Hawaii's Filipinos joined the US military to liberate the Philippines from Japanese occupation.
In observance of Filipino American History Month, the Kauai Philippine Cultural Center and Kukui Grove Center co-host the Garden Island Film Festival that will screen two documentaries.
The GIFF is screening two films about Filipinos by Kauai filmmaker Stephanie J. Castillo at Kukui Grove Center on Wednesday, Oct. 23, starting at 6 p.m. Castillo is an Emmy Award-winning documentary filmmaker with Kauai family roots.
Both showings are free.
6 p.m. – “An Untold Triumph: America’s Filipino Soldiers” The story of the 1st and 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiments, US Army (2006, 82 minutes).
During World War II, 7,000 Filipino Americans volunteered their services to the U.S. Army and helped liberate their homeland from Japanese occupation. Director Noel M. Izon captures their stories through the voices of the veterans themselves, most of them gone now, and delivers touching personal accounts of the men’s contributions and sacrifices during the war. Despite the fact that they endured a bleak, racist prewar climate and were not even considered U.S. citizens, these individuals rallied to join the war effort and cement their rightful place in American history.
7:30 p.m. “Remember the Boys, A Story of Hawaii Filipino Soldiers in World War II” (2007, 30 minutes)
“Remember the Boys” poignantly captures the inspiring, true story of a chaplain to his war buddies. Born in Hawaii, Domingo Los Banos was a US World War II soldier who went to war in the Philippines as a teenager with some 50 other teenagers of Filipino ancestry from Hawaii.
The two documentaries were created by Castillo, who is based on Kauai. A former journalist and an EMMY Award-winning independent filmmaker, she has been developing television documentaries since 1989.
Her many awards include an Emmy Award, 3 CINE Golden Eagles, a Tele Award, two Best awards at the Hawaii International FIlm Festival, a Progress Award from the Hawaii United Filipino Council, and a Pamana Arts Legacy Award in recognition of her contribution to the Filipino American community through the 1992 documentary "An Untold Triumph. a history of AIDS."
Hundreds of Filipino workers were arrested after the Hanapepe Massacre.
There were no official ceremonies this year to remember the Hanapepe Massacre where 20 people died in 1924.
You wouldn't know it now. The Hanapepe River still slowly flows through the sleepy little town on its way to the ocean. If you blink you might miss the turnoff to Hanapepe on the island of Kauai. Most tourists zip past Hanapepe Town, the site of a labor riot 95 years ago when 16 striking Filipino sugar workers and four lawmen were killed. No one is left alive who survived the deadly events e of Sept. 9, 1924 that became known as the Hanapepe Massacre. The sugar workers were on strike for better working conditions and an increase in pay, from $1 a day to $2 a day.
Filipinos were the last group of immigrant laborers to arrive to the Islands after the Chinese and the Japanese. Plantation owners pitted the ethnic groups against each other to thwart any labor organizing.
The victims of the massacre were among the 37,019 Filipinos who immigrated to Hawaii between 1907 and 1924.
Tiffany Hill writes in a magazine article in the Honolulu Advertiser:
"Filipinos working on sugar plantations were given the worst housing and the lowest paying jobs. On Kauai, Filipino laborers worked and lived on the Koloa, Makaweli, Kekaha, Lihue and McBryde Sugar Co. plantations. The majority of the workers were young men, single and uneducated. They came from three regions of the Philippines: Visayans arrived first, followed by Ilocanos and, in much smaller numbers, Tagalogs, each group speaking a different language. In addition, there were significantly fewer Filipino women than men. “A lack of women in the Filipino community meant many fewer families, a totally different view of life and really no sense of community,” says Andy Bushnell, a retired Kauai Community College history professor who gives talks on the Hanapēpē Massacre."
The sugar strike covered the plantation workers on Oahu, Maui, Hawaii and Kauai but it did not involve the majority of the workers. Japanese, Chinese and Portuguese workers didn't support the Filipino-led labor organizing effort. The strikers in Hanapepe were from the Visayan islands of the Philippines. Plantation owners used the Ilocanos to try and break the strike. Two Ilocanos were viewed as scabs by the Visayans and were forcibly detained by the strikers.
A plaque commemorating the Hanapepe Massacre was dedicated in 2006.
The Sheriff and his deputies went to the strike HQ to seek the released of the Visayans. The lawmen were armed with guns and the strikers also had a few guns and the machete's they used to cut the sugar cane. No one knows who made the first aggressive move but in minutes 16 strikers were shot dead by sharpshooters who were hiding in the hill above the scene. The strikers fatally injured four of the lawmen. After the violent confrontation, at the Sheriff's request, Hawaii National Guard were called in to maintain order between the strikers and plantation owners. Because of the hazy details of the massacre, amazing as it may seem to us today, there was no hue and cry from the public and the violence and resulting mass arrests stunted any momentum the strike had generated. Hundreds of the sugar strikers were arrested and some of their leaders were exiled. It wasn't until 1937 that a labor union combining all of the ethnic groups was successful in gaining any concessions from Hawaii Sugar Planters' Association. The white elite families that ruled over Hawaii since 1893 when they overthrew the islands' Queen Lydia Liliʻu Loloku Walania Kamakaʻeharetaliated by moving their sugar and pineapple operations to other countries in Asia and Latin America.
The point is: Asian workers were never the uncomplaining, compliant, quiet, subservient stereotype that society has imposed on all Asian Americans. They were far from being the "model minority." From the sugar workers, the Alaskeros working on the boats and canneries of Alaska to the farmworkers on the West Coast to the nurses, teachers, hotel workers and domestic workers of today, Asian Americans fought -- and are still fighting -- for their rights, justice and equality. Though there are no speeches from dignitaries and proclamations from politicians today, the sugar worker strikes launched a history of labor organizing that should be taught in our classrooms. Asian Americans were not bystanders in the making of America.
The sugarcane workers who died that day 95 years ago were buried in an unmarked trench somewhere near Hanapepe. They should be remembered.
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.
THE LAST TIME I was on Kauai, I tried to imagine living on the North Shore where there were fewer tourists because of the incessant rains, but in exchange, the vegetation was so lush, flowers so beautiful, and most of its beaches uncrowded. I tried to take a picture of lone white horse, hitched up to a tree framed with the green pastures and mountains as if its owner left knew it would make a great picture. Driving up the two-lane highway, crossing numerous bridges spanning flowing creeks; Hanelei Valley was lush with fields of taro, a lonely house in the midst of all that beauty. How would it be like to live there?
ED DIOKNO
Kauai's Hanelei Valley before the recent storm
Hanelei Valley from the same lookout point during the flood.
The torrential rains of last week changed that beautiful landscape into broken bridges, whole sections of roads wiped out, homes built to survive tsunamis forced off their supposedly strong concrete foundations, homes collapsed like tinker toys. "I've lived here all my life and this storm was pretty gnarly," resident Kevin Kaleiohi told Hawaii News Now.
The National Weather Service lifted a flash flood warning for Kauai last Friday (April 21) and a flash flood watch across the Hawaiian islands. Although the storm hit all the islands, one of the worst hit was Kauai, which historically receives the most rain.
Hanalei on Kauai's north shore saw 28.1 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period starting at 2 a.m.. April 16. Weather officials say it was likely record-breaking rain, but the rain gauge there stopped working. With the ground already waterlogged, the water had nowhere to go except to the ocean, unfortunately, the communities on Kauai's north shore were in the way. Living on the mainland, the disaster that struck Kauai barely made the news amidst the crazy goings-on in Washington. There was hardly a picture, much less TV footage of what befell paradise. The video of a visit last weekend by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard gives us a glimpse of the damage that occurred.
Cleanup has already begun. Hanalei is a popular tourist spot and it was also one of the areas hardest hit by the storm. Business owners that depend on tourism are suffering. "Although I see all the doors open, I just don't see all the people," Jimit Mehta told KHON-TV.
Even with the progress made over the last week, visitors are scarce. "We're looking at a 75% drop in business," Mehta said. Despite the flood damage, the Hawaii Tourism Authority wants travelers to visit Kauai even though parts of the island are recovering from major flooding. Tourism is the island state's No. 1 business. Flooding this month badly damaged the only road connecting the small north shore towns of Haena and Wainiha with the rest of Kauai. Some restaurants and shops in the nearby town of Hanalei also flooded.
But many other major tourist areas on the southern and eastern sides of the island were unaffected. And many other Hanalei restaurants and shops have reopened.
Kauai resident Ikaika Okuno rinses off his belongings.
Emergency rescue crews have evacuated 152 people by helicopter, 121 by bus and others by water, according to Gov. David Ige's office.
The governor and Kauai Mayor Bernard Carvalho flew with military and county emergency crews over heavily damaged regions in the Hanalei District, including Wainiha and Haena, seeing "the swollen Hanalei River, flooded neighborhoods and farmlands," according to the governor's office.
"Damage is very extensive in this area. The immediate problem is access. Several landslides are blocking roads into the communities.
"Crews are working to restore access to the Hanalei District, but it will take some time. We are establishing landing zones for aircraft. The Hawaii National Guard has deployed two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, two CH-47 Chinooks, eight Zodiacs and more than 45 soldiers and airmen to support rescue efforts, and to get medical aid and necessary supplies to the area," Ige said.
U.S. COAST GUARD
At the height of the flooding, the community near Hanelei Bay was under water.
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Evacuations
In a statement posted on Facebook, the County of Kauai said emergency agencies were working to get water and supplies into Wainiha and Haena, from where more than 100 people had been airlifted.
"Those who wish to be evacuated are advised that it is unknown at this time when they can return, as landslides continue to block access along Kuhio Highway between Waikoko and Wainiha," the statement said.
It said that power had been restored to the Wainiha pump stations and that water services would be slowly restored to customers in the Wainiha and Haena areas.
"However, DOW has issued a 'do not drink' advisory and a conservation notice for Wainiha and Haena customers. Those who are receiving water are also urged to heed the conservation notice," the county said.
U.S. NATIONAL GUARD
National Guard members helped evacuate residents and tourists from the flood on Kauai's north shore.
Coast Guard airlifts
The US Coast Guard said in a statement April 16 that its helicopters had helped local authorities rescue hikers around Hanalei Bay Sunday after being asked to assist early that morning.
"The north shore of Kauai experienced flash flooding with waters rising between five and eight feet above average due to the severe thunderstorms and heavy rains, trapping many residents inside their homes and on rooftops," it said in the statement.
"Crews from the Hawaii Fire Department and Ocean Safety and Lifeguard Services have been evacuating residents to higher ground via jet skis but were unable to effect rescues in the towns of Hanalei, Wainiha, and Haena," the Coast Guard stated.
In one instance, the coast guard said hikers waved down one of its helicopters above Hanakapiai Beach after being stranded for two days and were hoisted to safety.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/business/article209683894.html#storylink=cpy
Rep. Gabbard tweeted out: "The #Kauai community is taking action to help each other after severe rain, flooding, and landslides have ravaged homes and businesses, and washed out roads across the island. If you want to know how to help our community on #Kauai, please visit @HawaiiRedCross at http://redcross.org/local/hawaii.
Weather forecast
The sun has returned to help dry out the island. Ominously, CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri said the forecast for Kauai was set to improve over the next couple of days.
"However, this is a part of the world is notorious for persistent rainfall over 300 days per year," Javaheri said.
"I'd expect showers and blustery weather to continue in this region, although not nearly similar to the amounts seen in recent days."
Kauai County said in its statement that the rain meant the Kalihiwai Reservoir had been nearing capacity Saturday afternoon and residents in low-lying areas had been told to evacuate.
"Since that time, the dam has been inspected and it has been deemed safe for residents to return.
Officials will continue to monitor the reservoir," the county said. It advised residents to stay out of flood waters.
"Heavy rains have caused storm water runoff throughout Kauai, leading to widespread flooding producing large areas of standing water. Coastal waters have also been affected and a brown water advisory remains in effect until further notice."
