The Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920 was a multiracial strike in Hawaii of two unions the Filipino American

Filipino American

Filipino Americans are Americans of Filipino ancestry. Filipino Americans, often shortened to "Fil-Ams", or "Pinoy",Filipinos in what is now the United States were first documented in the 16th century, with small settlements beginning in the 18th century...

 Filipino Labor Union and the Japanese American

Japanese American

are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...

 Federation of the Japanese Labor. Involving 8,300 workers, with 150 people losing their lives it was one of the deadliest demonstrations in 20th century Hawaii.

Background

Prior to the 1920 strike, when one ethnic group went on strikes the other groups worked as strikebreakers, leading to a strike’s failure. Prior to the strike fieldworkers were paid wages that met the poverty line

Poverty threshold

The poverty threshold, or poverty line, is the minimum level of income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country...

. With the start World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 supplies directed to the war effort drove up living expenses and with the wages remaining the same put much of the plantation work force in to destitution which lingered after the war ended. After years of organizing, the Filipino Labor Union and the Federation of the Japanese Labor united the Filipinos

Filipinos

Filipinos is the brand name for a series of biscuit snacks made by Kraft Foods. In Spain and Portugal they are produced and sold under the Artiach brand name. Under license to United Biscuits, in the Netherlands they are sold and produced locally under the Verkade brand...

 and Japanese

Japanese people

The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...

 groups. The unions brought their demands to the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association

Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association

Founded in 1895, the Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association was an unincorporated, voluntary organization of sugar plantation owners in the Hawaiian Islands. Its objective was to promote the mutual benefits of its members and the development of the sugar industry in the islands. It conducted...

 on December 4, 1919. The demands were pay raises from $0.77 to a $1.25 for males and $0.58 to $0.90 per day and paid maternal leave

Parental leave

Parental leave is an employee benefit that provides paid or unpaid time off work to care for a child or make arrangements for the child's welfare. Often, the term parental leave includes maternity, paternity, and adoption leave...

 for females. Initially the planters refused demands and expected to out last the strike.

Strike

The strike began for Filipinos and other Hispanic

Hispanic

Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...

s on January 20, 1920, and Japanese officially joined on February 1 (although many Japanese independently joined earlier). The strike involved 8,300 workers spanning six plantations.

Evictions

In retaliatory action against the strike the plantations evicted

Eviction

How you doing???? Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, eviction may also be known as unlawful detainer, summary possession, summary dispossess, forcible detainer, ejectment, and repossession, among other terms...

 picketers and their families from plantation housing. A total of 12,020 people were evicted. The evicted took shelter in homes of strike sympathizers, hotels, tents, empty buildings and factories as well as Buddhists and Shinto churches, but Christian clergy had been prominent opponents of the strike and turned away homeless picketer and family from lodging in Christian churches. The Board of Health re-evicted 300 Filipinos that had taken up residence in a brewery at Kakaako and moved into tents

Financial difficulties

Another dilemma was finances for food. The Japanese union’s approach was to build up a reserve for the Japanese picketers and their families; this fund held $900,000. The Filipino union’s approach was to be sustained by donations from Filipinos working on other plantations not affected by the strike. In less than a month, the Filipinos were desperately low on funding and on the verge of starvation. If the Filipinos were to return to work the strike would collapse. The Japanese union used their reserves to sustain the Filipino picketers, averting a collapse of the strike.

Flu

During the strike the Spanish Flu

Spanish flu

The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...

 hit Hawaii. 1,056 Japanese fell ill by the flu of which 55 died. 1,440 Filipinos fell ill and 95 died during the world-wide epidemic. Picketers directed the blame toward the plantations for the evictions early in the strike causing them to live in crowded living quarters.

March

The Federation of the Japanese Labor arranged a protest march with 3,000 participants on April 3 and when down King street.

End

The strike had taken a toll on both sides; 1,000 strikers had gone back to work and more than 2,000 strikebreakers were hired. The HSPA lost $12,000,000 in potential income. The strike lasted until July 1, more than half a year, when a compromise was reached at the Alexander Young Building

Alexander Young Building

The Alexander Young Building was a building in Honolulu, Hawaii built during 1900-1903 by Alexander Young , a Honolulu Mechanical Engineer and businessman from Scotland.-Building:...

which included a 50% pay raise and more benefits.

Aftermath

Although the strike was successful, the “Japanese Problem” and the “Filipino Problem” was exposed as a larger issue than the Planters realized.