The Industrial Condition of Women and Girls in Honolulu: A Social Study — John Shaqi
The Industrial Condition of Women and Girls in Honolulu: A Social StudyBlascoer, Frances
General
The Industrial Condition of Women and Girls in Honolulu: A Social Study
Blascoer, Frances
Child labor -- Hawaii -- Honolulu; Honolulu (Hawaii) -- Social conditions; Women -- Employment -- Hawaii -- Honolulu
The suggestion was offered by the foreman at one of the canneries that
if a serious effort were made the district might be turned into a
community of workingmen’s cottages. This seems a much more likely way of
cleaning up the industrial district at any rate, than any process of law
would be likely to lead to. If this could be done, and a club house
established where hot luncheons would be served and a rest-room
provided, it would indeed be replacing figs for thistles. No more
promising place for establishing a basis for relationship with the girls
who work in the canneries could be wished for than would be afforded by
such a center.
THE WORKERS
_HAWAIIAN._
The wage-earning Hawaiian has, as the kindly French saying goes, the
faults of his qualities. Naturally gay and pleasure-loving he has
worked, fished, swam, sang and feasted his way through life as he
listed, and it is only a generation since he took his rest with equal
ease on the shores of his beloved ocean or beneath the boughs of the hau
tree. Luaus and hulas were frequent and Hawaiian hospitality is still
proverbial. He has never learned to say “no” to whomsoever may be the
latest comer.
Each man had the grant of his own kuleana, with a taro-field on the
mountainside or up in the valley where the showers are frequent and a
place to fish on the seashore. The newly prepared taro-field yielded
first its wild crop of popolo; and cocoanuts, guavas, yams, mountain
apples, water lemons and breadfruit were his for the gathering.
Large numbers of the natives have now, however, almost wantonly
mortgaged, sold or given away their property. The temptation has been
great to lease the acre or acre and a half constituting their little
domain, to the Japanese or Chinese gardeners at $40 or $50 annually, and
then borrow small sums from their tenants, until some morning they wake
and find themselves no longer in possession.
Hundreds of families, too, still live on the lands of their old chiefs
or of the kamaaina families, who pay the taxes. So long as they live
they may remain there, raising their taro, flowers, chickens and pigs.
The fishing of commerce has passed into the hands of the Japanese but a
man’s own “catch” is sufficient for himself and family.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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