The Visayan Sakadas of Hawaii and the Politics of Representation

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 reader’s 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. 3 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 author’s.” 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 proto- novel 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 doesn’t know (in contrast, one doesn’t 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 there’s 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.

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