Esteban
Oswald A. Steven was a former soldier who fought in the Philippine-American War (February 4, 1899 - July 4, 1902). After the war, Steven worked as an auctioneer and real estate salesman in Honolulu before he was employed by the Hawaiian Sugar Planter’s Association (HSPA). Steven’s first hand knowledge of the Philippines proved invaluable. In 1909, Steven together, with Lucius Pinkham— former president of the Honolulu Board of Health, set up recruitment offices in the Philippines.
Steven’s recruitment campaign was actually HSPA’s second attempt. HSPA’s first attempt was in 1906, headed by Albert F. Judd, who, however, only succeeded in briging 15 Filipinos to Hawaii. No further recruitment was attempted after that. However, a singular seminal event changed all that:— the Great Oahu Sugar Strike of 1909, when 7,000 Japanese sugar workers, about 70% of the Hawaii’s plantation workforce, walked off their jobs in May 1909. A strike which lasted for four months before the HSPA was able to break it up. This convinced the HSPA that the Japanese should not dominate the workforce, and thus, in 1909, HSPA again attempted to recruit Filipinos as a buffer to break the dominance of Japanese plantation workers. It helped that the Philippines is a U.S. territory in view of the Treaty of Paris ceding the Philippines to the U.S.A. Filipinos were legally classified as “American nationals” or “U.S. Colonials”. This allowed the HSPA to bypass immigration restrictions and recruit an endless stream of Filipinos without visa quotas.
Steven focused his recruitment campaigns in the Visayas region— particularly Cebu and Negros, where the population was mostly poor and illiterate, and more importantly, most were experienced farmhands, tenants or found work as sakadas (from the Ilokano phrase “sakasakada amin”— those who work barefoot; a term later applied to all Filipino migrant workers in Hawaii) on sugar haciendas in Negros Island.
Filipino sub-agents, many of whom school teachers, were used and instructed to seek out men between the ages of 20 and 44, especially those who are illiterate and looked like they were used to hard labor in the fields. They were paid seven pesos for every adult male recruited and twenty pesos for every family they were able to recruit.
On September 17, 1910, Esteban— with his eight-year old daughter, boarded the SS Shenyo Maru. The American recruiting agent had promised Esteban employment, housing, water, fuel, medicine, health care & free passage to an island midway of the Pacific. The ship made stop-overs in Hongkong, Shanghai, Nagasaki and Yokohama to pick up more passengers. Before re-boarding in Hong Kong, Esteban had placed his thumb marks on a labor contract. The recruiting agent’s interpreter later explained to Esteban that he had signed up for a three-year contract where he agreed to work 10 hours a day, 26 days a month & would be paid $16 a month. His pay would increase to $17 a month in the second year & to $18 a month in the third year.
Each recruit received clothing consisting of a serge suit, two pairs of socks, a pair of shoes, a cap, underwear and a sweater. Children and women received equivalent amounts of clothing. All were provided with a blanket, a towel, a wash basin, soap, a sleeping mat, a pillow, and eating utensils for the journey. In addition, each man got a carton of cigarettes and $5 ($10 if with family) spending money. Steerage passengers were crammed below deck. It was very crowded and smelly. Men were assigned in sections segregated from women and children, thus Esteban’s daughter fended for herself throughout the voyage.
After traveling for more than a month from their Cebu hometown more than 8000 kilometers away, Esteban and his daughter finally arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the immigration station, Esteban saw Filipinos (“Hawaiianos” as the returned sakadas came to be called back home by barrio folks), who having finished their contracts, waited to board Manila-bound ships. Esteban, together with a number of other recruits, were immediately dispatched by trucks or trains to the Kahuku Sugar Plantation on the northern shore of the island of Oahu. The rest of the recruits, awaiting further ship passage to outer island plantations, were lodged temporarily at the immigration station.
Filipino sakadas in Kahuku, like those across Hawaii, faced grueling conditions from 1906 through the mid-20th century. Workers endured backbreaking labor. Filipinos were treated as expendable, low-paid labor and housed in segregated, plantation-owned camps. Esteban endured and in spite of the hardships renewed his contract at least two more times. There was no record to indicate that Esteban returned to the Philippines at the termination of each contract term. While sakadas had a free return passage provision in their labor contract, it requires 720 days of continuous work to be eligible. In all likelihood, Esteban, like most sakadas, simply couldn’t comply with the requirement.
On January 18, 1920, a plantation overseer sneered at Filipino laborers, calling them cowards. Outraged, the Filipinos walked off their jobs. The protest rapidly spread to other plantations across Oahu. Japanese workers soon joined them.
From January to July, thousands of Filipino and Japanese plantation workers protested. Plantation owners retaliated by evicting the strikers from their plantation housing. Roughly 12,000 workers and their families were forced out and left stranded. Evicted families were forced into overcrowded, makeshift shelters in Honolulu. The resulting overcrowding in improvised camps exacerbated the Spanish Flu epidemic, leading to the tragic deaths of 95 Filipino strikers and their family members.
On May 16, 1921, Esteban’s daughter boarded the SS Tenyo Maru bound for Cebu, Philippines— alone. She just turned 19, having just “celebrated” her birthday on board the steam ship.
Her name was Antonia… Dada, ang atong gimaha nga apohan.
… mga handumanan sa atong mga minahal.
