Esteban

Esteban Castro was a 38 year old Bisaya, married with an eight year old daughter, and like most men in Cebu in the 1900s, Esteban was struggling in an island that was predominantly hilly, with little flat arable land. Cebu was overpopulated and its inhabitants were mostly uneducated derelicts, tenant farmers or seasonal workers from nearby islands.

As Esteban was walking the streets of Cebu he ran into a commotion at the town plaza.  Three well dressed Bisaya were standing before a crowd-- a married couple from Cebu and a man from the island of Siquijor, and were telling stories of how they made it in Hawaii. The men were suited up and wore shiny American shoes. Tucked in small pockets on their waistcoats was a pocket watch. The woman was also fashionably dressed and looked like a movie star.

Unknown to Esteban, the trio have never been to Hawaii and were merely employed by the recruiters to entice people to apply. They were part of a recruitment scheme engineered by Oswald A. Steven.

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.

Esteban was enthralled. 

A sub-agent approached and later assisted him in purchasing a cedula at the Cebu municipal hall and was told to report at the poblacion for departure to Manila.

At the designated date and time, Esteban arrived with his wife, Severa de la Fuente, and their eight-year old daughter. In Manila the Castros boarded a steam ship for Hongkong.

On September 17, 1910, Esteban— with his wife Severa de la Fuente and their 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 piece of paper written in a hodgepodge of pifgen Spanish and at least two local dialects. 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. Family members received equivalent amounts of clothing. They were also provided with a blanket, a towel, a wash basin, soap and sleeping mats. Steerage passengers were crammed below deck. It was crowded and smelly. 

After traveling for more than a month from their Cebu hometown more than 8000 kilometers away, the Castros arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii. Esteban and his daughter were each assigned a number:-- Esteban was 5162, his daughter 5162-A. They were each given a "bango"-- a Japanese word for ID tag, made by plantation, usually brass or aluminum, stamped with their unique "employee" number. A bango came in different sizes and shapes, which varied from circle, octagon, square, to an oval or triangle, and directly corresponds to a worker's ethnicity. And just like military "dog tags", a bango was worn on a chain around the neck, but with an Auschwitz-Birkenau vibe.

After receiving their "bango" medallions, the Castros were dispatched to the Kahuku Sugar Plantation on the northern shore of the island of Oahu. 

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.

On January 18, 1920, a Luna 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.

A year later or on May 16, 1921, the Castros boarded the SS Tenyo Maru bound for Cebu, Philippines. Esteban's daughter had 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.