Pau Hana
Friday, December 22, 2006

For laborers who immigrated to the islands in the early part of the last century, “Pau Hana”— which translates literally as “stop work”— signaled the end of a day of back breaking toil in the sugar cane fields of Hawaii.
Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and Portuguese men dreaming of a new life made Hawaii their adopted home and, in the process, created a pupu platter culture that has given the islands their distinct and original flavor.
Outside of the Hawaiian islands, the stories of plantation life and the men who travailed are untold or simply forgotten.
My grandfather was one of these dreamers who made Hawaii his home. He followed the song of the islands to the north, hoping for a life of ease filled with riches. He found neither, but his years spent on the Wailuku Sugar Plantation, in Maui, filled him with enough wondrous tales to talk story long into the afternoon with his granddaughter— me. His tales of the islands shaped me; they are tales that I carry with me still.
Listen up! Learn the stories of your ‘ohana (family), talk story deep into the night, do not forget where you came from, allow the stories to lead you to where you belong.

Research: What is your story? Did your grandpa or great-grandpa work on a Hawaiian sugarcane or pineapple plantation, too? Want to learn more?
Contact:
Hawaii Agricultural Research Center
99-193 Aiea Heights Drive, Suite 300
Aiea, HI 96701-3911

If your pop came to the mainland, after his sojourn in Hawaii, chances are he began his mainland adventure in Seattle, as mine did.
If you want to research the logs of the Hawaiian passenger ships that brought contracted labor to the the mainland— post-plantation life— head over to:
The National Archives
6125 Sand Point Way NE
Seattle, Washington
Warning: come with the arrival year in hand or be prepared to spend countless hours in front of the microfiche machine.

Explore: Hawaii’s Plantation Village at Waipahu Cultural Garden Park, Oahu
The village features thirty original and replicated homes and buildings representing the various cultures that immigrated to Hawaii, to work the sugarcane fields, between 1900-1930.

Read: All I Asking For Is My Body by Milton Murayama
A Nisei boy coming-of-age, on a Maui sugar plantation, circa 1940.

Watch: Picture Bride
A slow moving, but emotionally evocative story of a Japanese picture bride adjusting to life on a Hawaiian sugar plantation.

Visit: The Sugar Cane Museum in Pu‘unene, Maui.
Housed in the former home of a plantation luna, or supervisor, this museum seeks to educate its visitors on plantation life in Hawaii.

Word: kau kau (Hawaiian) food or eat (English)
“We go kau kau?”
Something my grandpa was always asking me— in his broken English, coupled with the pidgin he picked up on the plantation— even if we both had full tummies. My answer was invariably... “yes!”

Aloha!
Blue Girl

posted by Blue Girl @ 6:20 PM,