of Los Angeles near LAX. Vazquez is an extreme case: As master of his not-so-nearby lodge, Barstow Boron No. 682, he makes the more-than-two-hour trip into the Inland Empire numerous times each week to sit in the East. 

Still, you won’t hear Vazquez complain. Neither will the other members of the 122-person Masonic lodge, which has distinguished itself in part by just how far its members are willing to travel to sit together each week. After visiting the out-of-the-way temple one day with friends, Vazquez knew immediately that the trip was one worth repeating. “Right when I stepped foot inside the lodge, I knew it was something special,” Vazquez says. 

Other members of Barstow Boron No. 682 agree. “You’re only a stranger once,” says Darrell Kemp, a past master. “We take fellowship very seriously here.” 

That takes the form of a jam-packed lodge calendar. With about 30 active members, the lodge devotes much of its time to participating in local parades and fundraisers, and hosting dinners for lodge widows and special guests. But it’s the unofficial lodge events that really bring members together. 

“No matter what you’re looking for, there’s a good chance another member wants to do that too,” Vazquez says. He points to a weekly lodge lunch that’s been going on for more than 40 years. “It’s a chance for four or five of us retirees to check in with each other,” says Ed Hignett, lodge treasurer and a 50-year member. 

Others can join the “Wrecking Crew,” wherein members descend on lodge secretary Bob Smith’s garage to work on cars or other mechanical projects. “It started out as some members coming over to use my car hoist, but now we’ve got a group of guys who are good at welding and other mechanical work,” Smith says. Then there’s the lodge’s fight night for watching pay-per-view boxing matches on TV. 

The specifics of these gatherings can change, Vazquez says. In the end, it’s the group’s eagerness to incorporate one another into their lives away from the lodge that’s created such a tight-knit community—and that keeps members driving all that way week after week. “We have some great men in our lodge,” says Jim Fourr, a founding member of Boron No. 822, and still an active member of the consolidated Barstow Boron No. 682. “That’s why I’m still willing to drive the 45 minutes to lodge each time,” he says—“which is a pretty big effort, considering I’m 94.” 

Read the full article at: californiafreemason.org/lodgeharmony 

No matter how many times Will Maynez looks over the massive Diego Rivera mural known as Pan American Unity, he’s always struck by something new. Maynez is the conservator in charge of maintaining the 74-foot-long, five-panel work, which this summer was relocated, in a feat of engineering, from its home at San Francisco City College to the first-floor atrium at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where it will be on display until 2023. Lately, though, when Maynez looks over the piece, he’s been struck by a less obvious motif: Freemasonry.

While Rivera, the revolutionary artist and Communist champion, is not often associated with Masonry, Maynez says there are hints and suggestions of the craft aplenty in Pan American Unity—if you know where to look. As Maynez, who is not a Mason, began studying the work, Freemasonry provided him with several important clues. 

The Masonic reference that requires the least unpacking is near the bottom-right of the mural, where an interlocked square and compass can be seen behind Samuel Morse. That’s no accident, Maynez says. Morse is one of eight Masons depicted in the work. In fact, Pan American Unity isn’t Rivera’s only work to include the working tools: His mural at the Secretaría de Educación Pública in Mexico City also features a square and compass.

Plus, it’s no secret that Rivera was drawn to mysticism and esoterica. Many of his works, including Pan American Unity, draw parallels between mathematical equations and the natural order. Juan Coronel Rivera, the painter’s grandson, told the New York Times, “Diego was looking for knowledge first, the great knowledge of the human being, the notions of space and time.” In 1926, Rivera joined the Quetzalcoatl Lodge of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, where his mural La Serpiente Emplumada still hangs. 

During Rivera’s two visits to San Francisco, the artist was surrounded by Masons. Foremost among them was Timothy Pflueger, the architect behind many of the city’s Beaux Arts and Art Deco treasures, including the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Building on Montgomery Street. Pflueger commissioned Rivera’s fresco Allegory of California at the Pacific Stock Exchange in 1931, and then Pan American Unity for the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition. Pflueger was made a Mason in 1922 at Amity Lodge No. 370 (now Columbia–Brotherhood No. 370), and was also part of the Scottish Rite and the Shrine. Pflueger, a close friend of Rivera’s, is depicted in Pan American Unity holding blueprints of City College’s main library. 

LOOKING DEEPER

In a painting that pays homage to the mysticism and indigenous traditions of Latin America and the industrial pioneers of the United States, it makes sense that Masonry would be represented. 

How clear that representation was meant to be is, well, unclear. Maynez points out that the square and compass insignia wasn’t included in Rivera’s initial drawings for the mural, meaning that it was a late addition to the piece, perhaps even painted spontaneously. “There are so many Masons in the mural,” Maynez says, among them George Washington, Simón Bolívar, and Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, the leader of the Mexican War of Independence. “As he was painting, I think this idea of Masonic influence became a much more conscious theme.” 

But the Masonic allusions run even deeper, he says, at least for those willing to bend their minds in that direction. 

The mural is framed by two large, vertical columns—at left a Toltec stela and at right a wooden screw and press. In them, Maynez sees a visual echo of the twin columns of Solomon’s Temple. Between the fourth and fifth panel of the mural is another, unfinished column. To one familiar with the Master Mason degree, there’s a visual echo there of the broken column symbolizing mortality. Taken together, the three columns have a parallel in Masonry, representing wisdom, strength, and beauty.

There’s more: A single human eye, in the massive form of the Aztec deity Coatlicue, calls to mind the all-seeing eye; while the figure of Morse, standing directly beside the square and compass, is pointing to his ear in a gesture similar to one of the signs of the Mark Master Degree of the Royal Arch.

From there, the clues begin to spiral into a sort of feverish speculation: Workers holding Masonic tools including the hammer and chisel. An apron adorning a wooden Indian. A five-pointed star. The helical shape made by Native porters circling a mountain. The rabbit hole goes deeper. “These are big ideas about how the world works,” Maynez says. “What I’m really looking forward to is people seeing it and saying, Well, here’s something new—something that hasn’t been obvious to me at all.”

Pan American Unity is on display until 2023. Visit sfmoma.org for more information.

Read the full article at: californiafreemason.org/pastpresent

HOW A MOTHBALLED PAINTING TAUGHT ONE LODGE ABOUT ITS EARLIEST DAYS.

Read the complete article here: californiafreemason.org/trustfall

Read the complete article here: californiafreemason.org/secondhome 

By James Sobredo

For Saturnino Cariaga, this is the fun part. It’s late spring, and he and 32 other Masons in Riverside County are in the final stages of filing their intent to form a new Masonic lodge, to be named for the national hero of the Philippines, José Rizal. “We’re shooting for June 19, Rizal’s birthday,” says Cariaga, a Menifee-based Navy veteran, restaurant owner, and member of Hemet San Jacinto No. 338 and MW Manuel Luis Quezon No. 874.

 

There’s still lots to do. As the lodge prepares to receive its dispensation date, Cariaga, who goes by J.P., still needs to secure the group a permanent home—either at the Menifee Lodge or at the nearby Masonic hall in Murrieta—and finalize the membership roster. Then there are the fun little details to work out, like a new lodge logo that can be embroidered into a custom-made barong Tagalog, or Filipino dress shirt. But this is the time to think big, to imagine what a brand-new lodge will look, feel, and act like—especially one that’s consciously incorporating elements of Filipino culture. “We want to be active, vibrant,” he says. One thing’s for sure, he says. “Definitely, we’re going to have a big party.”

He isn’t the only one thinking along those lines. Ninety miles west, in Gardena, Norm Tonderas is the charter master of another newly formed and expressly Filipino-inspired lodge, Andrés Bonifacio U.D. “The demand for Masonry is growing, especially among Filipinos,” he says. For Tondares, also a member of Pacific Rim No. 567, Bonifacio U.D. is an opportunity to “forge a new identity.” Like Rizal, Bonifacio is an important Philippine independence figure. “His name evokes a spirit of courage, freedom of thought, and patriotism,” Tondares says. “It evokes struggle and perseverance reminiscent of the risks that we and our parents took in coming to California.”

The excitement surrounding the new lodges is palpable—and indicative of a growing Pinoy influence in the fraternity. Both lodges have almost entirely Filipino American membership, and add to the sizable Filipino presence in California Masonry. Today, Filipino Americans are the largest nonwhite ethnic group in California Masonry and represent the state fraternity’s fastest-growing demographic. While Asian Americans account for about 10 percent of overall membership, that share—and particularly Filipinos’—is much higher among new members. Over the past 10 years, more than 14 percent of applicants to California lodges were born in the Philippines.

As their numbers have grown, Filipino Americans’ contributions to the craft have increasingly reverberated—through a commitment to the ritual, the introduction of cultural celebrations to lodge life, and an influx of new leaders. “Camaraderie, friendship, brotherly love,” says Thomas Chavez, explaining the growth. Chavez, a plural member including at Crocker No. 212—one of the approximately 20 California lodges with majority-Filipino memberships— was born in Manila and immigrated to the Bay Area at 21, eventually settling in American Canyon.

Chavez’s fellow member at American Canyon No. 875, Past Grand Master M. David Perry, has seen those traits up close. “There’s a real bond there,” Perry says. In 2015, he became the first sitting California grand master to make an official visit to the Philippines “Our Filipino brothers are an integral part of our fraternity, and I’m proud of the diversity we have in California Freemasonry.”

The result of that is a revitalization in many lodges. “There’s new blood coming in, especially among the younger generation,” says Mike Tagulao, a past master of San Leandro No. 113 and a district inspector who was born in Manila. San Leandro is typical of lodges where the Filipino influence has been strongest. As new members join, they tend to invite their social circles to lodge events—and that brings more candidates into the fold. Over time, the lodge’s membership evolved; Tagulao estimates that the lodge is now 80 percent Filipino. “We do events nearly every month—festivals, promotions,” he says. With each, the lodge’s presence in the Filipino community grows.

Says Thomas, who also belongs to San Francisco No. 120 and California No. 1, “Filipino [candidates] come to the parties. They see the lodge and say, ‘How can I join?’” It’s a virtuous cycle powered by friendship and cultural bonds. And the connection runs even deeper than that.

A Revolutionary History

Ask almost any Filipino American Mason about the fraternity’s cultural appeal and the conversation inevitably turns to Rizal. For many, he exemplifies the interrelatedness of Freemasonry and national pride.

Many of the leading figures of the Filipino fight for independence were Freemasons. In fact, Masonic lodges provided much of the infrastructure and networking that helped power the anti-colonial movement. As a result, Masonry has been strongly identified with Filipino nationalism for more than a century, both on the islands and, increasingly, within immigrant enclaves. “Masonry played a big role among the Filipino revolutionaries, especially in fighting the Spanish friars,” says the Rev. Bayani Depra Rico, a member of Mission Lodge No. 169 in San Francisco and Carquienez No. 858. Rico is a former grand chaplain of California and the rector of Ascension Episcopal Church in Vallejo. A great admirer of Filipino history, he was inspired to join the fraternity in large part because of its association with those revolutionary figures.

Chief among them is Dr. José Rizal, the martyred Philippine national hero. Rizal, a highly influential writer who advocated for the expanded rights of Filipinos under Spanish colonial rule, first became a Mason in the 1880s while studying in London. He later moved to Spain and joined the movement of anti-colonialist Filipinos there, affiliating with the influential Lodge La Solidaridad, a Masonic lodge in Madrid that published a nationalist newspaper read widely in Manila. In 1890, Rizal and Marcelo H. del Pilar, leaders of the reform movement in Spain, were granted authority by the Gran Oriente Español to establish a new lodge in the Philippines exclusively for native-born Filipinos. Rizal viewed Masonry as the “universal protest against the ambition of tyrants” and the “supreme manifestation of democracy.” Rizal would eventually publish two major novels that are credited with inspiring the Philippine independence fight.

By that time, Masonry already had roots on the islands. The first Masonic lodge in the Philippines was formed in 1762, when the British temporarily occupied Manila and formed a short-lived military lodge. Other expat lodges briefly sprouted up and disbanded, virtually all of them founded by and open exclusively to Europeans and whites. These were connected to grand lodges in Britain, France, Spain, various U.S. states, and Scotland.

In 1892, Rizal’s newly formed Nilad Lodge No. 144 was established in Manila, from which a wide network of Filipino lodges chartered by the Gran Oriente Español were born. It was in those lodges, driven underground by the colonial government, that many of the most celebrated revolutionary figures were raised as Masons. Chief among them was Bonifacio, a member of Taliba Lodge No. 165 and the founder of the Katipunan, the famous secret organization that in 1896 become part of the Philippine Revolutionary Army. Clearly inspired by Freemasonry, Bonifacio’s Katipunan borrowed heavily from the craft, adopting Masonic symbols, rituals, and organizational structures to carry out its armed revolt. “Masonry, or more accurately Filipino Masons, were the pioneers of the establishment of democracy in this country,” wrote Manuel Camus, an important Filipino Mason, judge, and independence figure, in 1938. “And for this many of them lost their comfort, their freedom, and their very lives.”

In 1901, after the Spanish-American War and during the U.S. occupation of the islands, a new Manila Lodge No. 342 was constituted by the Grand Lodge of California. Two more lodges, Cavite No. 350 and Corregidor No. 386, soon followed, and in 1912 the three lodges were granted permission to form a new Grand Lodge of the Philippines, which would perform its work in English under the California ritual. Harry Eugene Stafford was the first grand master. The early leadership of these lodges was largely Anglo-American, but membership was open to all ethnicities and nationalities. (A 1936 report counted 2,711 Filipinos in the fraternity, working alongside 1,948 Americans and 513 Chinese.)

In 1918, Manuel Quezon became its first Filipino-born grand master. Quezon, a former officer in the Philippine Revolutionary Army, is generally acknowledged as the most important political figure in the Philippines. As president of the senate, he would negotiate for a peaceful transition toward Philippine independence from the United States. And in 1935, he was elected the first president of the Philippine Commonwealth, a transitional state before full independence was established. As grand master, he helped unite many American- and Spanish-chartered lodges under the umbrella of the Grand Lodge of the Philippines.

Despite the connection between San Francisco and Manila, the relationship between California lodges and Filipino American Masons hasn’t always been harmonious. Many immigrants from the islands formed lodges here connected to the Spanish-backed lodges that birthed the Filipino revolutionary movement, which were not recognized by the Grand Lodge of California. A 1941 Grand Lodge of California committee reported that members of those lodges were “of a much lower grade” than those of recognized lodges, and “not even acceptable Masonic timber.”

While California’s blue lodges were never formally closed to Filipinos on the basis of race, the fact is that very few Filipinos were admitted prior to 1960, when the first all-Filipino lodge, Tila Pass No. 797, was chartered in Los Angeles. Even then friction continued. During the 1980s and ’90s, as many urban lodges experienced precipitous membership declines, Filipino Americans began entering the fraternity in greater numbers. The result in some cases was a culture clash. “In many cases, [the rise of Filipino membership] had a salutary effect on Freemasonry, and lodges were revived and revitalized by this importation of new blood,” wrote Past Grand Master John Cooper in a 2010 article in the journal Proceedings of the Policy Studies Organization. “Unfortunately, there were also some less desirable side effects, caused in some cases by cultural differences.”

One such issue was the rise of a group called the Grand and Glorious Order of the Knights of the Creeping Serpent. As the “Snakes,” as they were known, conferred their own Masonic degree without permission from Grand Lodge, they were banned, and officers were asked to renounce membership in the order. In 2009, the group was reformed as a strictly social club with no degree conferrals.

Honoring a Legacy

In addition to Rizal and Bonifacio, many other California lodges’ names pay homage to the Philippines. They include today’s consolidated Atwater Larchmont Tila Pass No. 614, the latter so named for the 1899 Battle of Tila Pass, in which outnumbered Filipino soldiers mounted a spirited but doomed defense against American forces. There’s also General Douglas MacArthur No. 853, chartered in Sacramento in 2010, named for the commander of the U.S. Armed Forces of the Fareast during World War II, who famously fulfilled the promise he’d made in his “I shall return” speech by successfully landing U.S. troops in Japanese-occupied Leyte in 1944. He was made a Mason at sight by Philippine Grand Master Samuel Hawthorne and affiliated with Manila No. 1. Then there’s San Diego’s MW Manuel Luiz Quezon No. 874, chartered in 2019 and named for the first Philippine president and grand master.

For many members, the historical interrelatedness of Masonry and Filipino history is understood across generations. Charles P. Cross, the assistant grand lecturer for Division VI, is a member of Metropolitan No. 352, which is nearly 90 percent Filipino. Cross arrived in the United States from the Philippines in 1993 by way of Pohnpei, in the Federated States of Micronesia, and now works as a chief financial officer in Los Angeles. His father served in the U.S. military during World War II and participated in the Bataan Death March. Joining the fraternity gave him a way to connect with his family. “When Filipinos immigrated to the U.S., they realized their parents and uncles were also Masons,” Cross says. “They joined so they could emulate them.”

The generation of Filipino immigrants who arrived in California in the early 20th century came as U.S. “nationals” who owed all the responsibilities of citizenship but very few of its rights. Fraternal and community organizations played a crucial civic role within Filipino American communities, especially in towns like Stockton, which had the largest Filipino community in the United States. Fraternal groups like the Legionarios del Trabajo and the Caballeros de Dimas-Alang—both quasi-Masonic in nature—were bedrocks of financial, cultural, and social support for Filipino communities not only in the Central Valley, but also in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. They provided food, jobs, and housing, and functioned as social and cultural centers.

Marrino Berbano, longtime chaplain of Morning Star No. 19 in Stockton, has witnessed the transformation of the Filipino American community firsthand. Berbano, now 85, joined the lodge in 1972 and recalls with fondness the Little Manila that once flourished in downtown Stockton. He remembers many of the first Filipino members of the lodge, men like Toribio Rosal, a World War II veteran with the First Filipino Regiment, who was featured in the PBS documentary An Untold Triumph.

Oscar Gonzales III, a Master Mason with Martinez No. 41, is also connected to the pioneer generation of Filipinos who came to America in the early 1900s. His grandfather, Oscar Gonzales, arrived from Aklan province in the Visayan Islands. “His membership in Freemasonry really helped him survive in America,” says Gonzales, who cared for his grandfather in old age and later joined him in the fraternity. While in college, the younger Gonzales founded a statewide Filipino American fraternity, Chi Rho Omicron, but Freemasonry remains the foundation of his civic life. “It’s important to get Filipinos into mainstream organizations and to make good men better men,” he says.

For others, like Tony Cimarra, the assistant grand lecturer for Division III, the familial connection to Freemasonry has come as a welcome surprise. In 1996, while working as a manager for an American airline in California, he approached Sublime-Benicia No. 5. While he was petitioning, he mentioned the fraternity to his parents and was shocked to learn that many of his family back home were Masons, too.

Says Emmanuael Dial, master of Torrance University No. 394, who immigrated to the United States from the Philippines at age 4, “There is a strong family connection for Filipinos. It really is a family environment.”

Celebration of Spirit

Today’s Filipino-inspired lodges have infused California Masonry with more than just fresh blood. They’ve helped birth a unique Fil-Am lodge culture.

That can be seen clearly in the blowout fiestas that many lodges are known for. Among the best is the Filipino Independence Day party held each June at Columbia-Brotherhood No. 370, where lodge members and their families celebrate with traditional food, dances like the tinikling and habanera, and a band of rondalla guitar players. There’s also the boisterous interlodge fellowship party Sir Francis Drake No. 376 hosts the night before Annual Communication, a party that often draws visitors from the Grand Lodge of the Philippines. And there’s the Filipinana celebration hosted each June by members of Anacapa No. 710, a lodge comprising many current and retired Filipino American Navy men stationed at Port Hueneme and Point Mugu.

It can be seen in smaller ways, too, like the elaborate barong garments worn for formal events and embroidered with Masonic flourishes. And it can be seen in festive interjurisdictional events like MGM and the Philippine Masonic Association of America’s annual meetings.

For all the cultural pride displayed in these lodges, there’s a distinctly Filipino-American brand of Masonry practiced in California. Many members, particularly those born in the United States, are astonished at the cultural cachet and special privileges afforded to Masons on the islands. It’s not uncommon for an American Mason to be greeted at the airport in Manila by junior members of a nearby lodge, for instance, and whisked through customs.

“The prestige of Masonry in the Philippines is really big,” says Albert Cua, lodge master of San Francisco No. 120, who is Chinese-Filipino and immigrated to the United States at 19.

To James Bonnin, a past master of Francis Drake No. 276 and junior warden of Mission No. 169, those differences in character are underscored by a shared set of principals connecting Masons around the world and through time. “Every lodge has a slightly different culture, even here,” says Bonnin, who left Bacolod City for the U.S. in 1999. “So when you mix the Filipino culture with the American lodges, it gives it a different flavor. But it’s all Freemasonry.”

That’s a sentiment shared by many Filipino American members. “When you join Masonry, you can feel you’re home right away,” says Alfredo Dumaop, secretary for Anacapa No. 710. He invokes the Tagalog term matulungin, or helpfulness. “That’s what hospitality is all about. It becomes your second home, your natural environment.”

Tagulao, the inspector for District 305 and past master of San Leandro No. 113, puts it succinctly— and eloquently. “We just genuinely care for each other,” he says.

James Sobredo, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of ethnic studies at Sacramento State University, where he specialized in Filipino American history. He is also a journalist and documentary photographer.