Clara Diaz
Clara Diaz poses near the entrance of Diaz Cafe in October 2024, in Ketchikan, Alaska. Photo by Joshua Albeza Branstetter.
Along Stedman Street in Ketchikan, one woman built a life rippling far beyond her own. To walk into the Diaz Cafe is to journey into the story of Clara Diaz, and to know the history of the restaurant is to know Clara, her warm demeanor simmering in the kitchen, her hands guiding generations of family, staff and community members alike.
Before she became the matriarch at the helm of the restaurant for nearly five decades, Clara was a young woman finding her place in the world. She was born in 1932 in Pikit, Cotabato, in the Mindanao region of southern Philippines, to Ilocano parents who settled there from Luna, La Union, a province in northwestern Philippines. Her family lived in a village surrounded by relatives who also migrated from up north. Farming was their way of life, but it was her mother, Adriana, who encouraged a young Clara to dream bigger.
“I was number 14 in the family, the youngest. I was the only one who left the village,” Clara said.
Throughout Clara’s early life, she witnessed conflict in her province — land disputes forcing settler families like hers out of their village and Japanese forces occupying Cotabato during World War II. It was during those years that Adriana decided to send Clara to school.
“When the war was over, it was time to go to school. Fifth grade, sixth grade, we were gone all day to school, kasi malayo yun (because it was far), 7 miles to walk, morning then afternoon,” she reminisced.
Clara looks back on this period recognizing how difficult it may have been for her mother to send her away — a sacrifice many families from rural Philippines made with hopes to improve their family’s economic situation.
“When high school came, we had to go to school 72 miles out,” she said. “Parang wala ako natutunan sa nanay ko (It’s as if I wasn’t able to learn anything from my mother). I feel so bad remembering my mom, you know, wala yung ‘mother-daughter’ pagsasama (there was no time together as mother-daughter).”
Sadly, Adriana died in an earthquake that struck Cotabato in the 1970s.
“I was already here when I heard she died,” Clara said.
The Clara Diaz Legacy
A pop-up exhibition and event in collaboration with Diaz Cafe and Ketchikan Kapamilya honoring Clara Diaz
After her primary education, Clara moved to Davao, in the southeastern region of Mindanao. Like many Filipinas in the early and mid-20th century, she trained in nursing at a school run by Americans. She graduated with the inaugural class of the Brokenshire School of Nursing in 1957. She worked as a nurse in a public hospital in Manila and at a maternity clinic in Davao.
Filipino nurses were in demand in the 1950s and 1960s. The United States put up schools in the Philippines, like the one Clara graduated from, so the country could fill a labor shortage. In 1958, about a year after she earned her nursing credentials, Clara received a sponsorship from the Sisters of St. Joseph, her ticket to Alaska, a U.S. territory at the time. At 26 years old, Clara boarded her first airplane for a more than 30-hour journey to Ketchikan.
She arrived before statehood; her nursing license was issued by the Territory of Alaska. She worked at the Ketchikan General Hospital, for her first few months as the only nurse, and adapted to every department — from the newborn nursery to surgery and the emergency room. She even taught herself how to operate an X-ray machine. She left Ketchikan temporarily after being accepted to Johns Hopkins University to receive more training in nursing. She cared for thousands of patients and responded to numerous emergencies in her time as a nurse, including an Alaska Airlines plane crash and a fire at a bunk house where most of the residents were Filipino workers.
While her work kept her busy, Clara remembers feeling lonely in those early years. Nearly two decades would pass before more Filipinos arrived through the military, but she had already begun laying roots. Those roots deepened when she met her husband Manuel Diaz Jr. through his mother, Bernalda “Mama” Diaz, the original owner of Diaz Cafe. Manuel and Clara married in 1963 and raised two sons, Joey and Bob. With Manuel, she helped at the restaurant after Bernalda was hit by a car in 1965, later stepping in as manager while her sister-in-law, Juanita Camilon, ran the restaurant from 1972 to 1977. Clara retired from nursing after 20 years and officially took over in 1977.
Under her care, the restaurant became a gathering place where anyone, from cannery workers to cruisers and elected officials, celebrated milestones and formed lifelong friendships. Clara grew into a mother and grandmother figure, welcoming travelers, “adopting” other members of the Filipino community, and teaching Filipino youth traditional dances in any space she could find at the restaurant. She even took up the responsibility of raising money for their dance costumes.
In 2024, at 92 years old, Clara was still at the helm of Diaz Cafe, prepping chicken and vegetables for lunch and dinner service, making her rounds down the counter and around the tables catching up with regular customers.
“How did I spend my 92 years?” Clara asked in a moment of reflection.
“Feeding people, entertaining people that come to town,” she answered, with a smile.
Nearly 50 years after she took the reins, the restaurant continues to welcome new generations. But the legacy of Diaz Cafe under Clara Diaz endures, shaping Ketchikan through food, history and care, just as Clara did as a daughter, nurse, mother, grandmother and friend.