A piece of paper taped to the far wall of the BYU–Hawaii University Archives office can easily be overlooked upon entering. To the senior missionary couples and students who have been working tirelessly since 2007, however, the small printed scripture on this paper encompasses their motivation for spending hundreds of tedious hours scanning, cropping, and sorting thousands of records. The scripture urges, "Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause?" (D&C 128:22). The great cause in which these individuals are taking part includes digitizing almost 120,000 labor records documenting the migration of each Filipino that came to work on the Hawaiian sugar plantations during the early 1900s. The digital collection makes it possible for users to access information such as name, age, gender, date of arrival and/or departure, and plantation assignment on workers and their dependents, according to the collection description.
Matt Kester, BYU–Hawaii University Archivist, explains that the university obtained the records from the Hawaii Sugar Planter’s Association about a decade ago, and when he came to the university in 2004, the collection was stored in rusty file cabinets. Kester saw to it that the collection was freeze dried and rehoused in acid-free boxes and folders. “It’s miraculous how well these records have been preserved,” Dale Robertson, a Church service missionary from Laie, notes. “Some of them are nearly 100 years old, yet there is no bug, termite or water damage.”
In 2007, representatives from the Church Family History department reviewed the records and decided that it was time to digitize the collection. “There was always a lot of interest in digitizing the collection, but there was never any funding,” says Kester. “The grant needed to fund this almost five-year project would run into the tens of thousands of dollars, but because of the support of the Church and people willing to serve, we were able to do it. We so appreciate everyone that took the time to serve and the support that the Family History department gave.”
The collection is now available online, accessible through the BYU–Hawaii University Archives page or the BYU Digital Collections page. “No one ever technically has to look at these cards again,” says Kester. Of course, the staff would accommodate if someone wanted to see the actual record; however, having the collection available online will allow people from all over the world to access these records and find their ancestors and will assist in preserving the collection by reducing the need for handling the originals.
Kester explains the significance of the collection: “Almost every Filipino American living in the U.S. had family that came through Hawaii. … A lot of these cards will say the village where this individual came from in the Philippines, which is usually a major choke point. Then you can go back to records in the villages and see if you can find more information.” John Strang, a senior missionary from Salt Lake City, Utah, says, “I took a couple different names, just by random from the ship manifests, then went online and found that individual’s card that they had registered with upon arrival in Hawaii. When I searched for the card, there was information about their wife and all of their children, so I was able to put a whole family together because the names came up together.”
In addition to being a significant personal family history resource, the collection also contains information that is of interest from a social history perspective. Three of the 139 boxes contained names of people that had died during their time in Hawaii and the specific cause of their death. Other cards identify individuals who were involved in strikes, fights, or work-related accidents; still others indicate a worker’s wage or the amount of money sent home to support family.
“This is a milestone for us,” remarks Kester. To him, the project stands as evidence of BYU–Hawaii’s ability to collaborate with multiple organizations and devote resources to completing a major digital project. He anticipates similar projects in the future with more records from around the island.
“Even though it was tedious and repetitive, there is still a spiritual dimension to working on a project like this,” says Joan Strang, a senior missionary from Salt Lake City, Utah. Motioning to the scripture on the wall, she recalls, “Before we had this, the project seemed so technical. When Linda Robertson [another Church service missionary from Laie] brought that scripture in, I thought, ‘That’s true. We have to remember that this is God’s work.’ That helped me remember why we are here, not just to finish a project, but to help people find their ancestors.”
“Shall we not go on in so great a cause?”