Filipino Americans in Hawaiʻi
125,000 Sakadas Built This State — From the SS Doric to the Hanapepe Massacre to the ILWU to Bruno Mars
They arrived on December 20, 1906 — fifteen men from the Philippines, stepping off the SS Doric into the port of Honolulu, dispatched the next morning to cut sugarcane at the Ola'a Plantation on the Big Island. They were called sakadas — the Visayan word for seasonal farm worker — and they had no idea they were the first chapter of the most consequential Filipino American story outside the continental United States.
Over the next 40 years, 125,000 more would follow. By 1932, Filipinos made up 70 percent of Hawaii's entire plantation workforce — the backbone of the sugar and pineapple industries that built the territory's economy. They were paid less than every other ethnic group on the plantation, given the oldest housing, assigned the most backbreaking work, and told to be grateful. Instead, they organized. They struck. They bled at Hanapepe. And they ultimately won — transforming Hawaii from a plantation oligarchy into a modern, unionized, democratic state.
Today, Filipinos are Hawaii's largest Asian ethnic group — 275,000 strong, the majority Ilocano, spread across every island and woven into every corner of Hawaii's civic, cultural, and economic life. From the cane fields of Waipahu to the governor's mansion to the Grammy stage — the Filipino story in Hawaii is 120 years deep and still being written.
Hawaii was not a choice — it was a recruitment. The Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) needed labor after Chinese workers were excluded and Japanese workers began organizing. As a U.S. territory, the Philippines was an open pipeline. Between 1906 and 1930, HSPA agents traveled to the Visayas and then to the Ilocos region of northern Luzon — specifically targeting men with little education and farming experience, whom they believed would be easier to control. They were wrong. The sakadas built a labor movement that reshaped the entire state.
The Sakadas: 125,000 Who Built Hawaii (1906–1946)
The word sakada carries the full weight of Filipino American Hawaii. It means seasonal farm worker — but it came to mean something larger: the men and women who came to Hawaii under contract, with nothing but their labor and their dignity, and who stayed to build a community that has outlasted the plantations themselves.
The first sakadas came mostly from the Visayan islands — Cebu, Leyte, Samar — in the years before 1920. After the 1924 Hanapepe Massacre, plantation owners deliberately shifted their recruitment to the Ilocos region of northern Luzon, believing that Ilocanos and Visayans, speaking different languages and from different regions, could be kept divided against each other. The strategy partially worked — and partially explains why today, approximately 85 percent of Hawaii's Filipino community is Ilocano, making Hawaii the largest Ilocano community outside the Philippines.
Life on the Plantation
The sakadas signed three-year contracts that included passage to Hawaii and back to the Philippines. Most intended to earn money and return home to buy land. What they found instead was a system designed to keep them dependent and compliant. Workers were paid as little as 90 cents a day for ten hours of work, six days a week — the lowest wage of any ethnic group on the plantation. They paid rent for plantation housing. They bought food at plantation stores at inflated prices. The luna — the foreman — could discipline them at will.
Filipino workers were not passive about any of this. Between 1920 and 1940, Filipinos organized 12 strikes against Hawaii's sugar barons. They were beaten, evicted from plantation housing, arrested, tried, imprisoned, and deported. They struck anyway. As the ILWU's resolution honoring the sakadas stated: "They stood up against injustice by joining with other workers to improve their wages and working conditions. They overcame differences and united with workers of other races in a common struggle for dignity."
At the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, Filipino workers in Hawaii were so committed to supporting their families in the Philippines that they collectively sent $276,000 to the Philippines every single month — even as they earned less than a dollar a day. The sakadas were simultaneously building Hawaii and sustaining entire villages back home.
The Sakada '46 — The Last Wave
The final recruitment of sakadas took place in 1946 — and it was unlike any that had come before. The Sakada '46 group of 6,000 Filipinos included more women, children, and family members of previous sakadas. Many had an American colonial education. Some were professionals. And critically, they arrived already organized: ILWU organizers had boarded the ships in Manila and spent the entire voyage educating the recruits about union solidarity. When the Sakada '46 stepped onto Hawaiian soil, they were already dues-paying ILWU members — the HSPA's final attempt to use Filipino workers as strike-breakers had failed completely.
Pablo Manlapit: The Father of Filipino Labor in Hawaii
No figure stands taller in the history of Filipino Hawaii than Pablo Manlapit — and few figures in Filipino American history have been more systematically forgotten.
Manlapit arrived in Hawaii in 1910 as a sakada from Batangas, contracted to cut sugarcane on the Big Island. He was fired three years later after organizing a protest against a wage cut. His name was placed on a blacklist circulated to every plantation manager in Hawaii. Unable to get plantation work, Manlapit moved to Honolulu, worked as a janitor, taught himself law, and in 1919 became the first Filipino in Hawaii licensed to practice law. Then he turned his law license into a weapon for his community.
In 1919, Manlapit organized the Filipino Labor Union (FLU). In 1920, he joined with Japanese labor leaders to form the Higher Wage Movement — the first multiethnic labor coalition in Hawaiian history — and led 8,000 plantation workers off the job on Oahu. The strike lasted nearly seven months. The HSPA evicted more than 12,000 workers from plantation housing. The strike was ultimately broken, but the model of interracial labor solidarity had been established. It would take 26 more years — and the blood of Hanapepe — for it to fully prevail.
The Hanapepe Massacre: September 9, 1924
The most violent and most consequential event in Filipino Hawaiian history took place on the banks of a small river above the town of Hanapepe, Kauai, on a September afternoon in 1924. It lasted minutes. It left 16 Filipino workers and 4 police officers dead. And for 82 years, most of Hawaii did not know it happened.
By 1924, Manlapit's Higher Wage Movement had collected 6,000 signatures on a petition demanding a doubling of wages to $2 a day and an 8-hour workday. The HSPA simply ignored the petition. The movement called a strike in April 1924, spreading from Oahu to the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai. On Kauai, striking workers — mostly Visayans — were evicted from plantation housing and camped in a banana patch adjacent to a Japanese-language school in Hanapepe town.
On September 9, Kauai Sheriff William Rice led a posse of armed deputies to the camp, ostensibly to retrieve two Ilocano workers believed to be held against their will by the Visayan strikers. The two men were released. As the police were leaving with them, a confrontation erupted. Hidden sharpshooters on the hill above the camp opened fire. When the shooting stopped, 16 Filipino workers were dead. Four police officers were also killed. The National Guard was dispatched. More than 100 strikers were arrested. Seventy-six were tried; 60 received four-year sentences.
Pablo Manlapit was not in Kauai when the massacre occurred — he was in Honolulu. He was nonetheless convicted of conspiracy, sentenced to two to ten years in Oahu Prison, paroled in 1927 on condition that he leave Hawaii, and eventually deported permanently to the Philippines in 1934. The graves of the 16 slain workers went unmarked for 95 years. It was not until 2019 that the Hawaii State Chapter of FANHS located a trench at the Hanapepe Filipino Cemetery believed to hold their remains. A commemorative marker in Hanapepe Town Park was dedicated in 2006. The massacre's centennial was observed in 2024 with a ceremony attended by nearly 150 participants, including descendants of the slain.
After Hanapepe, the HSPA deliberately stopped recruiting Visayan Filipinos — because Visayans had been the most militant strikers — and doubled down on Ilocano recruitment, reasoning that Ilocanos and Visayans would remain divided by language and regional identity. It was a divide-and-rule strategy that reshaped the ethnic composition of Filipino Hawaii for generations. Today, the Ilocano dominance of Hawaii's Filipino community — nearly 85% — traces directly to a plantation owner's decision made in the aftermath of a massacre.
The 1946 Sugar Strike: When the Sakadas Finally Won
The turning point came in 1944, when Filipino and Japanese sugar workers across nearly every plantation in Hawaii organized under a single banner — the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). For the first time, a single union united workers of every ethnic group. The workers themselves ran it. They elected leaders from each ethnic group. They made certain all voices were included. The bitter lessons of 1920 and 1924 had been learned.
The HSPA's wartime collective bargaining agreement with the ILWU was set to expire in 1946. The sugar industry made plans to break the union. The ILWU was ready. When 25,000 ILWU sugar members voted to strike, they struck — across every island, across every ethnic group, for 79 days. The strike paralyzed the island economy. The HSPA was forced to negotiate. The workers won: higher wages, improved housing, healthcare, and recognition of the union that the sakadas had been fighting to build since 1919.
All five presidents of ILWU Local 142 have been sakadas or their descendants: Antonio Rania, Calixto "Carl" Damaso, Erinio "Eddie" Lapa, Eusebio "Bo" Lapenia Jr., and Fred Galdones. The sakadas did not just work in the union. They ran it. They led it. And through it, they transformed Hawaii from a plantation society into a democratic and progressive state.
The Hawaii State Legislature passed a bill establishing December 20 as Sakada Day — commemorating December 20, 1906, when the first 15 Filipino workers arrived in Honolulu aboard the SS Doric. The law recognizes the historic significance of the sakadas as pioneers who, through sacrifice and struggle, paved the foundation for the Filipino community in Hawaii and helped shape the diverse state it is today.
Post-1965 and the Modern Filipino Hawaii
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 opened a new chapter. Filipino professionals — nurses, doctors, engineers, teachers — arrived in Hawaii in growing numbers, joined by family members of the sakadas already there. The Filipino population, which had peaked at around 61,000 in the late plantation era, began a sustained growth that would carry it past 170,000 by 2000 and past 275,000 by 2020.
In 2002, the Filipino Community Center opened in Waipahu — the historic heart of Filipino plantation life — as a 44,000-square-foot hub of cultural, educational, and civic programming. Waipahu, on Oahu, remains the symbolic capital of Filipino Hawaii: a working-class community that traces its roots directly to the plantation era and takes immense pride in those roots.
In 2010, Filipino Americans became Hawaii's largest Asian ethnic group, surpassing Japanese Americans for the first time — a demographic milestone that reflected both the continued growth of the Filipino community and the declining proportion of Japanese Americans in the state. On Kauai and Maui counties, Filipinos are the majority ethnic group. On Oahu, they are 20 percent of the population.
The vast majority of Hawaii's Filipino community — approximately 85 percent — are Ilocano, from the Ilocos region of northern Luzon. This makes Hawaii the largest Ilocano community outside the Philippines. Ilocano is widely spoken in Hawaii — in homes, churches, community centers, and on the radio. For many Filipino families in Hawaii, Ilocano is not a heritage language. It is the first language still spoken at home across generations.
Key Milestones in Filipino Hawaiian History
Notable Filipino Americans of Hawaii
Born in Batangas. Arrived in Hawaii in 1910 as a sakada. Taught himself law and became the first Filipino licensed to practice in Hawaii in 1919. Founded the Filipino Labor Union, led the 1920 and 1924 strikes, was imprisoned, exiled, and deported — and never stopped fighting. The father of the Filipino labor movement in Hawaii. Died in the Philippines in 1969.
Born Peter Gene Hernandez in Honolulu to a Filipino mother, Bernadette "Pete" Hernandez, from the Philippines, and a Puerto Rican father. One of the most successful recording artists in music history — 15 Grammy Awards, 130 million records sold. His Filipino heritage is an acknowledged and celebrated part of his identity. The sakada generation could not have imagined that their community would one day produce a global pop superstar. Read PinoyBuilt coverage →
Born in Pearl City, Oahu, to a Nisei Japanese father and a Filipina mother of Ilocano descent. Elected Governor of Hawaii in 2014 — the first Filipino American governor in United States history. Re-elected in 2018. An electrical engineer by training, Ige served four terms in the Hawaii House and three in the Senate before his gubernatorial election. His election was celebrated across the Filipino American community nationally as a historic milestone.
Born in Honolulu to immigrant parents from Pangasinan. Physical education teacher. Crowned Miss America 2001 — the first Filipino American to win the title. Her crown was celebrated across Filipino Hawaii as a milestone of national cultural visibility. She subsequently worked as a teacher, coach, and community advocate.
All five presidents of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 142 — Hawaii's most powerful labor union — have been sakadas or their direct descendants: Antonio Rania, Calixto "Carl" Damaso, Erinio "Eddie" Lapa, Eusebio "Bo" Lapenia Jr., and Fred Galdones. The sakadas did not merely join the union that won their rights. They led it for generations.
The first Filipino American woman to anchor a television newscast in the United States — a milestone in Filipino American media representation. Based in Hawaii, Tomimbang spent decades as one of the state's most recognized broadcast journalists and community advocates, covering stories from across the Pacific with a distinctly Filipino American perspective.
Community & Culture Today
The Filipino community in Hawaii in 2026 is not the community of the sakada era — and yet it is inseparable from it. Every Filipino family in Hawaii has a plantation story somewhere in its roots: a great-grandfather who cut cane in Waipahu, a grandmother who arrived on the Sakada '46, an uncle who was an ILWU shop steward. The plantation is the foundation. Everything built on top of it — the hospitals, the schools, the churches, the community centers, the political offices, the Grammy stages — stands on that foundation.
Filipinos in Hawaii today are in every profession and every corner of public life. They are nurses at Queens Medical Center, teachers at Waipahu High, engineers at Pearl Harbor, small business owners on Kauai's north shore, hotel workers on Maui organized by the same ILWU their grandparents built. They are the governor. They are Miss America. They are one of the most celebrated musicians on earth.
And on December 20 every year — Sakada Day — the community pauses to remember the 15 men who stepped off the SS Doric in 1906 and had no idea what they were starting. Ania met laeng. This is just the way things are. Except it wasn't. They made it this way.
I was born in the Philippines, raised in Chicago and Vallejo — no Hawaiian roots, no sakada story in my family. But the Hawaii story is every Filipino American's story, because the sakadas were the first to prove what Filipino Americans would prove again and again in Delano, in Chicago, in Vallejo: that we do not accept the bottom. We organize. We strike. We stay. We build. PinoyBuilt exists to make sure these stories don't disappear — and the sakadas' story is the oldest and deepest of all of them. — J.F.R. Perseveranda
→ Read all Hawaii coverage on PinoyBuilt
→ Filipino American History archive on PinoyBuilt
→ Bruno Mars coverage on PinoyBuilt
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As of the 2020 Census, approximately 275,000 people of Filipino descent live in Hawaii — making Filipinos the largest Asian ethnic group in the state at roughly 25% of Hawaii's total population. On Kauai and Maui counties, Filipinos are the majority ethnic group.
The first organized wave arrived on December 20, 1906, when 15 sakadas stepped off the SS Doric in Honolulu and were dispatched the next day to the Ola'a Plantation on the Big Island. Over the next 40 years, the Hawaii Sugar Planters' Association brought more than 125,000 Filipinos to Hawaii. December 20 is now officially Sakada Day in Hawaii.
Sakada is the Visayan word for seasonal farm worker. It refers specifically to the Filipino contract laborers recruited by the Hawaii Sugar Planters' Association (HSPA) to work on sugar and pineapple plantations in Hawaii between 1906 and 1946. By 1932, sakadas made up 70% of the entire plantation workforce in Hawaii — yet were paid the lowest wages of any ethnic group on the plantation.
The Hanapepe Massacre occurred on September 9, 1924, on Kauai, when a clash between striking Filipino plantation workers and heavily armed police left 16 Filipino workers and 4 police officers dead. It grew from the Higher Wage Movement demanding a doubling of wages to $2 a day. Seventy-six workers were tried; 60 sentenced to four years. Labor leader Pablo Manlapit was convicted of conspiracy despite not being present, imprisoned, and eventually exiled. The graves of the 16 slain workers went unmarked for 95 years.
December 20 is officially Sakada Day in Hawaii, established by state law. It commemorates December 20, 1906, when the first 15 Filipino plantation workers arrived in Honolulu — the beginning of the sakada era that would bring 125,000 Filipinos to Hawaii and transform the state's labor movement and demographics.
Yes. Bruno Mars — born Peter Gene Hernandez in Honolulu — is the son of a Filipino mother, Bernadette "Pete" Hernandez, who was born in the Philippines. His Filipino heritage is a significant and acknowledged part of his identity. He is one of the most celebrated Filipino Americans in the history of popular music.
After the 1924 Hanapepe Massacre — in which mostly Visayan Filipino workers were the strikers — the HSPA deliberately shifted its recruitment from the Visayas to the Ilocos region of northern Luzon. Plantation owners believed Ilocanos and Visayans would remain divided by language and regional identity, making them easier to manage. That divide-and-rule strategy reshaped the ethnic composition of Filipino Hawaii permanently. Today, approximately 85% of Hawaii's Filipino community is Ilocano — a direct consequence of that post-Hanapepe decision.
Sources & Further Reading
ILWU Local 142 — Honoring the Filipino Sakada · ILWU Local 142 — The 1924 Hanapepe Massacre · Filipino American Historical Society of Hawaii — fahsoh.org · Positively Filipino — Blood in the Fields: The Hanapepe Massacre · Honolulu Magazine — A Massacre Forgotten · Asian American Education Project — The 1924 Hanapēpē Massacre · Wikipedia — Filipinos in Hawaii · Wikipedia — Pablo Manlapit · Wikipedia — Hanapēpē Massacre · University of Hawaii at Manoa — Center for Philippine Studies · U.S. Census Bureau — American Community Survey 2020 · The Sakada Series — thesakadaseries.com
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