Between 1908 and 1924 nearly 20,000 Japanese, Okinawan and Korean women
arrived in Hawaii as "picture brides" while thousands of others
also migrated to the U.S. Mainland. Photographs extended traditional matchmaking
across oceans and reflect women's participation in 20th century immigrant
communities. In Hawaii, this concentrated emigration of young Japanese
women and the subsequent growth of families changed the composition of sugar
plantation communities from primarily single male laborers to a mix of families
and laborers. Immediately upon arrival in Hawaii, women contributed both
paid and unpaid labor to their families and communities. Their work in
the cane fields and in their homes ensured the economic survival of their
families and the development of a sustained family community on Hawaii's
sugar plantations.
4:00 am Women wake to prepare breakfast & lunch
5:00 am Whistle! Wake-up
6:00 am Gather at train or walk to field
11:00 am Whistle! Kaukau
11:30am Whistle! Kaukau pau -- go back to work
4:30 pm Whistle! Pau Hana
Go to furo/bath
Fix dinner
Garden, sew & other family care
8:00 pm Whistle! Lights Out
Continue family care activities as necessary
Immigrants came to Hawaii to earn money and the wives of sugar workers,
including Japanese picture brides, constituted a key financial resource.
While young men married to establish households and obtain the benefits
of marriage--home cooked meals, sexual relations and a family --they also
expected, and needed, their young brides to contribute to the family coffers.
In 1910, one-third of all employed Japanese women worked in the sugar fields.
Assignment to a "women's field gang" immediately upon arrival
was typical. Women on the sugar plantations earned 50¢ for a 10-hour
work day and were expected to work six days a week. A full month's pay
of $13 was based on 26 days of work and equalled 66% of Japanese men's wages.
Women typically weeded the fields (hoe hana), irrigated (hanawai), stripped
the cane of dry leaves (holehole) or cut seed cane (pula pula). However
when women worked with their husbands in contract (konpan) gangs, they did
everything, including the heavy work of cutting, carrying and loading cane.
The canefields were a social space as well as worksite. With families to
care for, women had little free time and fieldwork offered daily contact
with other women. The companionship of others is what women most often
remember about their field work days. As picture brides, women often emigrated
to new communities without the support of sisters or mothers. They created
new networks of friends from their prefectures to replace the assistance
of friends and female relatives back home.
Pregnancy necessitated a decision between fieldwork and other income-earning
activities. Not only was field work hard physical labor, but watching over
a child in the fields was difficult and required a sympathetic luna. While
a number of "progressive" plantations offered childcare, not everyone
had access or could afford the fees. Thus, women used a number of childcare
strategies including tying their infants to their backs or leaving their
younger children in the care of an older sibling or a neighbor. Other women
left the canefields and earned money providing laundry, meals or clothing
for the "bachelor" men on the plantations. For many women, this
was the only way to combine family responsibilities with income earning.
While the emigration of Japanese women during the picture bride era changed
the composition of the plantation camps there still remained a large community
of single male laborers. In 1910 men outnumbered adult women 2-to-1 in
the Territory and in some communities, the sex ratio was even more skewed.
Concurrent with picture bride emigration, sugar planters recruited young
single Filipino laborers. A 1927 census of all 43 sugar plantations reported
that while the ratio of Japanese men to women was 1.5:1, Filipino men outnumbered
Filipinas 7 to1 and unfortunately for men on the neighbor islands, most
Filipino women lived on Oahu. Both Filipinas and Japanese women earned
money providing domestic services--laundry, clothing and meals--to single
men. The money women earned, from fieldwork, laundry or a combination
of both, was essential for their families' survival.
In addition to their income-earning activities, women also performed
unpaid work at home as they maintained the wellbeing of their families.
After an exhausting 10 hours in the fields women returned home to care
for the household needs of their family--cooking, cleaning, sewing and child
development. These family responsibilities extended women's work days into
the dark hours of night. A woman's household labor benefits not only her
family, but also her family's employer as she provides the daily necessities--food,
clothing, emotional care--to replenish the worker. Women's "reproductive
labor" extended beyond their biological capabilities to include the
care and maintenance of workers and family members.
The entire community benefits from women's unpaid "reproductive"
labor as women build stable communities and maintain cultural practices
within their families and communities. Temples, prefectural associations
and cultural groups depend upon women's community work and perpetuatation
of cultural traditions, especially in immigrant communities.
After 1900 various plantations found married men to be more dependable.
With families to feed, they couldn't afford to take days off or cause trouble.
But family responsibilities cut both ways. With families to feed, workers
needed larger paychecks. Not surprisingly, increased wages were the primary
demands of both the 1909 and 1920 sugar strikes.
Constituting 70% of the workforce, the Japanese organized the 1909 strike
amongst themselves but were broken by the united efforts of the Hawaii Sugar
Planters Association (HSPA). However, three months after the strike, HSPA
raised wages and abolished wage differentials based on race (although wages
for women were usually uniform). Both the restrictions on Japanese immigration
and the solidarity of the Japanese strikers encouraged the HSPA to diversify
its workforce and begin recruiting in the Philippines.
Sugar workers did not organize a multiethnic, unified labor union until
1946 under the auspices of the International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's
Union (ILWU). Worker ethnocentricity combined with the history of sugar
planters' history of playing one ethnic group against another as strikebreakers
kept workers wary of each other, socializing separately and organizing separate
labor unions.
However, in 1920 both Japanese and Filipino workers participated in a coordinated,
6-month long strike on Oahu (with workers on the neighbor islands sending
funds). But the existence of two separate "ethnic unions," the
Japanese Federation of Labor and the Filipino Labor Union, did not facilitate
a unified walk-out. The strength of the workers and the preparation of
the Federation of Japanese Labor is manifest in the 12,000 workers the plantations
had to evict and the $11.5 million estimated loss by the plantations.
As 20% of the Japanese sugar workforce, Japanese women participated in the
1920 sugar strike in large numbers. The Japanese Federation of Labor initially
included paid maternity leave ( 2 weeks prior & 6 weeks post-partum)
as a strike demand. The key issue in the 1920 strike, the demand for higher
wages, was based on the need to provide for workers' families.
The number of Japanese women working in the sugar fields decreases rapidly
after 1920. As the immigrant generation ages, widowhood was the most likely
reason to remain working for the plantations. Young Japanese American daughters
work in domestic service and pineapple canneries. Young women only return
to the plantations after 1932 when the Depression forces many second generation
men and women (nisei), back to the plantations for stable but low-waged
work. However, an occupational shift occurred as these young women did
not work in the fields but in plantation offices and stores.
The early 20th century was a time of immense social change in Hawaii's
sugar plantations. Annexation of Hawaii as a Territory of the U.S. abolished
contract labor and workers were theoretically free to leave plantations
whenever they could afford to do so. This change in the employer/employee
relationship encouraged responsible plantations begin to consider workers'
needs to entice them to stay on their plantations. The 1907 Gentlemen's
Agreement restricted the immigration of Japanese male laborers who responded
by sending for wives and family.
There is always a tension between the controlling, very powerful forces
of employers who control where workers live and work, and the human side
of this social interaction we call work and community-building. Even with
limited choices, people interact and build lives for themselves.
It is part of our immigrant folklore to expect a mismatch of a young beautiful
woman with an older, work-wearied husband whose matchmaking photo was taken
many years before. The folklore of romance includes the not uncommon tales
of those couples who grew to love and cherish each other. However, no community
is immune form the social ills of abuse, alcoholism, gambling and the stress
of a new marriage in a new country. Both these extremes, as well as the
middle ground, are the history and legacy of immigrant picture brides as
they labored in the canefields and in their homes to develop of a strong
family community in the sugar plantations of Hawaii.