Speech #890224290

Plantations in most parts of the world depended on slaves or other forced labor. but in Hawaii they were humane. Lind wrote. He added: "The planters. like the traders and the missionaries. had to accept the fact that Hawaiians and not Americans or Europeans were the rulers of the country. however influential haoles or white strangers might be in the counsels of the kings. "Hence. rules of conduct could not officially be sanctioned even on the plantations which violated the elementary rights and dignity of people simply because their skin was dark or because they had come to work as unskilled laborers." Plantation workers from several different countries were brought to Hawaii "partly in response to the planters fear of a possible A3143 labor monopoly by any one selfconscious group." Lind said. "By 1950 . . . the earlier disabilities of the immigrant labor groups had been so far overcome as to place the Chinese. most of whose parents or grandparents arrived in Hawaii a generation or two earlier as lowly plantation laborers. in u higher average position with respect to annual income than any other ethnic group. "Moreover. in a substantial number of the preferred occupations. the men and women of Oriental ancestry by 1950 had clearly outstripped their earlier mentors of Caucasian ancestry . . . "One of the further significant developments of the past decade. reflecting the changing commercial and business relationships among the various ethnic groups of Hawaii. has been the acceptance of nonCaucasians as officials and directors of the large and once sacrosanct corporations of the Big Five. Hawaiis interlocking organization of major economic enterprises. "The participation of islandborn men of Oriental ancestry in the direction of the plantations on which their fathers served as unskilled laborers a generation ago still seems incredible to observers of the racial scene in most other areas of the Pacific." Lloyd College Notes Founders Arrival 50 Years Ago