The Sakadas played a lead role in the fight for labor equality within the plantation system as the backbone of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), their support in numbers, courage and resilience ensured the victory of union strikes. At the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, Filipino workers in Hawaii collectively sent $276,000 to the Philippines each month. In addition to performing backbreaking work, the Sakadas found resourceful ways of living, including planting their own food, fishing and working extra jobs – while still sending money to the Philippines to support their families there. Viewed primarily as instruments of production, they performed the most labor-intensive jobs (such as manually cultivating and hauling cane) and were paid less than other ethnic groups – an annual average of $467 in 1938, compared with $651 for Japanese workers, according to a 1939 Bureau of Labor Statistics report. The final wave of labor migration took place in 1946, with 6,000 Filipino men immigrating to Hawaii.īy 1932, Filipinos became the backbone of plantation labor, making up 70% of the plantation workforce. Sakadas are Filipino contract workers who immigrated to Hawaii between 1906-1946 to work as laborers for Hawaii’s sugar and pineapple plantations.īetween 1906-1946, over 100,000 Filipino men were recruited by the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association to work as Sakadas for Hawaii’s booming sugar plantation industry. The Sakada Series (35min) is a series of three short films that captures the personal stories, struggles and successes of the Sakadas and of the Filipino-American second-generation in Hawaii, within a cultural and historical context.
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