Lorenzo Gamboa

Lorenzo Abrogar Gamboa (11 November 1918 – 25 September 2012) was a Filipino-American man who was excluded from Australia under the White Australia policy, despite having an Australian wife and children.

His treatment sparked an international incident with the Philippines.

Gamboa was born on 11 November 1918 in Mangaldan, Pangasinan.

He left school at the age of 16 to work in a coal mine, while also studying electrical engineering at night school.

After the passage of the National Defense Act of 1935, he had to complete compulsory military training every year.

Gamboa was a talented boxer, and in 1940 won a boxing competition that had a scholarship to National University as its prize.

He did not meet the educational requirements for the scholarship, and so began attending night classes to complete his secondary education.

His entrance to university was interrupted by the outbreak of the Pacific War.

Gamboa enlisted in the United States Army in 1941, and was evacuated to Australia the following year after the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.

He married an Australian woman, Joyce Cain, and fathered two children, both born while he was serving overseas.

In late 1941, Gamboa enlisted in the United States Army.

He was immediately caught up in the Battle of the Philippines, narrowly escaping a Japanese bombing raid before being hospitalised with a hernia a few weeks later.

He left the country on 31 December aboard the hospital ship Mactan, again narrowly escaping a bombing attack while his ship was in the harbour.

He was sent to Australia via Celebes, arriving in Darwin on 13 January 1942.

He was subsequently moved on to Melbourne and housed in a military camp at Royal Park, while working as a guard at the Port of Melbourne.

Gamboa rejoined the U.S. Army in July 1942.

He was posted to Port Moresby, New Guinea, a few months later, and served as an orderly for General Douglas MacArthur.

He was then attached to MacArthur's headquarters in Brisbane.

In March 1942, Gamboa was taking a train back to his barracks when he met Joyce Cain, a 16-year-old Australian girl who worked at a biscuit factory.

She invited him back to her parents' home in Brunswick West, at the time a common gesture of goodwill towards soldiers.

They subsequently began dating.

Joyce later recounted that her family and friends had been overwhelmingly accepting of their relationship, as mixed-race couples were not uncommon in war-time Melbourne.

The couple became engaged in August 1942 and married on 9 October 1943, spending their honeymoon at a hotel.

In 1944, he returned to the Philippines with the army, and was stationed in Leyte for a period.

Their first child, Raymond, was born in Melbourne in November 1944, when Gamboa was stationed in Leyte.

He was discharged from the U.S. Army in 1945 and joined his family in Australia, but was refused permission to settle permanently and forced to leave the country.

He visited his mother in March 1945, who did not recognise him; he had been listed as missing in action and was presumed dead.

Gamboa arrived in Yokohama in August 1945, to take part in the occupation of Japan.

His term of service expired in November 1945 and he opted to be discharged in Australia to rejoin his family.

After being discharged from the army in 1945, Gamboa's father-in-law found him work with the Victorian Railways, and he settled in Melbourne to live with his wife and son.

Gamboa became a naturalised U.S. citizen in 1946 and rejoined the army.

His continued presence was discovered by the Department of Immigration in early 1946, after he attempted to collect a ration book, and he was subsequently given three months to leave the country.

A second child, Julie, was born in Melbourne in January 1947, when he was stationed in Tokyo.

He applied to re-enter Australia in 1948, but was refused even a visitor's visa.

Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell stated that allowing Gamboa into the country would promote miscegenation, and granting an exception because of his U.S. citizenship would force the government to allow in racially undesirable groups such as African-Americans.

In 1949, following Gamboa's chance encounter with journalist Denis Warner, the Australian media began to criticise Calwell's handling of the issue and pressed for Gamboa to be allowed to reunite with his family.

The "Gamboa case" sparked outrage in the Philippines.

President Elpidio Quirino said that Filipinos had been "deeply humiliated" by the Australian government's actions, and the Philippine House of Representatives passed a bill that would have banned Australians from the country.

After a change of government at the 1949 federal election, the new immigration minister Harold Holt overturned Calwell's decision and allowed Gamboa to rejoin his family; he settled permanently in Australia in 1952.

The incident had a lasting impact on Australia–Philippines relations.