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AH QUON McELRATH

HAWAIʻI LABOR HISTORY

The Struggle Never Ends premieres on PBS Hawai‘i on October 17 at 8:30 PM on PBS Hawaiʻi Presents. The documentary will be repeated on Sunday, October 20 at 1:00 PM and streamed live at pbshawaii.org.

Ah Quon “AQ” McElrath (1915-2008), was an intellectual force who gave voice to Hawaiʻi’s working class, and helped power a labor movement based on racial equality that transformed Hawaiʻi from a semi-feudal oligarchy to a modern labor democracy.

Born to immigrant Chinese parents and raised in extreme poverty, she became one of Hawaiʻi’s most influential leaders, helping shape the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) into a powerful force for social change. After retirement from the union, she continued to work tirelessly for social and economic justice. She championed universal health care, education, press freedom, civil and human rights.

Her lifelong leadership in education resulted in an appointment to the University of Hawaiʻi’s Board of Regents.

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AQ the Film

By exploring her life, the Ah Quon McElrath Project documents some of Hawaiʻi’s most important history and demonstrates how one woman’s compassionate determination helped to lift thousands of families out of poverty.

Her remarkable story is inextricably tied to critical historical events. Her life journey encompasses not only the rise of labor unions in Hawaiʻi, but reveals the selfless and heroic sacrifices of a generation of working people.

Her story chronicles the labor movement’s achievement of decent hours, decent pay, safe working conditions, and a voice in the direction of Hawaiʻi's future for working class people.

AQ the film

AQ the film

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Support

Why should I support the AQ Project?

With your support, we will create a documentary that preserves forever the life story of this extraordinary woman! Through rare and fascinating footage, we will illustrate the struggle of those who labored on plantations, on docks, and in hotels and factories.

The Project will maintain a robust website that allows free access to the documentary, to our complete interviews for the documentary and other projects, and to our educational materials about Hawaiʻi history and culture. In addition, we will create curriculum materials for classroom use to insure that this important history is not lost in the chasm of time. These components build on three decades of video documentation of Hawaiʻi’s plantation culture and labor history captured by the Center for Labor Education & Research (CLEAR) at the University of Hawaiʻi - West Oʻahu.

AQ on Political action

02:08

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.

AQ McElrath on Political Action

02:19

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.

Organizing

03:40

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.

Aloha United Way

03:45

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.

ILWU education work

02:58

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.

AQ, a fighter for the rights of women

01:24

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.

Smelling the roses

01:31

Smelling the roses

Claire Shimabukuro, shares her insight into AQ’s philosophy about needing to “smell the roses”!

AQ McElrath-Unions & Benefits for the community AQ April website segment

01:48

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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The Crew

The Crew

Civil Rights Demo ILWU 1965

Chris Conybeare

Producer

Chris Conybeare has won numerous awards, including an Emmy, for his documentary productions about Hawaiʻi. Through his work, he has helped create a digital moving image archive that documents Hawaii’s plantation and working class history. He helmed the international news program, Asia Now, with partners, Japan’s NHK, and PBS stations KCTS Seattle, and PBS Hawaiʻi. As an attorney, he has been at the forefront of struggles for human rights, both at home and abroad. AQ McElrath is one of his personal heroes and he sees the current documentary project as both a tribute to her and a message about compassion and courage for future generations!

Joy Chong-Stannard

Producer/Director

Joy Chong-Stannard is a Hawaiʻi based independent filmmaker with extensive experience in archival research of historic photographs, moving images and historic documents that lend a visual dynamic to her portrayal of island history. Chong-Stannard’s fascination with Hawaiʻi past led to directing and editing productions that explore the dynamic social and economic upheavals of Hawaiʻi’s history that include Betrayal, the award-winning nationally broadcast docudrama of the overthrow of Hawaiʻi’s last reigning monarch and the ongoing Biography Hawai‘i series. Her production of Ka Hana Kapa tells the inspiring story about a small group of women who sought to revive the ancient art of making kapa or Hawaiian bark cloth. She is also the Producer/Director of the live weekly public affairs program, Insights on PBS Hawaiʻi.

Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl

Screenwriter

Screenwriter Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl is a writer and educator. She has been the researcher, writer, and co-Producer for the popular series Biography

Hawaiʻi on PBS. She has also written numerous other Hawai‘i history documentaries, including Jack Hall: His Life and Times. Her volume of plays and three mystery novels have been published by UH Press. Ms. Kneubuhl is the recipient of the Hawaiʻi Award for Literature, our state’s highest literary honor.

The project is a collaboration between the Hawaiʻi Labor Heritage Council (HLHC),

the Center for Labor Education and Research (CLEAR), University of Hawaiʻi-West Oʻahu, and Hawaiʻi Women in Filmmaking. Made possible thanks to the generous support of Frank Moy and Marcia Mau and the Hawaiʻi Council for the Humanities.

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