Puerto Rican Immigration To Hawaii - Struggle For U.S. Citizenship

Struggle For U.S. Citizenship

According to the State of Hawaii Data Book 1982, by the year 1910, there were 4,890 Puerto Ricans living in Hawaii. Both Puerto Rico and Hawaii were territories of the United States however, the passage of the Jones-Shafroth Act of 1917, the same year that the United States entered World War l, granted American citizenship to the Puerto Rican resident in Puerto Rico and excluded those who resided in Hawaii. Yet, the "non-citizen" Puerto Ricans were assigned draft numbers and were expected to serve in the military.

The Plantation owners, like those that comprised the "Big Five", found territorial status convenient, enabling them to continue importing cheap foreign labor; such immigration was prohibited in various other states of the Union. In 1917, Puerto Ricans in the island, believing that they were entittled to the same rights that every other U.S. citizens had, tried to sign up to vote in a local Hawaiian election and were denied their rights by the county clerk who claimed that early immigrants to Hawaii were not covered by the Jones Act.

Manuel Olivieri Sanchez, a court interpreter at the time, became enraged in what he viewed as a violation of the civil rights of his fellow countrymen. He encouraged his fellow Puerto Ricans to protest by telling them that "If you are not allowed to vote, don't answer the draft call". Olivieri Sanchez led a legal battle for the recognition of the Hawaiian Puerto Ricans as citizens of the United States. In the first legal battle the lower court ruled in favor of the county clerk, however Olivieri Sanchez did not give up the fight and took the case before the Territorial Supreme Court, which reversed the decision of the lower court, granting the Puerto Ricans of Hawaii their United States citizenship.