From Martial Law to Multiculturalism: Filipino American Internationalism and the Hawai'i–Philippines "Special Relationship"

When Ferdinand Marcos’s personal Philippine Airlines 747 touched down at Honolulu International Airport on April 20, 1980, it marked the culmination of two competing allegiances for Hawai‘i’s Filipino community. For many local Filipinos, such as the 4,000 community members who gathered at the airport tarmac to welcome the Philippine strongman, Marcos’s visit was a source of ethnic and national pride. Organized by the Philippine consulate and local Filipino travel associations, this faction saw the ostensible achievements of the Philippines “New Society” under martial law as a vehicle for the project of ethnic uplift of Filipinos in Hawai‘i and an opportunity to profit from the growing political and economic ties between Hawai‘i and the Philippines. But for Hawai‘i’s local anti-martial law movement, Marcos’s visit represented US complicity with Philippine dictatorship at the national, state, and community level—a complicity shaped by shared Hawai‘i and Philippine histories of colonization, labor exploitation, militarism.

Using Marcos’s 1980 visit as a point of departure, this paper explores the divergent diasporic orientations of Hawai‘i Filipino community members towards Philippine martial law. I argue that these transnational engagements revealed the converging projects of Hawai‘i multiculturalism and martial law in the Philippines. As I show, this “special relationship”—undergirded by overlapping plantation economies, balikbayan tours, state diplomacy, and the symbolic position of Hawai‘i Filipinos—was alternately challenged and reinforced by Hawai‘i Filipino community leaders. Tracing the activities of community institutions such as the United Filipino Council of Hawaii and anti-martial law groups including Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino (Union of Democratic Filipinos), I argue that the contested meaning of martial law for Hawai‘i Filipino community politics reflected how global questions of postcolonial sovereignty, US empire, and transpacific commerce shaped local community politics in the Filipino diaspora.