In the 20th century, workers began to demand higher wages. Though vulnerable to exploitation, workers slowly gained strength through both individual and collective action. Organized protests began along ethnic lines in the early 1900s. Plantation owners exploited racial differences. They pitted workers against each other. Workers needed higher wages to support their families and a new strategy to beat the plantation system. In 1946, they organized the first multi-ethnic strike led by the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union. The “Great Sugar Strike,” transformed Hawaii’s plantation society. With a union victory, Hawaii’s sugar workers became the highest paid agricultural workers in the world. But the building blocks of this movement began many years earlier.
Acknowledgements:
Gaylord Kubota, Domingo Los Banos, Espy Garcia, Ah Quon McElrath, Barbara Kawakami, Alma Ogata, Fuzzy Alboro, George Fujiwara, May Fujiwara, Jon Arisumi. Moses Pataki, and Richard Nagame. Scholars Ronald Takaki, Franklin Odo, Bill Puette, William Boylan, Lee Tonouchi, Kent Sakoda and Jeffrey Siegel. Actors Dann Seki, Chisao Hata, Denise Aoki Chinen, and Keith Kashiwada. Hole Hole Bushi songs were sung by Shigeko Miyashiro.
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