Filipino Laborers Arrive

Hawai`i Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) began recruiting workers from the Philippines in 1906 after their access to Chinese, Japanese and Korean labor was limited by immigration legislation. The end of the Spanish-American War in 1898 ceded the Philippines to the United States and allowed movement of Filipinos between and among American territories. By 1909, HSPA undertook large-scale importation of Filipino workers and by 1930 approximately 100,000 had arrived in the Islands.

Poor economic conditions and a string of natural disasters in the Philippines motivated workers to try Hawai'i. The first wave of immigrants were mostly Ilocano from the northern regions of Luzon. Others were Visayan and Tagalog from the central islands of Cebu, Leyte and Siquijor as well as southern Luzon. Sold on a glamorized version of plantation life, they accepted a 10-dollar advance, free passage, a three-year job commitment and free plantation housing. The reality on arrival was six-day work weeks, working 10-hour days in sugarcane fields or 12-hour days in the mill. After their stint of backbreaking work, half the workers left Hawai'i, either moving on to the U.S. mainland or returning to the Philippines.

In 1934 immigration from the Philippines was limited to 50 persons per year, but in 1946 a new recruitment drive brought 7,000 workers to Hawai'i. In 1965 immigration quotas were finally eliminated and a new flood of Filipinos arrived. This last large group was mostly Ilocano, urbanized and well-educated. Unlike earlier groups made up of mostly single men, later immigrants came as families, settled permanently in the Islands and became U.S. citizens.

It wasn't until after 1910 that Olowalu Sugar Company started recruiting workers from the Philippines, but their numbers grew rapidly. The Filipinos, an ethnic group not represented in the 1910 census, comprised 27 per cent of Olowalu's population by 1920 with a total of 140 residents. In an attempt to meet the needs of Filipino workers, in 1921 the plantation converted an old house into a Filipino clubhouse. Seventy-two Filipinos lived in Olowalu in 1939; 54 men, 10 women and 6 children.

Salvador "Dado" Marino, the first world boxing champion from Hawai`i was born in Olowalu in 1915, a member of one of the first Filipino families to work for Olowalu Sugar Company. After an accomplished amateur career, Marino turned professional in 1941. He won the world flyweight championship at age 35 in 1950 and successfully defended the title a year later. Dado retired from boxing in 1952 and died in 1989.