Maria Reyna Jayme Legaspi was born in General Santos City in the Philippines. In 1991, Legaspi graduated from the San Pedro College of Nursing in Davao City and received this nurse’s cap during the capping ceremony. In 1994, Legaspi came to Jacksonville, Florida, on an H-1 visa, for immigrants who worked as nurses or other specialized jobs. US hospitals issued these temporary visas and would renew them on a yearly basis. For nurses with an H-1 visa, passing the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) could be the next step toward getting a US permanent resident card (also known as a green card). Those who did not pass the exam would have to rely on their employer to renew their visas. Fortunately for Legaspi, she passed her exam in 1997.

Legaspi was not the only nurse in her family. Her relative, Rizalita Legaspi Aniel, graduated from nursing school in 1976, and worked as a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at Mary Johnston Hospital in the Philippines before she was recruited by a Miami-based hospital and immigrated to the US. While Legaspi followed in her family’s footsteps to become a nurse, her story belongs to an even longer legacy of Filipino nurses in the US, one that begins in 1907.

Since the nineteenth century, women nurses wore these caps as part of their uniforms to keep their hair pinned back and so that others could easily identify them in a hospital or other medical setting. Although wearing a nurse’s cap was no longer common practice by the time Legaspi received hers, it was still an important symbol for graduates. Furthermore, Legaspi’s cap sparks a discussion about the high rate and history of Filipinos in nursing—part of an even longer history of US imperialism, which this module investigates.