Filipino Americans have historically been left out<\/a> by historians, said Kevin Nadal, Filipino American National Historical Society president. Within Filipino American communities, those in Hawaii \u2014 an ocean away \u2014 were chronicled less over the decades. Nadal, a psychology professor at City University of New York, didn’t learn extensively about Manlapit until researching a Filipino American Studies encyclopedia in 2020.<\/p>\n\u201cIt may have been documented through just like oral histories,\u201d Nadal said. \u201cWe love oral histories but, if no one writes them down and then it doesn\u2019t become published, then it just gets lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manlapit’s movement was likely the first instance of documented mobilizing by Filipino workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started with Hawaii,\u201d Nadal said. \u201cWhat was happening in Hawaii, it would have been really hard for people to know that it was happening in California.\u201d<\/p>\n
There has been more acknowledgement in recent years. Earlier in May for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center partnered with Hawaii U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono on a poster exhibit highlighting sakadas.<\/p>\n
Laborers who left the Philippines for Hawaii’s plantations were key to Filipinos becoming one of the largest ethnic groups in the state today. They made up over half the labor force. Hawaii became home to the nation’s first and only governor of Filipino descent, Ben Cayetano.<\/p>\n
Cayetano, 87, said he never felt a need to seek out his Filipino roots growing up poor in Honolulu.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was born and raised here so I was more influenced by the local culture, which is a mixture of the Hawaiian culture and all the other cultures,\u201d said Cayetano, who graduated from college and law school in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
But honoring sakadas and leaders like Manlapit is a way to also honor the sakada who raised Cayetano as a single father, he said.<\/p>\n
Growing up biracial in rural upstate New York, Becky Gardner felt like she couldn\u2019t connect with her mother\u2019s Filipino ancestry but heard stories about her great-grandfather and grandfather who were laborers on Kauai plantations. Longing to connect to those roots, Gardner moved to Honolulu to attend law school.<\/p>\n
While working as a lawyer in the state Office of Language Access, she advocated for \u201cSakada Day,\u201d commemorating the Dec. 20 arrival of the first contract laborers who left the Philippines to work on Hawaii’s sugar and pineapple plantations. <\/p>\n
It was then that Gardner realized she is a sakada descendant.<\/p>\n
She typed her great-grandfather’s name, Francisco Alcano, into an online database of Filipino laborers and found records detailing his 1928 arrival in Honolulu aboard a steamship named for President Grover Cleveland.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt made me feel like I was part of Hawaii’s history too,\u201d Gardner said. <\/p>\n
The Hawaii Filipino Lawyers Association is reviewing whether Manlapit\u2019s 1924 conviction was wrongful and if there is any legal way to clear his name posthumously, said Padilla, who earned a law degree from the University of Hawaii.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re also looking into creating a fellowship at University of Hawaii\u2019s law school to explore the possibility of having a legal researcher examine the case toward efforts to formally vindicate Manlapit.<\/p>\n
Kainani Collins Alvarez, who grew up on Oahu knowing about her sakada grandfather, is a former public defender who now owns a family-law firm. She wants to apply her criminal defense background to the association\u2019s Manlapit cause. Half-white, she feels connected to Hawaii Filipinos through her mom and a childhood partly spent in the Philippines.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, it’s really important to go back and rectify the truth,\u201d she said. \u201cHistory is built on the facts that we knew at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manlapit wasn’t even on Kauai during the 1924 massacre when striking Filipino sugar workers and police clashed violently.<\/p>\n
Even though Manlapit was eventually pardoned, the association wants to bring to light evidence showing he was innocent, Alvarez said.<\/p>\n
According to a Manlapit biography, he wrote in a 1927 \u201cfarewell statement\u201d that he would push to prove his innocence: \u201cI was railroaded to prison because I tried to secure justice and a square deal for my oppressed countrymen who are lured to the plantations to work for a dollar a day.\u201d <\/p>\n
An overturning would mean more than a pardon in some ways, Nadal said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would mean more of understanding justice and ensuring that people realize that we can fight for justice and that justice can prevail,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Manlapit’s story inspired Khara Jabola-Carolus to become a lawyer in Hawaii. Like him, she started out as an organizer and activist. She grew up in California and graduated from Hawaii’s law school. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a long history of Filipino organizing,\u201d she said. \u201cThat’s why I wanted to be a lawyer here.\u201d <\/p>\n
She wants more people to know of Manlapit’s life like they would famous Filipino pop stars. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need representation and access to seeing ourselves as heroes and movement leaders and not just entertainers,\u201d she said. \u201cLike Filipino Americans need to know Pablo Manlapit as much as they know Bruno Mars or Olivia Rodrigo.\u201d<\/p>\n
___ Tang reported from Phoenix.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
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