Campaign launched to name a U.S. Navy ship after Filipino American sailor

American hero Telesforo Trinidad

A campaign has been launched to name a U.S. Navy ship after a Filipino American sailor who awarded the Medal of Honor. 

"I don't believe it's a long shot at all" it may be a long timeline, but we're hoping it's not," said retired Navy Capt. Ron Ravelo and chair of the campaign. "We're going to be making Navy ships into the foreseeable future, and there's no reason one of those can't bear the name of Telesforo Trinidad.'' 

Trinidad, born in 1890, enlisted in 1910 in the Insular Force established by then-President William McKinley and served in both world wars. 

Like many young men in the Philippines escaping poverty or lured by a sense adventure, joined the U.S. Navy after the U.S. acquired the Philippines as a colony after the U.S. won the Spanish American War.

The young Trinidad was so eager to join the U.S. Navy that he stowed away on a lifeboat from his home island of Panay to the main island to enlist, said grandson Rene Trinidad, who lives in California.

In 1915, while on patrol on the USS San Diego, he risked his life and suffered burns to rescue two crewmates when boilers exploded, killing nine. He received the medal that year, at a time when the honor could be awarded for noncombat valor.

Trinidad died in 1968 at the age of 77.

Supporters say naming a ship for Telesforo Trinidad would honor not just the only Asian American in the U.S. Navy granted the nation's highest award for valor, but the tens of thousands of Filipinos and Americans of Filipino descent who have served in the U.S. Navy since the Philippines was a colony of the United States.

The USS Rizal

The Navy had one other ship named after a Filipino. The USS Rizal, named after Philippine national hero Jose Rizal, was donated to the U.S. Navy by the colonial government of the Philippines on 1919. Built in San Francisco, the minesweeper's home port was Manila before being decommissioned in Mare Island Ship Yard in Vallejo, Calif. and then turned into scrap metal in 1932.

Naming a ship after Telesforo Trinidad would be reflect the Navy's commitment to "diversity, equality and inclusion during this time of national racial tensions and unwarranted violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs of California, in a May letter to Thomas Harker, acting secretary of the Navy.

"The bottom line is that Filipinos be recognized for their contribution to the United States, and that every Filipino should be proud of that as well,'' said grandson Rene Trinidad.