Triumphant homecoming of Fil-Ams in Hawaii
At the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kinney met the distinguished passengers from Hawaii.
By GREG B. MACABENTA
Filipinas Magazine
On December 20, 1906, 15 young men from Northern Luzon arrived in Hawaii to toil in the plantations as sakadas or contract workers. In the ensuing years, more and more laborers were recruited from Luzon and the Visayas for the plantations. Many of them subsequently found their way to the mainland to seek employment in the fields of California and the Pacific Northwest and in the canneries in Alaska.
This marked the beginning of the massive migration of workers and families from the Philippines to foreign lands—the phenomenon we now know as the Filipino Diaspora.
On April 14, 2008, 101 years and four months after the arrival of the first batch of farm workers, Hawaiian Airlines flew over 100 distinguished passengers to the Philip-pines to inaugurate the airline’s four-times-weekly Honolulu-Manila service. Many of them were descendants of the sakadas.
While the addition of a Manila hub by Hawaiian Airlines was important enough by itself, acknowledging, as it did, the economic importance of the Filipino American community, most specially those residing in Hawaii, the symbolism of that inaugural flight, in the context of the Diaspora, was equally significant.
It was, in a very real sense, a triumphant homecoming of the offspring of the sakadas.
Their parents and grandparents had left the Philippines straight out of the rural areas, their educational credentials bare, their pockets empty, strangers in a new world, armed only with the dream of a better life for themselves and their families.
Working long hours under the blazing Hawaiian sun, surviving on meager wages and enduring loneliness and discrimination, the sakadas never gave up their dream. They persevered and soon saw that dream being realized by their children and grandchildren.
Over a century later, their progeny would return to the homeland, no longer as lowly wage earners but as public officials, businessmen and entrepreneurs, professionals, media personalities and media owners, educators and community leaders.
Among the prominent passengers listed in the manifest were former Hawaii Governor Ben Cayetano, the first person of Filipino descent to become a state governor in America, son of an immigrant worker from Pangasinan; Senator Ron Menor, grandson of one of the early sakadas and son of Associate Justice Ben Menor, the first Filipino American to serve in the Hawaii Supreme Court; Senator Willie Espero, Assembly members Joey Manahan and Rita Cabanilla; former Assemblyman Felipe Abinsay, Jr; retired Associate Justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court Mario Ramil; retired Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Artemio Baxa; Emme Tomimbang, one of the most recognizable personalities on Hawaii television, daughter of a migrant farm worker from the Ilocos; and Eddie Flores, president of L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, the largest fastfood chain in Hawaii, with a major presence on the US mainland.
Not a minority
The returnees had reason to feel proud of themselves and of their community in Hawaii, the only one of the 50 states where Filipinos are not considered a “minority.” Out of a population of over 1.2 million, 23 percent identify themselves as Filipinos or “part-Filipinos.” The second biggest ethnic group, the Japanese, make up 20.7 percent.
Where political empowerment continues to be an elusive goal for Fil-Ams on the mainland, even in California where half of those of Filipino descent reside, Hawaiian Pinoys are a role model.
Hawaii has not only seen a Fil-Am become governor, 5 of the 25 members of the State Senate are of Filipino descent, including the incumbent Senate President, island-born Robert Bunda, and in the State Assembly, 9 of the 51 members are Fil-Ams.
In the 1970s, Virgilio de la Paz, born in Hawaii to sakada parents, served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, one of the highest positions occupied by a Fil-Am in the US military.
Filipino-Hawaiians have also accounted for the first Pinoy Miss America, Angela Perez Baraquio, who won the crown in 2001. And American Idol finalist, Jasmine Trias, is Pinoy.
Hawaiian Airlines, led by its President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Dunkerley, accorded appropriate honors to their distinguished passengers. They were sent off at the Honolulu International Airport with a ceremony participated in by Philippine Senator Richard Gordon and Consul General Ariel Abadilla, and were met at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport by the media and public officials, led by US Ambassador Cristy Kinney. They were then booked at the Mandarin Oriental in Makati, offered all the courtesies of the hotel and given a tour of the metropolis.
At a cocktail reception at the Makati Shangri-La, as officials of Hawaiian Airlines and the Philippine Department of Tourism lauded the start of the Honolulu-Manila, the descendants of the sakadas savored the fruits of the labors of their forebearers.
It was a good harvest.
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