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
Finally, Dr. Scudder says that he has been thinking along these lines
for twenty years and feels that this industrial inquiry will be of
immense value in bringing to the notice of many who are also interested,
a tangible plan of action as the result of knowledge of conditions. He
intends speaking on the necessity for child labor laws, to be enacted by
the next Legislature, so that the deplorable conditions existing in
other countries need never be known here, and he will endeavor to enlist
the sympathy and influence of his congregation. His own interest has
been quickened, and he believes that the Kaiulani Home Board should be
heartily congratulated on having been the means of instigating an
inquiry which it is hoped will crystallize into some definite and
concerted program for the betterment of social and industrial conditions
in Hawaii nei.
JULIE JUDD SWANZY,
Chairman.
October 29, 1912.
GENERAL STATEMENT
TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE KAIULANI HOME, AND MEMBERS OF THE
CITIZENS’ COMMITTEE OF THE HONOLULU SOCIAL SURVEY.
In this crossroads community of Honolulu—a community where defying
Kipling, not only the East and West, but also the North and South meet
(and like one another) there are almost as many races and admixtures
represented as a man has fingers and toes.
A girl born of a mother whose blood is half-Hawaiian and half-Chinese,
and of a Norwegian father, works side by side on the one hand with a
Korean maiden and on the other with a young woman who is negro-American
through one parent and German-Hawaiian through another. The daughter of
a Portuguese-Japanese mother and an American father schoolmates with the
child of a Basuto woman and an Englishman; while side by side
Portuguese, Porto Rican, Japanese, Hawaiian, Filipino and Negro, with
all these and other inter-racial variations, eat their lunches side by
side in the pineapple canneries and laundries. Schools, athletic teams
and other activities show the same racial composition.
And quite as assorted as the blood is apt to be the mode of life, dress
and thought of this polyglot population. One sees a Chinese woman in her
charming native costume of brocaded silk, her hair carefully pomaded and
profusely ornamented, while her feet (not by any means the
“golden-lilies” so rapidly passing into oblivion) of the small-footed
Chinese are encased in silk hose and patent leather pumps. Furthermore,
she leads by the hand a small daughter in full American panoply, not
omitting the butterfly bow of ribbon in her hair. If followed to her
home she will be found eating her bowl of rice or stewed mushrooms with
a spoon, instead of the historic chop-sticks, her children doing the
same or more likely making their fingers do duty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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