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This is Harvey Schwartz. This is the 9th of May. It is 1996. I'm with Abba Ramos. We're in um. El Cerrito, California, and um Uh, but can you, uh, Can you tell me just a little bit about your background, about yourself, like where you were born

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and when you were born? Uh, yes, I was born in, on the Big Island of Hawaii. In 1934, the year of the general strike. Can you tell me a little bit, um, you're born in the Big Island. Can you tell me a little bit about your

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background, where your parents came from, what kind of work they were doing? What their background was? My parents came from the Philippines. Uh, in the twenties. Uh, as contract laborers. Uh, for the sugar plantations in Hawaii. And uh And, uh, you know, we were a family

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of, uh, actually, uh, you know, 10 people. Uh, all my brothers and sisters. I'm the youngest of 10. So all my sisters and brothers. You know, we're, I mean, we're born in Hawaii. And so obviously you can see from the time of arrival, uh, in fact,

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my oldest brother apparently was a year old, which I did not know until, uh, we examined some, uh, you know, you know, try to get some records from the Hawaii Sugar Planners Association, uh, because most of the records are very, very sketchy. Uh, without, you know,

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too much details. Right. What kind of work did your folks do? My dad was a sugar worker. Uh, and came in as a contract laborer like I said, so the, the option there was to work whatever contract you had 2 or 3 years and then hopefully

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return back home, uh, with a pocket full of money and be wealthy and, uh, and lived a good life in the Philippines. How did that turn out? But apparently, uh, that didn't happen. Uh, we were on the, you know, at that time, we, you know, while

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growing up, uh, you know, we, we know we're on a plantation. Uh, words that we didn't know until, until union organizing drives were started about, uh, you know, paternalism. It was a paternalistic, yet I think now looking back, uh, very exploitative. How so? Not in terms

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of, uh, you know, you had. Uh, I mean, we were poor. Money poor Uh, hunger was not the problem, as you know, Hawaii grows abundance of food because of the, you know, the weather, the climate, the growing season is all year round. So in essence, the,

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uh, you know, plantation owners, uh, uh utilized that. They made the workers feed themselves. And, and give them very little uh. Uh A remuneration in terms of their labor, uh, in the planting and harvesting of the sugar crop. But they own the plantation stores. So whatever

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basic necessities that you have to have like lard and things like that that you, you'd buy. From the store, uh, they were gracious enough to, uh, give every family unit, uh, you know, the right to purchase at their, at their store, and they would carry over

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the bill. The following month, like the old. Uh, you know, plantation system. What if you tried to buy outside? Well, there was no other choice. There weren't no stores really out outside of the the basic plantation stores. You got your you got your cooking, uh. A

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few from them kerosene. I remember that the kero the old kerosene stoves. Uh, so they were the only, you know, after all, the sugar company. Uh, brought in all those supplies from the mainland. And they controlled Mattson. It's their company. So they had, uh, which later

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on I. I understood what the Harold Bridges and Jack Hall and guys like Louis Goldblatt were saying. That uh they had uh total complete control. The big five had. Uh, you know, a horizontal and vertical, uh, control. Sure, when, when you were economic structure when you

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were, um. Uh, living, when you were living in basically in plantation system, what was the housing situation? Uh, we had, uh, you know, there were camps in the various plantations when I was growing on the Big Island, especially there were like 14 plantations. Uh, all along

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the Hamakua coast stretching from the port of Hilo, in fact, up into Kawu, all the way up to Hamakua. And uh uh each plantation had camps. Uh, anywhere numbering from 800 to maybe, you know, 1500, uh, uh, workers. Uh, what amounts to families, maybe 30-400 families.

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Uh, some were larger than others, naturally, and, uh, You know, camp life wasn't bad for, uh, you know, as a kid growing up. Uh, you know, the thing there was that the camps were separated by ethnic groups because of language barriers. Uh, but like what Jack

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Hall used to say. Uh, you know, the one mistake the missionaries made was, uh, the fact that they kept people segregated. But they sent their children all to the same school. We all came out speaking Pidgin English and now we could communicate with one another. And

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that brought the, you know, ingredient of uh And all the social things were done were done together because we went to school together we grew up together the emphasis was naturally to learn English. Or to speak English. In fact, in school, I can recall that uh.

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You were promoted Or advance in school on how proficient you were in English. More than anything else. It's interesting. Do you, um, Do you remember, you would have been very young, but No, you, it's right, 34, you wouldn't have remembered that. There were some efforts to

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get unions started in the twenties that were ethnic in their, in their lineup. That is to say, you know, the Japanese would organize or the Filipinos would organize separately. Do you, do you have any sense of that and how that was overcome? That's really what's important

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for the ILW. Well, now looking back, uh, you know, my dad was an activist, and I think, uh, you know. I had some of that. He, what was his full name? Marcelino Ramos, although he never had any formal education. Uh, we were one of the very

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few Filipino family units. Because as you, you know, at that particular time, the ratio between men and women, especially amongst the Filipino group, were like maybe 40 to 1, 40 men and to 11 woman. So my, my mom, uh, enjoyed a very powerful position in a

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sense, as you could, as you could see from the roosting, she went through, you know, 3 husbands really. OK. Uh First was Bastasa, then Mandawi, and then Ramos. Yes. Um, and, and, and Dad was a kind of activist, and, uh, you know, the Filipinos would meet,

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you know, but this is later on that he told us the stories. What did he tell you? In fact, he was in exile for a couple of years on, on another island. You know, he had to He had to move and uh you know, we're wondering

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where Dad was. Uh, my mother used to say, well, he will, he'll be back. He will be back pretty soon. He will be back, but he was, uh, he was, uh, he was working under another name on the island of Kauaii. I see. What, what, what

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did he do? Do you know specifically to get? Well, they, they were apparently from what I heard is that he would, they were involved in the strike with the Pablo Molape group, uh. You know, in the earlier days, as you say, when in fact when Lapit

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was deported at, you know, I believe, uh, for moral turpitude he was charged with, which was, uh, a set up. It was, it was proven later that he was framed and that they just wanted to take away the leadership well. Uh, the strike was, uh, was

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not successful, and, uh, because they were doing it all on ethnic lines and then obviously it became where they would use one group against each other. They would give the other group a little more money. They would give them a raise to, you know, to come

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to work and if the Japanese went on strike, then they would use the Filipinos. In fact, the Filipinos were used against the Japanese. The Japanese were first to. To to go out on strike and then the Filipino group then were were brought over because of uh.

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Uh, because of the, of the rising population of Japanese, I'm sure that management figured, well, it's time to bring another ethnic group, so they, they, they couldn't be. You know, uh, I mean, unite. So, so, uh, your dad finally got back to the big island. He

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finally got back to the big island. He was given a, a kind of form, not a formal amnesty, but they were all, you know, uh, and then he. He, uh, you know, went back to work. He moved from Papaloa or Lapohoehoe Sugar Company to Hilo Sugar.

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Uh, this was just, just before the, uh, Uh, the big sugar organizing drive. OK, so you'd be in the range of, um, 89 years old at that time. Yes, well, it, it, it, uh, right, uh, because 1941 I would be, uh, what, 677, yeah, 7. I

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recall distinctly at that time because, uh, at 7 I remember when we, when we, uh, were at church. Sunday morning, December 7th when the announcement of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Uh, everyone rushed on home and started digging air raid shelters. That much I remember distinctly.

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Uh, every family was digging air raid shelters down. And uh Uh, but as a result of that, looking back, now I have a much more deeper perspective and understanding. Uh, I might not have known that at that time, but, uh, there were efforts to organize. From

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the 30s, after the, the, you know, the 34 strike, but as a result of the war, everything was put on hold. And everybody was giving for the war effort that that was the emphasis. So in fact, uh. So it retarded the whole process until the war

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was over. So it didn't start again until 1946 is when really the strike of, of sugar workers, the war ended I believe in 1945, so it didn't take very long because they would, you know, the workers were just waiting for it to, for the opportunity to

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get, uh, to have the right to organize and even that was questioned whether they had the right to organize because if you recall, uh, I remember discussions later on in my life. In fact, I wrote a paper when I was in school in that area. Uh,

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along those areas where, where the The sugar workers were covered under the National Labor Relations Act, you know, because, uh, uh, here on the mainland, the agricultural workers were not covered, so naturally the employees, they were using, well, these agricultural workers, they're not covered on the

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NLRP. Therefore, then, but then in the meantime, the political process was changing. Because of the sheer numbers of sugar and pineapple workers, which was the, the bulk of the population on those islands. The fact that they became organized by the ILW that that that presented a

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tremendous political uh uh uh force. Which then uh gave the workers the right to it I think they enacted a so-called Little Wagner Act designed for Hawaii was called the Little Wagner Act in Hawaii. um let me just. Um So the Little Wagner Act was enacted,

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yes, uh, which, which, uh, then became territorial law, and then they were, uh, naturally the whole struggle for, for, uh, for the right to form, you know, to form a union in Hawaii, uh, uh, you know, was bitterly contested and fought against by the, by the

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employee group. Do, do, do you remember the, the, um, um. 46 sugar strike at all. Yes, I, yes, I do, uh, very distinct because by then, uh, at the camp that we were living, we were in Hill of Sugar then. Uh, I used to be the

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person that used to wait for the organizers, uh, like Henry Schmidt was there. They called him Hanna Lei, you know, I remember, in fact, he gave me a, a book that I'll never forget. Uh, and was a book, uh, by Paul Robeson called Here I Stand.

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And he told me to read that book. And in fact, the reason why he gave me that book was that Paul Robeson came to Hawaii in the 1946 strike to do a concert for the sugar workers. And there was a big struggle. They would not permit

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him or the union to use the high school auditorium. So instead it ended up in a big rally and a concert in a public park. And this was the first time. That I came that close to the first time I've seen an Afro-American person. Really? It's

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amazing. At that point, you see, and, and, and, and yet, uh, he, he, I mean this man just blew me away in the sense that I think he sang in, I don't know how many different languages, and, uh, it was a festive atmosphere, and there was

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big, big rallies. There were a lot of food booths by all the different ethnic groups, so it was like a luau, you know, and, and, and the kids especially enjoyed that. In fact, during the strike period. What I remembered the most was that we were eating

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better during the strike. Then then when my parents were working. Because, you know, everyone, you know, we had a soup kitchen. Uh, all the ethnic groups would get together. There were reports, uh, uh, from the various, uh, uh, picket captains. There were, uh, hunting committees, fishing

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committees, gardening committees, and it was a, it was a luau. For us kids anyway, you know, no one was hungry. Uh, everyone tended to their, uh, as, as we Filipinos say, to their chickens and And then my dad, we raised some hogs also, so. So as

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far as that, he was very festive. You know, there was no need for, you know, there was no. No scab hurting around at that time. Um-hum. You know, cause, uh, because of, I guess the isolation out there in the Pacific. Uh, but it's interesting in a

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sense that when I used to hear, especially the men folks, when my dad guys would get together with his friends. And they had their little their their chickens. They were exercising their chickens and whatnot. And they would be talking about the oppressiveness of the employer, some

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of the The lunas, as they call them, which is the straw bosses, the superintendents. And, uh, you know, and they would say, well, what are you going to do? You can't swim back. You're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, so later on I felt, hey,

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in life I said, well, now I understand it much more clearly that these guys in fact were really held hostage. You know, when you look at it, you mean, you mean the workers. Yes, and some of the workers his friends, for example, which has a connection

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and I believe you've done some work in that area with, uh, there were a lot of young Filipinos who came who tried to escape the plantation system and the only way they could, uh, escape from there. was to get passage on the sugar boat that came

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to Crockett. And a lot of them, you know, had to pay, and then because of the, the understanding of the seamen, you know, some of them, you know, were put on boards, smuggled, if you will, on board those, those sugar boats, and they ended up on

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the mainland. But then arriving on the mainland, then you had another set of problems. They still ended up in the farms, you know, and as you know, in the 30s in the valley. You know. Sure. Uh, and then, uh, but that's the extension, the, the local

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37. Uh, because Chris Manzalvez, Ernesto Manga and those names, uh, ring a bell in Hawaii. They originally came stuck in Hawaii. And even Larry Italy on guys and Philippea Cruz, all the farm workers even back in the 30s. Under the old Yukapawa. The Filipinos were, were,

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uh, you know, were, you know, were an organized group in a sense, and a lot of them came, you say a lot of them came through Hawaii, came through Hawaii through the plantation system, and then, and then seeing how difficult it was to, it was just.

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Hard, backbreaking work those days. It was strictly, there was no mechanization. It was all Done by handcock and fluming as you know the old flume system. I I I recall the flume system because we used to have fun on uh on Sundays on the flume we'd

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slide all the way down to the mill. Uh, the fluming system was quite uh an operation so. Amazing. You, you mentioned um that during the 46 strike, you, you had Some contact with the organizers when you were a young kid. What were you doing with the

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organ helping the organizers? Well, they were having secret meetings underneath the Japanese church or in the camp, and they would wait until it was dark so the camp boss couldn't see who was coming into, into the camp. Otherwise, you know, they, they, because, because the employer

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had their, had their stooges, you know, they had their camp bosses. So the steward, uh, would come to me and says, uh, Abba, you wait down at the road. The bottom of the road down there when you see this little car come up, you're gonna see

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two holiday guys coming out of there and say, you escort him, bring him up here, go the back way, you know which way to come. So, you know, we take him around where he wouldn't be seen and we, uh, you know, take him underneath the Japanese

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church in the basement. So you would escort them. I would escort. So like these two guys were Henry Schmidt. Yeah, Henry Schmidt, Frank Thompson was there was there for a while. Uh, a number of people used to come on over. Even, in fact, even when Jack

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Hall guys used to come on up into the Louis Goldblatt, there were a couple of times in the early point that Louis Goldblatt was there. And, uh, So you're a little kid then and when you're escorting the the ILW how the organizers, right? That's great and,

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and, and, uh, you know, I know they were having meetings there. I never quite understood it fully, but I used to get 25 cents for it because I used to stay up on the porch, uh, at the church there because they had one of those, uh,

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you know, since it was a Japanese church, they had one of those bells, and if I see any of the camp boss, I was supposed to ring that bell to put them on notice that, uh. You know, that someone was coming and then they would make

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like they were just uh having a poker game or they were gambling. Um, OK, uh. Are there, are there, are there any other um. Small details or stories from the 46 strike that you recall that you did. No, except rushing home from school and, and, and,

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uh, you know, waiting for, uh, uh, you know, the soup kitchen to open because, uh, there were all the goodies there, you know, you had from, from malasadas, the Portuguese ladies who have. We do all their baking of all the sweet breads and malasadas and Japanese

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sushi, yeah, I mean everything, it was really, really alu we as kids, I, I know we enjoyed that. In fact, I see some of my old classmates and we still talk about that. You know, that was uh. That was something. Well, um, At that time as

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a youngster, did you have any sense of the importance of that of that whole matter? I mean, you're pretty young, you know, it's like you're, yeah, well, uh, you know, by the time as we were growing up as the struggle, uh, became much more intense because

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there was a long bit of strike and then they, they still didn't give up to try to bust the, you know, the ILW there on the islands, and that was during, uh, now, now looking back, that's, that's during the, you know, the whole period like up

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here the mainland where they were going after, uh. Uh, the so-called people on the left, or, you know, the McCarthy, you know, period was, uh, was developing. OK, I was gonna that it does sort of come next. There were a couple of incidents in 1947. There

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was a pamphlet by Izuka, for example, the pamphlet was put out and then there was a so-called, he put out something called the Truth about communism and there was Ignacio revolt in the end of 47 and early 48. You're still pretty young, but you know, do

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you have any, you may be 48, you're getting on to I wasn't too much involved in the political things though it was later on in my life going back and Uh, trying to reconstruct that that period that obviously. Uh, you know, the employers got to some

00:23:04.430 - 00:23:20.190

people. You know, the guy August Diaz, you know, he got, he got to some people on promises and, and whatnot, so the, the struggle for unity was still there, and yet they were successful in. In trying to divide and destroy really the leadership of the union

00:23:20.190 - 00:23:38.430

there and discredit the union movement there by using, uh, you know, communism, the red scare, as, as, as the whole, you know. As their way of trying to destroy, uh, uh, you know, the ILW, how did that impact on you as a youngster, like when you're

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a teenager, your dad had been an activist, your dad was in the ILW, obviously, you know, um. Are there When you're a kid, like going to school, are there, are there, yes, the scrubs that you're given regarding this McCarthyism thing, you know, you see what I'm

00:23:55.890 - 00:24:11.440

saying? Well, yes, the school teachers were naturally pro-employer, most of the teachers that I had. Now looking back reflecting, you know, and I've done this a number of times in my life now looking back that yeah most most obviously they were they were trying to discredit

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the union. Uh, for whatever reason, they said, well, these guys are trying to, you know, to teach and advocate the violent overthrow of the government that, that I said, well, that's not the way I see it, you know. And I used to ask teachers, what, why

00:24:27.880 - 00:24:43.920

do you say these people are bad, you know, people didn't even when all they're trying to do is help the sugar workers, help us. They never said anything bad. You know, what kind of an answer did you get? Oh, it's just, well, you don't know, you

00:24:43.920 - 00:24:58.820

know, I mean, you just, you know, they just put you down like that, you know, now looking back. That that's all it was. They, they did, I said none of these people are good people. They come and try to help us. You know, and like my

00:24:58.820 - 00:25:12.540

father used to say, I said, Uh, because I recall distinctly about an FBI guy or whether he was a government guy that came over to the house to try to discourage the Filipinos away from Harry Bridges. He says, you know, this guy Harry Bridges is a

00:25:12.540 - 00:25:30.030

big communist and all this kind of thing. My father's, my father's response was very classic, uh, you know, I thought now looking back when he said, Well, I don't know what you talk about these communists, me no go school, me no understand that. But now I

00:25:30.030 - 00:25:53.110

got better pay. Now I can buy Xbox. I have now insurance. Is this communist, then give me some more. I mean that was the response. I mean, you know, he says, hey, what's what's what's wrong with that? We never had that before. Um-hum. That's good. Um-hum.

00:25:53.490 - 00:26:14.740

That's very good. Um, Do you, you recall the 1949 longshore strike? There was a big longshore strike in 1949. You were in sugar, but the longshore strike was such a big deal. Well, by, by 1948, I was, uh, I kind of ran away from home. I

00:26:14.740 - 00:26:34.550

was venturing out from the big island. I took the sugar boat and ended up on Oahu. Really? I went to live with my uncle. He was a longshoreman because my dream was to ship out. I wanted to go to the mainland eventually, so I figured my

00:26:34.550 - 00:26:50.240

best chance would be in Honolulu. And during the war years there, uh, in fact, it was right after 46. I was, uh, I was doing a lot of shoe shining, uh, shining shoes and doing things like that because there were a lot of military people there,

00:26:50.650 - 00:27:10.270

especially on Oahu. So the forty-ninth strike, I was on Oahu at that time. And that's when I recall they had the so-called broom brigade and all that with the, uh, employers all. Their wives came out to sweep out all this. This, uh, These reds from here

00:27:10.270 - 00:27:25.330

who are trying to communize the islands, as they said, the Hebridges is trying to communize the islands and all that kind of. The talk was in the paper already. Yeah. Yes, but, uh, you know, at that time I was fending for myself. I was doing well,

00:27:25.620 - 00:27:47.010

uh, on, on the streets and, you know, living, living right there near Ala Park, which is, uh, was the heart of where the Filipinos. Uh, we're living Uh, you know, in Oahu. You were shining shoes, shining shoes. And doing other odd things delivering uh. Uh, you

00:27:47.010 - 00:28:05.990

see, a lot of people don't realize, uh, that during the war years. Uh, beginning March of 1942, in fact. You know how I was under martial law. See, I, you know, I mean, they don't tell that so, so much, uh, you know, but, uh, I never,

00:28:06.210 - 00:28:25.090

never understood what martial law, but there were blackouts. They were, everybody had to be registered. You had to carry registration and whatnot, right? But I understood why now later why they they put us under martial law. And I've had discussions with this, uh, a number of

00:28:25.090 - 00:28:45.290

people, in fact, uh. Because of the incarceration of the Japanese and Hawaii had a large population of Japanese. Now, Obviously they couldn't just put the Japanese in concentration camps in Hawaii. I was discussing this with Danny and Oy, in fact. Who's now senator and, and, and

00:28:45.290 - 00:29:02.790

I says Danny it's obvious when you look back what they did was institute martial law. But I said, I said everybody then on the islands were impacted as a result of martial law. It, it became a concentration camp. We were restricted. Filipinos were restricted. Orange, everybody

00:29:02.790 - 00:29:25.030

else were restricted. I said, where's my reparation? You know, Hawaii, Hawaii became a, Hawaii became a concentration camp. That's the argument. I think, I, I think, I think we've got a claim here. Well, certainly organizing was stopped, you know, yes, organizing. Yeah, it was stopped. All,

00:29:25.210 - 00:29:46.810

all that stuff. So I should say there were denial of basic, uh, legal rights. Do you, um, Is there, we're getting toward the end of this side. Do, do, we were talking about the 49 strike. Um Is there any, can you describe what you saw in

00:29:46.810 - 00:30:00.850

that famous, there was that famous Broom Brigade which you mentioned. Can you describe what you saw of the Broom Brigade and, you know, With a little, like a little story or example to it. Yes, well, the Broome Brigade was, was like I said, was all the

00:30:00.850 - 00:30:23.310

wives of the, uh, uh, uh, the pro-management group that came out using again the anti, uh, anti-communist, uh, uh, hysteria. You know Yeah, uh, using that, uh, you know, as their, as their wedge to try to, you know, divide the people. And, and, and, and, and,

00:30:23.360 - 00:30:39.870

uh, so they, they are massful I guess now looking back, you know, for public relations purposes brought brooms and say sweep out all these communist leaders we don't need them here in Hawaii and that Hawaii is, uh, now being, uh, being strangled by uh by these

00:30:39.870 - 00:30:58.240

reds, you know, guys like Harry Bridges and Goldblatt and Jack Hall, and that's why then, then as a result of that came out the, the Smith Act trials were, you know. The Smith was implemented there, the Hawaii Seven, the Reluctant 39. All those who refused to,

00:30:58.590 - 00:31:14.810

you know, they were subpoenaed by, by HUAC and the Senate Internal Security Committee came to Hawaii to conduct hearings with Senator Eastland, the racist Mississippi senator, who was that Senator Eastland. Oh yes, of course, and his committee. He was chairman, I think, of that committee. And

00:31:14.830 - 00:31:24.130

I spent All my days just at the hearings because they would. No kidding. Yeah. Let me, let me, let me turn this over.