Puerto Rican Immigration To Hawaii - Struggle Against Discrimination

Struggle Against Discrimination

Olivieri Sanchez' victory was not welcomed by members of HSPA, who depended on the cheap labor non-citizens provided. In 1930, HSPA began to circulate false rumors, they made it be known that they (HSPA) were planning to recruit laborers in Puerto Rico, while at the same time they had the "Honolulu Star Bullentin" and some local newspapers they controlled run anti-Puerto Rican stories, that—for example—claimed Puerto Ricans were "unhealthy hookwormers who had bought disease to Hawaii".

In Dec. 1931, Olivieri Sanchez wrote a letter to the editor of the "Hawaiian Advertiser" where he stated that he saw all of the rhetoric as a tactic by the HSPA to push all the different ethnic groups in the local labor force back to work on the plantations. He was right, the HSPA wanted to persuade Congress to exempt the territory from a law, which in 1924 was requested by California to prevent the migration of Filipinos and Japanese nationals to the U.S. (National Origins Quota Action (Immigration Act) and Johnson Immigration Act of 1924). HSPA's secretary treasurer claimed that the association was unwilling to import Puerto Ricans to Hawaii. His defamation of Puerto Ricans condemned not only the Puerto Ricans of Hawaii, but also those on the island. Despite the efforts of Olivieri Sanchez, HSPA had their way and Hawaii was exempted from the stern anti-immigration laws of the time.

The power of the plantation owners was finally broken by the activist descendants of the original immigrant laborers. Because they were born in a United States territory and they were legal American citizens, they gained full local voting rights and actively campaigned for statehood for the Hawaiian Islands.