Appium keeps trying to clear text on empty textfields

Looking for help on this certain issue where Appium wastes about 15 seconds on each textfield before entering text. It keeps attempting to clear text that doesn’t exist. There is placeholder text in each field that disappears after the textfield is active. Can I make Appium not clear text?

ntId":"1","text":"ningxin.liao@mutualmobile.com","replace":false}}
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Got command of type ACTION
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Got command action: setText
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Using element passed in: 1
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Attempting to clear using UiObject.clearText().
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Could not check for hint text because the element is not focused!
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Clearing text not successful. Attempting to clear by selecting all and deleting.
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Could not check for hint text because the element is not focused!
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Clearing text not successful. Attempting to clear by sending delete keys.
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Could not check for hint text because the element is not focused!
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Exhausted all means to clear text but 'Username * ' remains.
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Text not cleared. Assuming remainder is hint text.
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Sending plain text to element: nick.moore@test.com
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] [BOOTSTRAP LOG] [debug] Returning result: {"status":0,"value":true}
[debug] [AndroidBootstrap] Received command result from bootstrap
[debug] [MJSONWP] Responding to client with driver.setValue() result: true