Decades before Filipino American agricultural workers organized a historic strike in California, Pablo Manlapit was organizing Filipino laborers in Hawaii.
Manlapit, who migrated to Honolulu in 1910 to work on sugar plantations, saw the exploitation of other Philippine-born workers — known as “sakadas.” A decade later and at great risk to his livelihood and marriage, he became Hawaii's first Filipino lawyer and pioneered a Filipino labor union demanding equal pay and an eight-hour workday.
