This weekend, the centennial celebration of Filipinos in Hawai'i gets an early start in Honolulu with official dinners and speeches. But the key ceremony may be the one on Dec. 17 in Kea'au when a special statue honoring the Filipino sakada will be unveiled.

On Dec. 26, 1906, the first group of Filipino laborers — known as sakada — arrived from the Philippines to work Hawai'i's sugar plantations.

That humble beginning nearly 100 years ago marks the start of a historic migration that now finds Filipinos on the verge of becoming the largest single Asian ethnic group in the state.

In that time, we have seen a wave of immigration that Dean Alegado, chairman of ethnic studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, has described as a "tsunami."

We've also seen Filipinos become an inseparable part of all sectors of Hawai'i, with representation at the very highest levels of civic life as business and education leaders, governor and members of the state Supreme Court.

We mustn't forget that the foundation for such great success was with the arrival of the sakada.

As contract agricultural workers, sakadas were the lowest paid and least skilled, stuck firmly at the bottom of society.

They also faced discrimination that came to a head in 1924, when Filipino laborers organized a strike against the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association. "They faced goons and gangsters," said Dan Gonzalez, associate professor of Asian American Studies and coordinator of Filipino American Studies at San Francisco State University, who called the strike "one of the bloodiest in Hawai'i's history."

Remembering the pain of the sakada makes the centennial celebration of Filipinos in Hawai'i all the more satisfying. Out of that, a century later, has emerged what is arguably the strongest and most vital Filipino community in America, with an even brighter future ahead.