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AQ on Early Labor Organizing - Part 1
Ah Quon tells us about union organizing in Hawaiʻi. She began by explaining how Hawai‘i workers, living on the most isolated land masses on the planet learned about unions and the labor movement. Part of the answer to this question was that merchant seamen brought word about the movement from the U.S. Continent. Among those sailors were: Harry Komoku who organized the Hilo waterfront and the first ILWU local in Hawai‘i; Jack Hall who would lead the development of the ILWU across all Islands; and Bob McElrath, ILWU Communications Director, pioneering the use of radio to spread the union message. There were of course others, like Bill Bailey, originally from Hoboken New Jersey. Bailey was involved as an advisor to the 1937 strike by Filipino workers on Maui. These men experienced the 1934 Longshore strike on the U.S. West Coast and were able to bring their knowledge of the labor movement and lessons of solidarity to Hawai‘i.
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AQ on Political action
In November 2006, AQ sat down with us for an interview about the life and times of ILWU Regional Director Jack Hall. AQ had been involved with the labor movement and struggles for social and economic justice since her days as a student volunteer in the 1930s. We asked her to reflect on how conditions had changed from those early days of union organizing. In typical AQ fashion, she gave us a succinct 2-minute analysis of problems that needed to be considered by those involved in the union movement.
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AQ McElrath on Political Action
AQ was active as a volunteer for pro-labor candidates from the time she was a student. In 1944, with the formal founding of the ILWU in Hawai‘i and the naming of Jack Hall as its director the union developed an extensive and highly effective political action apparatus.
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Organizing
Our director, Joy Chong-Stannard, found the following excerpt from an interview with AQ that we recorded in 2008, just weeks before her death! We were talking about attempts by sugar workers to organize before the ILWU and the historic 1946 sugar strike! She began discussing various attempts at organizing , beginning with the first strike by Hawaiian workers on Kauai. This triggered a reminiscence about when she and Bob McElrath came to Kauai in 1941 to help with an organizing effort by Jack Hall at the Lihue plantation and a little known 10-month strike.
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Aloha United Way
Not many people today are aware of labor’s role in creating the Aloha United Way organization. In 1966, with leadership from the ILWU’s Jack Hall, labor and business leaders agreed to create the agency that would serve as a collection and disbursement point for donations to a wide variety of non-profit social service programs. Ah Quon acknowledges this as a “good idea” but opines that while the Aloha United Way did a good job of collecting funds, it also removed working class community members from participation in addressing social issues.
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ILWU education work
In November 2008, just weeks before her death, AQ sat down with us for a series of interviews. The following is an excerpt from one of these sessions. AQ always expressed the belief that the union was a way for “working people to take control over their own lives and contribute to the welfare of the larger community.” We asked her about practical ways the ILWU helped make this a reality. In 1954, Ah Quon was hired as a full-time social worker by the union. At the same time her friend, David Thompson, was hired as education director. Ah Quon now had an opportunity to help shape rank and file education, turning theory into practice and strengthening the union.
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AQ, a fighter for the rights of women
Throughout her life, AQ was a fighter for the rights of women. Her consistent message was that through the trade union movement women can win parity with male colleagues. Our director/editor, Joy Chong-Stannard has found an interview with Ah Quon from 2008. She talks about how she helped educate wives and women friends of longshoremen about how union membership benefits the entire family. AQ started working as a volunteer with the labor movement and the ILWUas early as 1932. Her story illuminates a time of dynamic change in Hawai‘i’s political and economic system.
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Smelling the roses
Claire Shimabukuro, shares her insight into AQ’s philosophy about needing to “smell the roses”!
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AQ McElrath-Unions & Benefits for the community AQ April website segment
Our moving image archive continues to provide a look at history with excerpts from Rice & Roses programs. We were surprised and happy to find a treasure trove of material from film reels that were discovered at the Bishop Museum. Today we feature an excerpt from a program that was produced sometime in the late 1970’s. Many of our interviewees report that the efforts of organized labor often go far beyond narrow collective bargaining issues and often benefit the entire community, not just union members. AQ relates numerous examples of this, one of the most significant examples was the 1974 Prepaid Health Care Act.
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AQ stories
Stories from the Plantation by Barbara K...
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03:12
BARBARA KAWAKAMI-Picture Bride Research story FEB. 2025
We were saddened to learn of Barbara Kawakami’s death at age 103 in December 2024. Barbara was an outstanding public historian. Education enabled her storied career, but she was not a university faculty member. She shared from her home, and many showed up on her doorstep, seeking her knowledge on Hawai‘i’s plantation era. Among people who came to learn from Barbara included local academicians looking for details for a paper, visiting linguistics professors seeking help with older Japanese language dialects (of which Barbara was conversant), and representatives of national museums, like the Smithsonian Institution and the Japanese American National Museum, wanting information on vintage kimono. Most would go away enriched in historical knowledge, and probably with fruit from Barbara’s yard or a loaf of homemade banana bread! Barbara was born in Japan, and was brought to Hawai‘i by her family when she was 3 years old. She was forced to drop out of school so she could help her family earn income. After spending 38 years as a plantation dressmaker, she finally obtained her GED and entered college at age 53. She earned BS in fashion design and later an MA in Asian Studies. Barbara did all this and raised 3 children while writing and publishing two award-winning books: Japanese Immigrant Clothing in Hawai‘i: 1885-1941 and Picture Bride Stories.
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02:35
Picture Brides
In 1986 local historian Barbara Kawakami and Women’s Studies Professor, Alice Chai introduced us to their project on picture brides. They had collected stories and photos from a sampling of women who came to Hawaiʻi as picture brides, with marriages arranged by families in which the bride and groom only knew each other from exchanged pictures. The stories told by women from Japan, Okinawa, and Korea, contained a range of human emotions from sadness to joy and often humor!
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01:43
Robert Muroda and midwife story
Robert Muroda was born in Hawai‘i and worked on the Wai‘anae Plantation. He shares a story told to him by his mother, a famous plantation midwife during the early 1900s. Delivering babies in the field where the pregnant patient was working was not uncommon!
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02:19
Mrs. Endo and the horse doctor
Mrs. Endo came to Hawai‘i as a picture bride in 1913. While working in a remote field in 1922, she was seriously injured. Her harrowing story is told to us by historian, Barbara Kawakami.
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01:52
Ayako & Masaki Tabusa - Wedding Story
Ayako and Masaki Tabusa were married in 1932. There was some anxiety on the part of Ayako and her family since she was a “city girl”, marrying a “country boy” and they would be moving to the country and plantation life! Still it seemed to work out since when we interviewed them they had been married for more than 50 years! They recall the wedding and celebration at the Waipahu Japanese Social Club.
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01:54
A Maid Story - Barbara Kawakami
In our archive we have an example from the remembrances of historian and former plantation worker, Barbara Kawakami. It was a new beginning for her when she he took a job as a maid for a well to do haole (Caucasian) couple. Barbara was both terrified and excited about this opportunity to see how others lived. It was her first real experience with haole culture and she was fascinated with the food consumed by her employer. Among other things, she was intrigued about, Jello!
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01:55
Kid's Games
Noboru Shimabuku and Henry Texiera grew up on Hawaii Island’s Olaa Plantation. When we interviewed them in 1996 they were both retired. Initially they teased each other about trips to “Vegas” but soon switched to talk story about games they used to play!
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01:33
Arrival in Hawaii as a picture bride
Oʻahu Sugar Company worker Kaku Kumasaka (1899-1987) recounts to historians Barbara Kawakami and Franklin Odo her first night in Hawaiʻi as a newly arrived picture bride in 1922.
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02:02
Arrival In Hawaiʻi
Ewa sugar plantation worker, Haruno Tazawa (1897-1994) immigrated to Hawaiʻi from Fukushima, Japan. She shares with historian Barbara Kawakami her first impressions of Hawaiʻi as a newly arrived picture bride.
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00:26
Singing Holehole bushi
Oahu Sugar Company worker Sashichi Kumasaka (1895-1987) sings a holehole bushi. The lyrics were sung by Japanese plantation workers to a standard folk melody that accompanied their laborious cane stripping work. "Bushi" is the Japanese word for melody and "holehole" is Hawaiian for the dried sugarcane leaves that had to be manually stripped from the stalks at harvest.
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01:58
Plantation work clothing
Oahu Sugar Company worker Kaku Kumasaka (1899-1987) and her husband Sashichi (1895-1987) model for historian Barbara Kawakami some of the original clothing Mrs. Kumasaka sewed for their work in the sugar cane fields.
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04:33
Plantation housing
As a bride, Kamiko Yahiro moved into her home on the Oʻahu Sugar Plantation in 1926. When we visited her in the 1980s, Ms. Yahiro still maintained the lifestyle of a bygone era, providing us with a window on the past.
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00:37
School students were punished for speaking Japanese or pidgin
Barbara Kawakami recalls that school students were punished for speaking Japanese or pidgin!
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07:57
Wedding kimono dressing
Barbara Kawakami dropped out of school to be a seamstress and help her mother earn income. She collected stories of plantation picture brides. She would return to school earning a BA in Fashion Design and an MA in Asian Studies. She introduces Mrs. Shizu Kaigo and friends as they display the special 3 layer kimono that Mrs. Kaigo wore for her wedding in 1916.
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02:03
Being attacked by an Obake!
Barbara Kawakami remembers her first day at August Aherns School. She spoke no English, and her first encounter with her haole (Caucasian) teacher was a frightening experience. She thought she was being attacked by an obake (ghost)!
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01:40
Catching crabs and digging for clams and oysters.
Barbara Kawakami remembers some good times in the 1920s with trips to the ocean near Pearl Harbor, for catching crabs and digging for clams and oysters.
Stories from the plantation
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03:58
Hawaiʻi rich railroad history
For more than a decade Honolulu has struggled to build a 20 mile rail system from Kapolei to Ala Moana Center! At its inception the project was projected to cost 5.1 Billion and be in service by 2020! The current projected cost tops 12 Billion and the completion date seems to be a moving target. Many might be surprised to learn that Hawaiʻi has a rich railroad history due to the once dominant sugar industry. All told, there were hundreds of miles of mainly narrow gauge rail lines on all the Hawaiʻi Islands. While the initial purpose was geared to sugar production, many also carried passengers and freight. Kauaʻi is credited with the first rail development, a 3 mile narrow gauge track opened on the Kilauea Plantation in 1881! Maui and Hawaiʻi Island also developed railroads, but not surprising is the fact that the most substantial effort took place on Oʻahu. In 1987 our Rice & Roses episode, Memory Lane, featured a look at the well preserved locomotives that were on display at Kauaʻi’s Grove Farm Museum. We were fortunate to include interviews with some of the men who worked on the plantation railroad and to capture scenes of children enjoying a rail experience!
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01:10
Season's greetings
The month of December is filled with holidays and cultural observances. The big ones are, of course, Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa, and many celebrate the end of the year, like the Japanese with Omisoka. Director Editor Joy Chong-Stannard searched through our extensive video and film archive and found a short film clip (without audio) showing a Christmas celebration on the Ola‘a Plantation, circa 1946.
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04:44
VINCE YANO (1988) 1970 Decriminalization of Abortion
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03:42
Gabriel Ruiz Hiroshi (Gabe) Baltazar Jr. (1929-2022)
Gabe was an internationally acclaimed jazz musician (alto saxophone and woodwind doubler). His mother, Chiyoko Haraga, born in Hawaiʻi, was the daughter of Japanese immigrant plantation workers who came to Hawaiʻi in 1900. His father, Gabriel Baltazar Sr. was born in Manila and came to Hawaiʻi as a musician in 1906. I interviewed Gabe in 1987 for a Rice & Roses episode: Music from Filipino Camp. Gabe began playing professionally at age 14. He talked story about his early days learning his craft playing in “taxi-dance” halls, where lonely Filipino plantation workers could pay to dance with women and earn some respite from their solitary existence. Gabe’s talent would take him from Hawaiʻi dance halls to perform with some of the Jazz greats, like Gene Fuller, Dizzy Gillespie, and James Moody. He spent almost 5 years as lead alto sax player with the Stan Kenton Orchestra. He was also a regular at the NBC studios, playing in studio bands for shows by Pat Boone, Johnny Carson, The Smothers Brothers, and Phyllis Diller. Following his illustrious career on the United States Continent, he returned to Hawaiʻi as assistant director of the Royal Hawaiian Band and also continued to perform and mentor local musicians. For details on Gabe’s life and career, see the autobiography: If it Swings its Music, written by Theo Garneau, University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2012. Each month we bring you stories from our Rice & Roses video archive. Preservation and digitization of the collection has been made possible by a generous donation from Frank Moy and Marcia Mau.
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03:03
Plantation Nicknames
The historic record often highlights elected officials or names deemed famous by various media, neglecting those actually responsible. It rarely features the working people who helped change Hawai‘i’s social order. Reflecting on Hawai‘i’s labor history, the workers who challenged and ended the oligarchy were known far and wide by their nicknames, like AQ, Sleepy, Pinhead, Mustard, Cotton, and Fat. There was a girl named Butch and a Guy named Shirley! At the 1983 Pu‘unene Reunion, “Mustard” Murayama explains how he got his nickname and then reads a list of names attending the reunion. ‘Ola‘a Plantation’s “Cotton” Fujioka elaborates on the theme of nicknames, and ‘Ola‘a worker “Fat” Nagata, adds his story and tells how “Butch” got her name.
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00:52
Claire Shimabukuro & AQ on LGBTQ rights
Years of education about racism, poverty and social justice by the ILWU was a major factor in community awareness of the issues. During AQ’s final illness in 2008, she was researching LGBTQ issues and saw these as the continuation of struggles for human rights. AQ’s friend, Claire Shimabukuro, tells us about bringing resource material to AQ’s hospital bed so she could continue to research and fight.
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01:43
Robert Muroda and midwife story
Robert Muroda was born in Hawai‘i and worked on the Wai‘anae Plantation. He shares a story told to him by his mother, a famous plantation midwife during the early 1900s. Delivering babies in the field where the pregnant patient was working was not uncommon!
Play Video
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02:19
Mrs. Endo and the horse doctor
Mrs. Endo came to Hawai‘i as a picture bride in 1913. While working in a remote field in 1922, she was seriously injured. Her harrowing story is told to us by historian, Barbara Kawakami.
Play Video
Play Video
01:52
Ayako & Masaki Tabusa - Wedding Story
Ayako and Masaki Tabusa were married in 1932. There was some anxiety on the part of Ayako and her family since she was a “city girl”, marrying a “country boy” and they would be moving to the country and plantation life! Still it seemed to work out since when we interviewed them they had been married for more than 50 years! They recall the wedding and celebration at the Waipahu Japanese Social Club.
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00:47
Katsue Asakura sings holehole bushi
Sensei Harry Urata and Professor Franklin Odo introduced us to Katsue Asakura who came as a picture bride at Wainaku's Nikai-sen camp on Hawai'i Island in 1920. When we met her and husband, in 1984 they had been married for 64 years! Their arranged marriage had become a love marriage! Plantation workers often made up songs to be sung while working. These songs, called holehole bushi chronicled hardships and longing for Japan. Not all songs were sad, Mrs. Asakura shares one about passionate romantic love!
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01:54
A Maid Story - Barbara Kawakami
In our archive we have an example from the remembrances of historian and former plantation worker, Barbara Kawakami. It was a new beginning for her when she he took a job as a maid for a well to do haole (Caucasian) couple. Barbara was both terrified and excited about this opportunity to see how others lived. It was her first real experience with haole culture and she was fascinated with the food consumed by her employer. Among other things, she was intrigued about, Jello!
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02:46
Filipino Camp Music
Here a clip of Filipino musicians to whom we were introduced by television journalist, Emme Tomimbang, for a Rice & Roses show: Music from Filipino Camp, in 1988. Since our notes on this production are not readily available, we ask for your help in identifying the members of this band! If you recognize someone please let us know.
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01:37
Kid Days
Historian and former Oahu plantation seamstress, Barbara Kawakami, echoes the notion that kid times meant toys and activities that didn’t cost money. Climbing trees, picking plums, mango, avocado, and guava that grew in abundance, was both fun and profitable!
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01:55
Kid's Games
Noboru Shimabuku and Henry Texiera grew up on Hawaii Island’s Olaa Plantation. When we interviewed them in 1996 they were both retired. Initially they teased each other about trips to “Vegas” but soon switched to talk story about games they used to play!
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01:33
Arrival in Hawaii as a picture bride
Oʻahu Sugar Company worker Kaku Kumasaka (1899-1987) recounts to historians Barbara Kawakami and Franklin Odo her first night in Hawaiʻi as a newly arrived picture bride in 1922.
Play Video
Play Video
02:02
Arrival In Hawaiʻi
Ewa sugar plantation worker, Haruno Tazawa (1897-1994) immigrated to Hawaiʻi from Fukushima, Japan. She shares with historian Barbara Kawakami her first impressions of Hawaiʻi as a newly arrived picture bride.
Play Video
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00:26
Singing Holehole bushi
Oahu Sugar Company worker Sashichi Kumasaka (1895-1987) sings a holehole bushi. The lyrics were sung by Japanese plantation workers to a standard folk melody that accompanied their laborious cane stripping work. "Bushi" is the Japanese word for melody and "holehole" is Hawaiian for the dried sugarcane leaves that had to be manually stripped from the stalks at harvest.
Play Video
Play Video
01:58
Plantation work clothing
Oahu Sugar Company worker Kaku Kumasaka (1899-1987) and her husband Sashichi (1895-1987) model for historian Barbara Kawakami some of the original clothing Mrs. Kumasaka sewed for their work in the sugar cane fields.
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02:34
Plantation Clothing
Ewa Plantation worker Haruno Tazawa (1897-1994) was a widow with four children. She reccounts her story to historians Barbara Kawakami and Franklin Odo about her struggles to supplement her meager income.
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04:33
Plantation housing
As a bride, Kamiko Yahiro moved into her home on the Oʻahu Sugar Plantation in 1926. When we visited her in the 1980s, Ms. Yahiro still maintained the lifestyle of a bygone era, providing us with a window on the past.
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00:37
School students were punished for speaking Japanese or pidgin
Barbara Kawakami recalls that school students were punished for speaking Japanese or pidgin!
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00:18
Lesson in Solidarity from 1946: Eddie Lapa
The digital age and streaming have created conditions where many performers can barely make ends meet, even those appearing in high profile productions. For the many who eke out a living on local productions, the situation is dire. (See: SAG-AFTRA Can Agree on One Thing: It’s Time to Crush the Big Studios). CLEAR’s Rice & Roses documentary specials have a proud tradition of utilizing SAG-AFTRA members. SAG-AFTRA and the WGA are fighting some of the wealthiest corporations in America. I’m reminded of the 1946 Sugar Strike in Hawaiʻi, when 26, 000 workers challenged Hawaiʻi’s Big Five corporations and the feudalistic system that allowed a handful of companies/families to control the entire economy. The sugar workers and their union waged a successful strike and broke the back of the Hawaii oligarchy! Eddie Lapa, a former sugar worker and later president of ILWU Local 142 reminds us of a simple truth:
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01:46
Claire Shimabukuro on Health Care
AQ’s friend, Claire Shimabukuro, recounts some of the issues that AQ encountered in her fight for health care.
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03:00
A Tribute to Franklin Odo (1939-2022)
Franklin Odo, died in September. He was a teacher and leader in the struggle for human and civil rights. He used his scholarship to challenge racist beliefs and outmoded paradigms of racial superiority. His thinking and teaching cast light on dark and hidden corners of history. He inspired countless numbers of students, fellow academics, and the general public to examine heritage and personal history as a key to understanding the bigger picture. Franklin was born in Hawai‘i. His parents were shop keepers and later farmers. He graduated from Kaimuki High School and went on to earn degrees from Princeton (BA and PhD), and Harvard (MA). Franklin had a huge influence on the development of Asian American history and Ethnic Studies throughout the United States. He also had a major influence on me. We met in 1982 shortly after I was selected to produce and host Rice & Roses, the then-weekly public TV program about labor and the working class. I had significant experience in social and economic justice struggles on the US Continent, but had only a superficial understanding of Hawai‘i history. Franklin, who was appointed (in 1978) director of the Ethnic Studies Program at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa became a mentor and then a friend for more 40 years. In 2009, I interviewed Franklin in conjunction with a Rice & Roses special: Canefield Songs: Holehole Bushi. He was in the process of writing his book, Voices from the Canefields (Oxford University Press 2013), and we had collaborated on video interviews with several women who would be featured in both the documentary and book. In this interview, he shared a wonderful story about his personal transition from elitist academia to a pioneer in the field of Asian American Studies. Franklin developed and directed the Asian Pacific American Program at the Smithsonian Institution, then was Interim Chief of the Asia Division of the Library of Congress, and finally returned to teaching as the John Woodruff Lecturer at Amherst College. For those wishing to know more, visit this website. Franklin’s long and distinguished career is a testament to the knowledge that the struggle never ends. He will be sorely missed. But fortunately he has equipped his many students and colleagues with the tools to continue the struggle against racism and oppression! Aloha Oe, Franklin Odo!
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01:09
Leonard Hoshijo - ILWU Housing Representative and Organizer
Leonard Hoshijo's role as ILWU Housing Representative and Organizer in an interview for Rice & Roses that was conducted by my predecessor Max Roffman.
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02:23
Leonard Hoshijo
Leonard Hoshijo addressing a session for ILWU shop stewards.
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02:28
Union representation at Legislature
In 1958 the Territorial Legislature doubled the number of legislators and the ILWU organized support for progressive candidates including some of its own people, like Yoshito Takamine. Takamine was elected to office with only a 30 vote margin over his rival. Takamine stayed in office after Hawaiʻi Statehood in 1959 and served for 12 consecutive terms. As Chair of the House Labor Committee he helped pass legislation protecting workers. His leadership was responsible for the passage of legislation giving public employees the right to form a union. He was the principal architect of the Hawaiʻi Prepaid Healthcare Act (1974).
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01:25
Baseball as organizing tool during Martial Law
Historian, Dr. Franklin Odo tells of Hideo “Major” Okada and how baseball helped advance union organizing.
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02:58
Surfriders Athletic Club by Yasu Arakaki
Olaa Plantation’s Yasu Arakaki shared his story in a 1995 interview about “what’s in a name, baseball and union organizing”. Yasu was a brilliant organizer and headed up the Hawaii Island baseball league and the ILWU effort to organize the island!
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01:02
1946 Filipinos recruited on ship
Ben Achetta recalls being recruited on the boat on his way to Hawaiʻi.
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01:10
1946 Strike recruitment of Filipino workers
Alfredo Villanueva remembers picketing during the strike and the recruitment of Filipino workers.
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01:15
1946 Sugar Strike excerpt - Filipino sakadas
The Union scored an important victory when their supporters in the Seamen's union succeeded while en route to Hawaiʻi, in signing up Filipino workers in the ILWU. They marched off the ship with union cards in hand!
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01:01
Tony Bise on discrimination
Hawaiʻi’s plantation system used racial manipulation to divide workers and maintain control. Workers were segregated into racial camps and a divide and conquer strategy was employed to keep them from working together to improve their lives. The ILWU had to overcome these divisions as labor organizers sought the creation of one big industrial union, with worker democracy and equality as guiding principles. Sugar worker, Tony Bise explains how immigrant groups were segregated by plantation owners.
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00:51
Mitsue Thompson on solidarity
Former plantation store worker and union activist, Mitsue “Butch” Thompson, explains how racial unity was a key to ILWU organizing that led to a major victory in the 1946 sugar strike. This 79 day strike marked the beginning of the end of “Big 5” hegemony and the oligarchy’s dominance of Hawaiʻi’s working class!
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00:27
Mamoru Yamasaki on the 1949 Dock Strike fight for wage parity
Mamoru Yamasaki on the 1949 Dock Strike fight for wage parity for Hawaii Longshoremen who were paid less than their counterparts on the West Coast
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00:50
Despotic rule
Hawaiʻi plantation workers were subject to despotic rule by plantation owners and bosses. Yasu Arakaki recalls how the plantation manager attempted to pressure him to break off his engagement to marry.
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02:07
Bribes, bribes, and bribes!
Plantation workers were often subjected to a system of bribery in order to win concessions from bosses. Yasu Arakaki tells a story of a particularly painful episode for his family.
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00:38
AQ and the craft of labor organizing
ILWU social worker Ah Quon McElrath was instrumental in helping to organize and preparing workers for a strike. Her friend Claire Shimabukro reccounts how AQ taught her the craft of labor organizing.
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00:56
Political Action
Olaa Plantation worker, Yasu Arakaki, possessed organizational skills, and helped design the structure for the 1946 Sugar Strike. He also became involved in organizing the political campaign that was necessary to compliment union economic bargaining.
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00:40
Voting "right"
Seiko “Shirley” Shiroma’s parents moved to Kahuku when he was 7 years old. He grew up on the plantation and as a kid began working in the fields. He experienced harsh and uncaring treatment by the bosses and became a leader in the ILWU movement to organize workers.
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00:38
Surviving a 6 month dock strike
International Longshore & Warehouse Union, Local 142 (ILWU) stevedores went on strike in 1949 to win wage parity with mainland dock workers. Stevedore Enoka Kaohi was from the island of Kauaʻi and explains how longshore workers were able to feed their families during the six month strike.
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00:55
Striker morale during a 79 day strike
On September 1, 1946 26,000 Hawaiʻi sugar workers and their families (76,000 in all) began a 79 day strike. The strike soup kitchen played an important role in maintaining unity.
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