THE CEBUANO PLANTATION WORKERS OF HAWAII IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, AND THE POLITICS OF REPRESENTATION Erlinda Kintanar-Alburo,

Ph.D. Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos Abstract: There were two competing discourses in representing plantation life of the Visayan workers of Hawaii during the first half of the 20th century: the positive view as represented by a 1930 laborer's manual commissioned by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, and the negative view as derived from the fiction and articles in the popular pre-war Cebuano periodical Bag-ong Kusog. Against these printed texts, interviews conducted in 1988 by the researcher have shown how gender and ethnicity informed the realities of plantation life as reconstructed in the narratives of the surviving laborers and/or their children in the islands of Oahu and Kauai. Introduction The whole problem of representing the Filipinos in print started of course with the chronicler Pigafetta, but the real power was in the hands of the interpreter Enrique of Malaya. We can only conjecture now whether he was as good a mediator as the chronicler Pigafetta trusted him to be. It is said that because of him, the natives of Cebu readily embraced the cross, but that it was also because of him that the natives readily massacred the Spaniards. The interesting part of reviewing texts of representation is the discovery of motivation so that the narrative can speak with more meaning. We say today that knowledge is power, and power is what politics is all about. But while power used to reside unquestioned in the canon or in what is considered authoritative text, today it is every critical readers task to problematize the basis of that power. The power resides, of course, in the ability to influence the reader into belief or change of attitude, or into

2 initiating action in the direction that the power-wielder wants it to take. Whatever jargon the poststructuralist, post-colonialist or postmodernist may call it, the word propaganda comes to mind. This paper does not attempt to set the record straight as much as it wants to review the process of representation of the actors in a dramatic chapter in Philippine history that is not in our textbooks. And the interviews should show that the workers were not just pawns or victims of the plantation managers but were themselves agents of change. Because both print and visual media did not seem to matter to the objects of representation, who are the workers themselves, we shall juxtapose descriptions experiences of the workers or of the workers children, 25 of whom gave individual interviews and an equal number participated in group discussion. Relevant responses will be cited in parentheses so that what the text claims is validated, contradicted or modified. Two discourses on Hawaiian plantation life naturally competed with each other in the early decades of the 20th century: one discourse was coming from the recruiting plantations that wanted to attract labor from the Philippines, and the other was from a group of writers in the Philippines who used the press to discourage prospective laborers or sakadas from leaving home, to mitigate what was in effect a brawn drain. The first batch of 15 laborers who came to Hawaii in 1906 to work in the sugar plantations started an exodus of labor that continues to this day, and it is interesting to see how arguments pro and con now are not that different.

The Positive View The first discourse, one which idealizes plantation life, is represented in a book published in 1930 called Manual for the Progressive Laborer written by one Macario Laverne, an Ilokano interpreter at the Immigration Station in Honolulu. The text is in three languages: English, Ilokano and Cebuano-Visayan. Laverne himself wrote both English and Ilokano texts, and the Cebuano version was a translation by Marcelo Baguio, a member of the Royal Hawaiian Band. The Manual excludes Tagalog, since among the workers the Tagalogs numbered far below the Ilokanos and Bisayans. To attract the Filipinos to Hawaii, the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association or HSPA made known the basic terms of the contract: free passage to Hawaii; three years of work at $36 a month for men and $24 for women; free housing and medicines, and provision of medical services. Additional perks in the advertisements were free wood fuel and water, and free fare for the return trip to the Philippines. These promises are illustrated in the Manual itself. As introduction to the Manual, included are three commendation letters dated 1929 addressed to the authors from HSPA officials. For example, HSPA Secretary J.K. Butler says that the book will teach Filipinos about customs and practices that he needs to know when he arrives in Hawaii. Capt. A.H. Hilliger of Castle and Cooke describes what the book intends, which is to improve the conditions of your countrymen so they will become good citizens; . . . to make the Filipinos priced, because he can gather the facts about conditions in these islands and thus adapt himself to life here after reading your beautiful and educational reader. (Note the word priced, suggesting a contrast with

4 how the Filipinos were not priced but openly discriminated in the mainland, as shown in an announcement on a restaurant or hotel door that Filipinos were not allowed to go in.) A third letter is from Eric A. Fennel, M.D., who writes that these pages [are] to be treasured by all considerate Americans and all Filipinos wanting to progress. Fennel reveals that some parts of the book are resulting from interviews with him by the author in their five years of acquaintance and says that every Filipino coming to America needs to read and study this book. . . [for] his becoming an American will be easier than the authors. What did the Manual contain aside from the Introduction containing those letters? At the back there were paid advertisements. But the main body had four parts: 1) English grammar, 2) Conversations, 3) Work and Sending Money Home, and 4) Letter-Writing. The first part is technical, although presumably even those sentences that illustrate grammatical conventions also fit the intention to control the thinking and behavior of the workers. Of more interest to us are the conversations in Part 2. The predominant format, which is in dialogue, easily reminds us of earlier brainwashing guides to good manners and right conduct such as the Cebuano Lagda (Rules) and the epistolary protonovel Urbana at Felisa. These conversations illustrate well the agenda of the manual: to tell the extent to which cultural traits are to be preserved or curtailed, and to emphasize those traits that might be reinvented to maximize productivity in the plantation. Some topics under the section on Conversations are: thoughts on migration, good manners and right conduct, advices to departing workers, laws and customs of Hawaii that they should know, what ports of call they would pass, what to do on arrival, on

5 consulting a doctor, advice to newcomers, teaching children, rules of etiquette and hygiene, how to get their needs from the plantation store, laborers protection, sending money home, help from HSPA, resigning from work, signing with thumb mark, etc. Obviously, the lessons from the conversations are meant to regulate behavior among the workers. Cultural practices, however, were still observed like in parties, celebration of saints festivals, food preparation, etc. A dialogue on attending a reunion party, for example, shows that 1) it is a bad habit to attend without invitation, a rule that criticizes the practice of gate-crashing (which is not considered a crime in the home country); 2) it is bad to dance with a girl one doesnt know (in contrast, one doesnt have to say thank you to a girl in a saloon, where the dance is paid for); and 3) men should take off their hats and not talk loudly (same rule during a wake, which at home was as much a source of entertainment as an expression of sympathy with the bereaved family). There are numerous photographs, too, that demonstrate working and living conditions in the plantation. A photo entitled A Gangplow shows Director Cruz accompanied by Commissioner Ligot as they inspect Filipino laborers at work, four of them shown behind a huge mechanical plow. Another shows a policeman in a sugar plantation camp, with a vaguely promising caption that says Filipinos are given positions according to their ability, training and experience. (Considering of course that laborers were recruited because of their illiteracy, we wonder how that promise would be fulfilled.) Several photos show the cleanliness and order of plantation life which a progressive laborer should desire. Under the heading Getting ready to go to work, for

6 example, the workers are seen with shoes or slippers, hat, slung purse, extra long-sleeved shirt, and long khaki pants. At mealtime, they are shown seated together, smiling and eating with their hands from a fimbrera. (The interviews confirmed harmony with which the laborers lived and worked with each other, and there was friendship among the different nationalities. But that was before the strikes in the early 20s. After those, Visayans and Ilokanos avoided each other, and Visayan fathers forbade their daughters from seeing Ilocano suitors, and vice versa. So the men in the photograph must have been fellow Visayans or fellow Ilokanos.) Then theres a plantation hospital with manicured lawns and trimmed bushes, with a car driving away. (This hides the fact that the laborers, at least in the early decades, preferred to take herbal medicine and rarely went to hospital.) The caption for the next photo reads: The children of the laborers are not neglected as regards to health and education. There are Kindergartens and Nurseries like the above in every plantation in the Territory of Hawaii. In the picture, around 50 little girls and boys line up in front of the camera, against the school fence, 9 of them inside the fence and arranged on the stairs to the kindergarten building, with three adults in attendance. To the forefront at right is an American lady with hat and boots, the other 2 are hatless Filipinas. Trees at the sides and back of 2 school buildings, planted trees as tall as an adult human are loosely boxed in front of the buildings. (The building and the trees would not be a lie, but there is no hint that older children were usually working in the plantation, and those who reported to school would have suffered a three-mile walk.) To be sure, the laborers houses are there too, in a row. One photo shows 7 houses on the left side of a road, with banana and papaya plants along the opposite side. Of the

7 three cars, 2 are getting out of the street on the opposite lane, and one car is getting in, all in an orderly manner. The street is not paved but is leveled, and trimmed bushes provide boundaries to each unit. Wouldnt workers be attracted to the fruit trees that look like the ones at home? In another photo, an electric pole throws lines to the houses, and a woman with three little girls are in the foreground. We see curtains and cemented stairs. The houses are in neat rows, with flower pots along the front stairs, and trash cans by the back stairs. (It was more common, however, to have pigs and chickens running about; but its a good thing about the electric pole, because the interviewees complained of lack of electricity in the past.) A picture of a hula dancer posing in her grass skirt has a caption saying that hula replaces popular Filipino dances at parties in Hawaii. (No one mentioned dancing the hula; the workers and their children danced their folk dances and performed the Visayan balitaw.) For social life, there was also a clubhouse for use by all employees, shown in a photograph as resting on stone piles and with cemented stairs. Four ladies are at the wide door, one car is parked while another is just arriving. (This is validated by everyone, who all liked the weekend gatherings in the clubhouse. There was even taxi dancing for the bachelors, where one paid a certain amount for a dance with a girl, and the girls earned extra income thereby.) Two posed pictures of girls in white uniform identify them as being of the F.G.C. or Filipino Girls Club of the Y.W.C.A, the first with the caption Note the spirit of fellowship, and the other, They are jolly, even if the one standing on the right has a dour expression and at least four have tentative smiles. (No interviewee mentioned this particular club; the only club they had were the mutual assistance associations.)

8 A last photo worth mentioning is of 5 girls in their ternos, seated in a row, with 2 at the sides, half on the arms of a stiff sofa. The caption reads: A group of Filipino girls in their beautiful costume. Note their delicacy, sweetness and refinement. (The feminists would probably object to that, especially because behind the delicacy and sweetness is hard work and patience. Why emphasize the delicacy and sweetness, both gustatory images? ) A collection of paid advertisements, some in Ilokano and Cebuano as well as English, presumably aim to improve business with the additional customers whom the Manual would have attracted. A good example is that of an insurance company that reads: You need very little knowledge of English to order your insurance from Alexander & Baldwin, Ltd.. We write all lines. (One knows very well that the concept of insurance has even now not captured majority of employed Filipinos at home, and the condition We write all lines is very suspect. Anyway, other attempts at winning the savings of the hard-working sakadas deserve comment: those in banking and printing invitations, for example, dont consider the fact that rural Filipinos usually kept money where they could see and get them anytime, like in bamboo posts; in fact, a few mentioned losses due to the paper money being eaten by termites and losses to the government because of the lack of a will indicating beneficiaries. Moreover, these same people didnt need to spend for printed invitations because they had the grapevine that accommodated the practice of gate-crashing which the Manual discouraged, as mentioned earlier.) But one wonders for whom the 1930 manual was written, since the recruiters after the bloody Hanapepe strike of 1924 accepted only illiterate workers for the plantations,

9 and who therefore would not be reading it. And why include a Cebuano version, when Cebu as recruitment station was dropped because the Visayans had joined the Tagalogs in that infamous strike? We note that the year of publication, 1930, was a year after the start of the Great Depression and of the exodus to the cities by those who were disillusioned with plantation life. But as early as 1920, already half of the laborers in California, for example, were said to come from Hawaii. (Alcantara 1981:40). So perhaps the Manual was meant not only for new recruits, but even more so, for those who were already in Hawaii. It was an effort to make them remain in Hawaii instead of going on to the mainland. Lasker (1931) writes on the shift to the mainland: . . . obviously, the Hawaiian employers have no interest in either diminishing their source of labor supply or expending large sums on bringing laborers to their plantations only to lose them again through further migration to the mainland. And they have sought to diminish these risks to the extend of their influence and resourcefulness. (206) Indeed, the Manual that we have reviewed would express the efforts at diminishing those risks. The Negative View What about the counter-discourse? There is an article by Mojares (1983) on Cebuano perceptions of the Hawaii migration covering the period 1909-1934, the same period when Cebu became a major recruiting point for the Visayas. The article calls attention to a cartoon from the popular pre-war Cebuano periodical Bag-ong Kusog, which accompanied an editorial of 1925. It has two contrasting parts: on the left of the cartoon we see the recruits boarding the ship with happy, expectant faces, while on the right are the same workers coming down the plank looking bone-weary and sickly. The

10 balloons capture these workers attitudes and feelings: on the left we read Salimos pobres y volveremos rico! Hawaii es el paraiso para el obrero Filipino. Vamos a Hawaii donde ganaremos major jornal! (in English, We depart poor and will return wealthy! Hawaii is the paradise for the Filipino laborer. and Let us go to Hawaii where we shall receive better wages! Then on the left are the ff: Salimos jovenes y volvemos viejos y enfermos! Hawaii es el infierno para el obrero Filipino. and Salimos pobres y volvemos mas pobres aun! (in English, We departed young and return old and sick! Hawaii is the hell for the Filipino laborer! and We departed poor and return poorer!) Just as the writers of the Manual probably overdid the bright picture of plantation life awaiting the workers, the cartoon also misrepresents the Filipinos. At the very least, very few of them could speak English or Spanish, and this appeared in a Cebuano newspaper! Some articles criticized the unpatriotic desertion of the workers since they were also needed in the rice farms and sugar fields at home. But, as one article explains the choice of Hawaii over Mindanao, the experiences of those who had gone to Mindanao led to complaints on the hard work involved in taming frontier land, contracting diseases like malaria and cholera, primitive conditions in farm and home, and loneliness due to distance from friends and company (de la Pea 1924: 8). The basis for Mojares analysis are 150 pieces of editorial, news article, and fiction, outnumbering the positive items at a ratio of 8:2. And this does not include those items appearing in Bisaya magazine, starting 1930. One article in a 1927 issue of Bagong Kusog (1 July: 20) describes the execution by hanging of two Filipinos who had

11 killed two women in Hawaii. The reason for the crimes is not mentioned at all. The 33 male spectators who were assembled at the sheriffs office, it is said, were mostly made up of doctors, journalists and VIPs of the government, jail employees and lawyers; while the two women present were close friends of the Sheriff. The point is that any little event that added to the black propaganda was worth mentioning. At least one novel targets the experiences of workers in the plantations: Walay Igsoon by JuanVillagonzalo in 1912. This novel I had studied for its historical significance, being the first novel in Cebuano, and now it was reviewed for its critique of Hawaiian plantation life. As for the short stories, these deal with the same theme only peripherally, because of the dominant love theme that was the formula of popular literature then. Examples are: Saad ni Mining (Vicente Flores 1924), Sugo sa Palad (Primo Alvez 1934), Bili sa Panaghi-usa (Florentino Tecson 1922), Hain si Loling? (Justino Osorio 1922), Mga Dinaugdaug sa Palad (S. Seno 1924), Padayon ug Kaniya Pagmalipayon (Hilarion Dugenio 1925). Walay Igsoon deals with the protagonist Lucas, recruited to Hawaii by an agent who offers him P36/month and P5 advance. After two years, he returns to Cebu and leads a labor union. He relates laborers experiences in Hawaii and in the mainland. There were at least four grounds for the attitude of the press towards the sakada migration: 1) the use of deceit in recruitment; 2) exploitation of Filipino labor in a foreign land; 3) adverse effect on internal economic development; and 4) lack of patriotism among the migrants. (Mojares 1983: 82). But we note that the periodical which patronized such views was owned by a politician, Vicente Rama who, like other politicians, wanted to be seen as a champion of the masses. We note too, that such tirades

12 were addressed as well to the independent labor recruiters who managed to bring Visayans to Hawaii even with the closure of the official recruitment stations. The media especially highlighted the plantation strike of 1924, which saw the slaying of 16 or 17 workers, many of them Visayans. It was later to affect the shift from Cebu to Ilocos as primary source of Filipino labor. The writers who waged the campaign saw this unfortunate event as a response to the deplorable working conditions in the plantation that did not jibe with the advertisements, and to the politicalization of the workers in seeking higher wages, shorter work hours, and equal pay for men and women. Some Aspects of Plantation Life Both discourses using the printed media, however, seem to have little effect on the continuous flow of migrant labor from the Philippines to Hawaii. There is a table showing the number and proportion of racial groups employed in the plantations, followed by four photos of plantation labor taken from a book by Bruno Lasker (1931) on Filipino immigration to America. One photo shows the sakada without shoes, which the interviewees said was the norm because shoes were very expensive and they had to walk barefoot to school and back 2 to 3 miles either way. This contrasts with the photo from the Manual which shows the workers wearing shoes. According to the interviews, those who wore shoes or boots were only the supervisor or luna, usually a Puerto Rican, rarely a Filipino. As to the origin of the laborers, the table has a column on the workers provinces of origin, where we see a contrast between the first and the last years, that is, between pre-strike and post-strike figures. The provinces of the Visayas were those whose recruitment center was Cebu. The increasing number of laborers from the Ilocos and the

13 decreasing number from the Visayas reflected the HSPAs desire not to risk a repeat of the strikes that were headed by Tagalogs and manned by the Visayans. The low figures for Negros Occidental and Pampanga are explained by the fact that these two provinces were already the highest sugar-producing places in the Philippines until after World War II. Among those interviewed in 1988, most of them already dead today, was Ric Labez, born in Pardo, Cebu, who became the first son of a Filipino sakada to graduate from a university. Also the first Filipino war correspondent, Labez helped in the labor unions that we should probably consider as a great contribution of the Filipinos in the history of Filipino immigration abroad in the early 20th century. According to his sister Manang Consorcia, only Ric was exempted from work on the farm, while she and her other sisters worked both in the plantation and in the house, being female. However, they did not complain because, she said, they understood that Ric was meant to hold a special role for the Visayans. The Labez siblings were more fortunate than other sakada children because their father spoke English and was promoted from field worker to policeman and later to a luna, with the highest pay in the group. More typical are the stories of those from the lower uneducated class, such as the oldest couple of Kauai island, where the infamous Hanapepe plantation is found. Manang Mirang, just like the other women, told of the practice of abducting wives who came with their husbands. The practice was called cowboy and was resorted to because of the disproportionate gender ratio; this is evident, for example, in the numbers coming in from the Philippines during the second immigration wave from 1920-1929: 65,619 men and only 5,286 women who were already married (Cordova 1983: 29). The situation resulted

14 oftentimes in many deserted homes, and the husbands had to send their children to the Philippines or bring them up as single parents. The presence of women of course is an important factor in stabilizing social life, which revolves around family. This fact was already acknowledged during the Spanish period by the missionaries petitioning King Philip II to send more wed couples to the Philippines from Spain who could become role models in transforming the immoral natives. Lasker (1931) writes: Filipino laborers . . . have the characteristics of seasonal and casual workers, spend much of their time in pool-rooms and barber shops and enter into all sorts of amusements, legitimate and illegitimate. Gambling assumes serious proportions. (191) . . . Wife-stealing, in popular parlance, is a misnomer; a serious proportion of adultery and remarriage is due to the unusual strains upon a wifes loyalty where her sex is at such a premium and to the difficulty of Filipino women from very simple home environments to adjust themselves to life in a new country. . . . . Because of the scarcity of Filipino women in the US, the temptations for them of lack of fidelity are considerable; and it is noteworthy that social agencies, while they occasionally have to adjust the affairs of deserted Filipino husbands with children, rarely find themselves burdened with the care of deserted Filipino women. (195) Through time, important changes were introduced. With the more progressive Japanese family as example, the plantation managers allowed the Filipinos to bring their whole families so that cowboy was a thing of the past and parents learned to manage their meager pay. The impression given by the interviewees as a whole is that plantation life was indeed hard, but still their life in the early part of the twentieth century was something they wished for their own children, who have forgotten the old ways and embraced the new values. As Nang Trining, an interviewee from Kauai, said, we had a hard life but we enjoyed ourselves. During the interview with Manang Mirang, she actually cried. She said she

15 wasnt sure how her stories were told by previous researchers from the University of Hawaii because she felt her English was bad and she could not speak the language of the interviewer, which was Tagalog. At last, she said, she could tell her story freely in her own tongue. This paper then is a tribute owed to her and the others, may they rest in peace.

References Alburo, Erlinda K. About Filipino Pioneers, Special Report to The Philippine Observer (San Francisco, California), May 1988, in two parts: Main Source of Strength is drawn from RP Culture and Post-war Filipino Pioneers: Challenge and Emancipation. Alcantara, Ruben. Sakada: Filipino Adaptation in Hawaii. Washington, DC: United Press of America, 1981. Cordova, Fred. Filipinos: Forgotten Asian Americans. Seattle, Washington: Demonstration Project for Asian Americans, 1983. Lasker, Bruno. Filipino Immigration to Continental United States and to Hawaii. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931. Laverne, Macario. Manual for the Progressive Laborer. Honolulu, Hawaii: Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, 1930. Mangilngig nga Pagbitay sa Duha ka Pilipinhon sa Haway, Bag-ong Kusog, 1 Hulyo. 1927, 20. Mojares, Resil B. Cebuano Perceptions of the Hawaii Migration, 1909-1934, Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society, 11:2 (1983), 79-92. Pea, Ceferino de la. Nganong Daghan ang Moadto sa Haway Kay sa Mindanaw, Bagong Kusog, 19 Disyembre 1924, 8. Villagonzalo, Juan I. Walay Igsoon. Sugbo: Patikanan ni Falek, 1912. Yuson, Alfred, ed. Fil-Am: The Filipino American Experience. Makati City: Publico, Inc. 1999 Various Periodical Articles/Stories in Bag-ong Kusog, 1915-1934.

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