Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865-1945

3. With the Force of Wildfire

Chapter 3 With the Force of Wildfire Just as if with the force of wildfire, 7,000 of the compatriots, from each of Oahu's plantations, launched the great strike in the month ofMay. - Yasutaro Soga Demanding Equality Japanese resistance to oppression on Hawaii's plantations was recurrent, took a variety of forms, and sought the betterment both of individuals and the group. Women who ran away from abusive husbands were examples of individual acts of resistance. Protests at the point of production -breaking or losing tools, feigning illness, working at a slow pace, and running away-were acts of resistance in the workplace, whether or not the actors perceived them as such. Attacks on cruel lunas and plantation police, and arson in sugar mills and cane fields, were other worker responses to expropriation and oppression.! Collective action by workers was clearly the most impressive form of resistance . Although the participants often did not recognize that their resistance undermined the plantation system, their actions were certainly seen by the planters as a threat to the controls they exercised and, indeed, to their way of life. The historical record of collective resistance by Japanese workers on plantations before 1900 is unfortunately slender , although it is richly suggestive. In April 1890, at Heeia, 6 men were tried as rioters because they broke the windows of a fellow worker who had refused to join them in a planned strike; in May 1890, at Hakalau, 400 marched 42 Years of Migrant Labor, 1865-1909 to Hilo to protest overwork; in April 1891, at Hana, Maui, 150 walked off, complaining of nonpayment of wages; in June 1891, at Ewa, 200 marched into Honolulu to voice various grievances; in October 1891, at Makaweli, Kauai, 275 struck for unspecified causes; in November 1892, at Ewa, more than 200 walked to Honolulu to demand the firing of a luna who had helped a fellow luna fight off 5 attackers; in June 1893, at Kukuihaele, Hawaii, the entire workforce of 250 struck and marched to Honokaa to attend the trial of a luna who had shot and wounded a Japanese who had allegedly attacked him with a knife; in July 1893, at Hamakuapoko, Maui, 140 refused to work, claiming a holiday; in December 1893, at Paauhau , Hawaii, 63 struck over a meager water allowance; in January 1894, at Koloa, 150 chased a luna who had beaten a laborer and then paraded through the streets; in February 1894, at Mana, Oahu, more than 100 strikers were sentenced to work on the Pali road and at a quarry; in August 1894, at Ewa, a riot erupted over a plantation policeman's fight with a worker; in November 1894, at Kahuku, 150 marched to Honolulu, protesting a brutal luna and general mistreatment; in January 1895, at Kahuku, 120 struck over luna cruelty and walked to Honolulu; in June 1896, at Olowalu, Maui, workers assembled to protest unreasonable rules; in March 1897, at Waianae, Oahu, 200 struck over the arrest of two men who had refused to work, and at Spreckelsville, Maui, 300 mobbed and killed a Japanese interpreter; in July 1897, at Wailuku, Maui, 52 were discharged for refusing to work; in November 1897, at Ewa, 81 struck over a luna who had broken a worker's arm; in October 1899, at Olaa, Hawaii, 89 refused to work.2 After the annexation of Hawaii in 1900 and the termination of penal contracts, Japanese workers increasingly saw themselves in class terms and recognized that their strength lay in collective action. That the planters anticipated an upsurge in worker militance is revealed in a warning sent by sugar factor H. Hackfeld and Company to its plantation managers, predicting that the elimination of labor contracts meant "that any contract laborer may refuse to work at any time and you will have no remedy against him" and that laborers would very likely organize massive strikes to "take advantage of their present position and demand higher wages and other concessions."3 A government report listed twenty strikes by Japanese plantation workers, men and women, during 1900 alone. The largest single work action involved 1r350 strikers, and the total number of strikers in the year was 7,806 field hands, cane cutters and strippers, With the Force of Wildfire 43 and mill laborers.4 Not included in the tally were lockouts, such as the ten-day lockout of 43 Japanese and Portuguese women field hands at...