Talking Hawai`i's Story: Oral Histories of an Island People

A FAMILY TRADITION

ABIGAIL BURGESS AND LILLIAN CAMERON A FAMILY TRADITION We moved down in Damon Tract, I’m not sure, but it could have been around when I was about thirteen, fourteen years old then. You could always tell a lei seller by the flowers that was growing in their yards. We had crown flowers, we had plumerias, we had ‘ilima, pïkake, baldheads, and candle flowers that we use all for making leis. Abigail Burgess and Lillian Cameron, of Hawaiian-Chinese-Spanish ancestry, are the daughters of Mary Ann Opulauoho and Robert Hew Len. The fifth child and oldest daughter of twelve children, Burgess was born in Kohala in 1922. Cameron, the seventh child, was born in 1926, after the family had moved to Honolulu. As a youngster, Burgess sold lei with her aunt at the Honolulu Harbor waterfront on boat days, when passenger ships would dock or embark. With their family, the sisters also sold lei in Waikïkï and Downtown Honolulu . In the late 1940s, the Hew Lens opened their Lagoon Drive lei stand, a converted station wagon or truck, also called a “banana wagon.” In 1952, the Hew Lens, along with other Lagoon Drive lei sellers, were moved into Burgess and Cameron, “A Family Tradition” 11 grass huts on airport property by the then territorial government. After their mother retired, a brother, Arthur Hew Len, operated the stand, renaming it Arthur’s Lei Stand. When Arthur Hew Len passed away, Cameron took over the business, with the help of Burgess and other family members. Burgess and Cameron were interviewed in 1985, after COH was approached by members of the Airport Lei Sellers Association to document the history of their twelve lei stands. Recognizing the cultural and historical signi ficance of lei making and selling in the Islands, COH undertook Ka Po‘e Kau Lei: An Oral History of Hawai‘i’s Lei Sellers. While the project focused on the lei sellers at Honolulu International Airport, it also chronicles lei making and selling as practiced elsewhere on O‘ahu. At her first meeting with the sisters, interviewer P. ‘Iwalani Hodges remembers sitting and talking at their aunt’s dining-room table for six-and-ahalf hours, while Hodges took notes and gathered biographical information. Tape-recorded interview sessions began a week later. Burgess’s and Cameron ’s accounts are juxtaposed in the following narrative. * * * * * BURGESS: Well, we lived different places, like Queen Street and close to the fire station. You know, different places around Kaka‘ako. And that was, I think, the best place, Kaka‘ako. Because we could go down the beach, fish for our own food. All the fish, all the squid, all the ‘öpaes you wanted, limu— oh, there were tons of limu. If you got too much, you just gave it to the neighbors . So those days was really nice, everybody sharing. [Kaka‘ako had] just a few stores here and there, and a church. So, there was mostly neighborhood, where they had Pordagee [Portuguese] camp, Japanese camp, kanaka camp. That meant that people who were Hawaiians usually would try to live in that area. Chinese, they had, but not too many. Not down that area. They had a few around here and there, but they didn’t have their own camp. Japanese were famous [for that], though. When Japanese had their camp or areas, Japanese would always go in that area and live only. They would not mix with the other nationalities. See, Portuguese, Hawaiians would mix. Filipinos would mix. But not the Japanese. People, lot of ’em really got along. But then, like kids, we all used to fight with one another, with the different groups. Get smart, like calling them names. You know, calling Pordagees “codfish,” and all that. We called the Japanese then, “You Buddhaheads.” The Hawaiians, they would call, “You kanakas” (chuckles). We always had more [at home] than our own family. You know, immediate one, which is my brothers and sisters, and my mother and father. 12 Talking Hawai‘i’s Story We always had my mother’s father, my mother’s sisters and brothers. During those times, during the depression time, they would stay with her. Well, we only had about two bedrooms. We hardly had any furnitures in it. So, lot of us slept on the floor. Just throw some mats, throw some blankets down, and everybody slept on the floor, whoever. You know...