Plantations

An agricultural system, generally a monoculture, for the production of tropical and subtropical crops, especially bananas, coffee, cocoa, cotton, palm oil, rubber, sisal, spices, sugar, and tea that are cultivated by resident laborers, which in former times were slaves. Old-style plantations, generally in Latin America, were developed to support the lavish lifestyle of their owners, but new-style plantations were often developed by colonial powers, and thus may be seen as a spatial expression of imperalism and capitalism.

Plantations were strategically located throughout the Hawaiian Islands for reasons including: fertile soil area, level topography, sufficient water for irrigation, and a mild climate with little annual variation. These plantations transformed the land primarily to suit water needs: construction of tunnels to divert water from the mountains to the plantations, reservoir construction, and well digging. Water was always a serious concern for plantation managers and owners. In the early 1900s it took one ton of water to produce one pound of refined sugar. This inefficient use of water and the relative lack of fresh water in the island environment were fiercely compounding environmental degradation. Sugar processing places significant demands on resources including irrigation, coal, iron, wood, steam, and railroads for transportation.
In contrast to the pensionados, most of the Filipino migrants to the United States during the colonial period came as cheap labor. During the first half of the twentieth century, Hawaii and California had agricultural economies requiring a constant supply of inexpensive, immigrant labor. Hawaii’s economy focused on sugar growing supported by plantation labor.

Hawaii sugar planters preferred to import Filipino labor for several reasons. First, since the HSPA paid the Filipinos the lowest wage among the different ethnic groups in the plantation, it was cheaper to import Filipino laborers even if they were provided free passage to Hawaii. Second, since the Philippines were a U.S. colony and the Filipinos were technically U.S. nationals due to their colonial status, from the legal standpoint it was practical to hire Filipinos. As U.S. nationals, there were not covered by the exclusion laws barring the importation of the other so-called "Orientals," mainly Chinese and Japanese. Third, Filipinos were viewed as leverage, an alternative labor to use against Japanese workers who were staging strikes to improve their conditions in the plantations. Fourth, because the Philippines were an agrarian country exposed to sugar growing, the HSPA felt that the Filipinos were suitable as sakadas. But sugar was not grown in Ilocos, thus Ilocanos, who comprised the bulk of the Filipino sakadas, were not really exposed to the harsh working conditions. Fifth, the Filipinos were perceived to be docile, subservient, and uneducated and, therefore, would not join labor unions and be prone to strikes. Finally, the Filipinos proved to be industrious and hardworking.

In cases of strikes, one ethnic group would be used as scab labor to break the strike of another ethnic group. Living arrangements, job assignments, and wages were also based on ethnicity. Caucasians were higher paid, considered skilled workers, and assigned supervisory positions. The lowest paid white worker was the plantation police who earned $140 a month. In contrast, the Japanese and the Filipinos were assigned the backbreaking work in the fields. They worked at least 10 hours a day, six days a week, 27 days a month for 90 cents a day or $20/month.
The Hawaiian plantations states that the workers’ response was resistance which took several forms. Workers resorted to violence like committing arson and assaulting the luna. A subtle form of response was recalcitrance such as work slowdown, intentional laziness, and inefficiency. Workers took turns serving as lookouts for the luna while the rest stopped working, smoked, and "talked story.

The workers complained of inadequate wages, poor housing, abusive plantation foreman or luna, strict plantation police, and general isolation. Plantation work was extremely difficult since it involved planting, hoeing, and carrying sugar cane. The Ilocanos were not used to this rigid, punishing working schedule. In Iloancos, they did not have to work as many hours and were not subject to a strict system, where the luna went around with a black whip and forced them to work strenuously for so many hours. The luna was backed by a police force capable of breaking down workers' resistance.