Mr. Speaker, colleagues and fellow Americans, aloha and mabuhay!

Irise today to provide richly-deserved recognition in the halls of ournation's Congress for a great people and culture whose century-oldjourney on our shores has personified the very essence of our Americanexperience. I speak in strong support of House Concurrent Resolution218, which I introduced with the cosponsorship of many like-mindedcolleagues, to recognize the centennial of sustained immigration fromthe Philippinesto our country and to acknowledge the incredible contributions ofFilipino Americans to our county over the last century. And I do sowith deep pride and great humility as the representative of thecongressional district with the most Filipino Americans and the statewith the largest percentage of Filipino Americans nationally, and withsincere gratitude to my cosponsors, to Government Reform Chair Davisand Ranking Member Waxman, and to our collective leaderships forbringing this measure to the floor expeditiously.

Mr.Speaker, those whose heritage lies in the great archipelago of thePhilippines have journeyed to our country and lived among us forcenturies. But the modern-day Filipino American immigrant experiencewhich has given rise to our current-day Filipino American communitytraces its roots to December 1906, when fifteen Filipino contractlaborers, or sakadas, arrived from Luzon aboard the ship Doric andbegan work in the sugarcane fields of Keaau on the Island of Hawaii. In the same year, the first class of pensionados arrived from thePhilippines to gain an education with the intent of returning home,although many stayed on.

Theseearly sakada and pensionado roots sparked a sustained emigration fromthe Philippines to the United States which, over the last century, hasnumbered upwards of 60,000 a year, marking Filipinos as oursecond-largest immigrant group from the Asia-Pacific region. Manycontinued to emigrate to Hawaii to work in the sugar fields - HawaiiSugar Planters Association records reflect over 125,000 up to 1946alone - and formed the base of today's 275,000 Filipino Americansliving in Hawaii, well over 20% of our total population.  And it is notjust my Hawaii that has benefited from the growth and maturity of ourFilipino American community, w hich now numbers 2.4 million nationwide,including 1.1 million in California alone.

Butit is in Hawaii where the full extent of the trials and tribulationsand accomplishments and successes of Filipino Americans has played outover the past century. Early generations worked long and backbreakinghours to provide the means to bring their families to Hawaii, and thenthose generations fought for basic rights and benefits on theplantations of Hawaii, and began to move beyond the plantations intoother aspects of Hawaii society, and to take ad vantage of theequalizing opportunity of education, and those generations whobenefited from the foundation of their forefathers built a broader basein the political, economic and social fabric of Hawaii, until, acentury later, the successes, both individually and collectively, areeverywhere.

Justsome of the past few decades: Benjamin Cayetano, Governor; BenjaminMenor, Mario Ramil, and Simeon Acoba, justices of the Hawaii SupremeCourt; Daniel Kihano and Robert Bunda, Speaker of the Hawaii StateHouse and President of the Hawaii State Senate, respectively; AngelaBaraquio, Miss America; Antonio Taguba, General, United States Army;Eduardo Malapit and Lorraine Rodero-Inouye, Mayors; Emme Tomimbang, TVnews anchor; Benny Agbayani, professional baseball player. And theseare just some of the more recognizable names, for Hawaii's FilipinoAmericans are succeeding, like their mainland counterparts, throughoutthe full range of society, from our military, where Filipino Americanshave demonstrated decades of bravery and loyalty to our country andhave one of the highest enlistment rates, to the professions,entertainment, business and beyond.

Lastweekend, Hawaii's Filipino American community and its many admirers andfriends kicked off a yearlong celebration of its centennial under theleadership of the Filipino Centennial Celebration Commission, EliasBeniga, Chair. This weekend, we will dedicate a marker to the originalsakadas at Keaau, where it all began. And nationally, our Smithsonianis undertaking a yearly celebration as well - titled The FilipinoAmerican Story, A Century of Challenge and Change - with commemorativeevents, exhibits and educational opportunities here in Washington, D.C.and at other sites nationally.

Mr.Speaker, I am sure that neither the original sakadas nor many whofollowed them here could have envisioned what the last century reapedfor them and theirs, nor that we would all stand here today and overthe next y ear to commemorate an incredible century, nor that we wouldcollectively look forward with eager anticipation to the story ourFilipino American community will write over the next century. Yet thatis exactly what we are doing and should do, for this is the story notjust of Filipino Americans, but the story of our America.

Mahalo,  Dios ti agngina, and salamat po!