The Industrial Condition of Women and Girls in Honolulu
A Social Study
9781465635242
211 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
In this crossroads community of Honolulu—a community where defying Kipling, not only the East and West, but also the North and South meet (and like one another) there are almost as many races and admixtures represented as a man has fingers and toes. A girl born of a mother whose blood is half-Hawaiian and half-Chinese, and of a Norwegian father, works side by side on the one hand with a Korean maiden and on the other with a young woman who is negro-American through one parent and German-Hawaiian through another. The daughter of a Portuguese-Japanese mother and an American father schoolmates with the child of a Basuto woman and an Englishman; while side by side Portuguese, Porto Rican, Japanese, Hawaiian, Filipino and Negro, with all these and other inter-racial variations, eat their lunches side by side in the pineapple canneries and laundries. Schools, athletic teams and other activities show the same racial composition. And quite as assorted as the blood is apt to be the mode of life, dress and thought of this polyglot population. One sees a Chinese woman in her charming native costume of brocaded silk, her hair carefully pomaded and profusely ornamented, while her feet (not by any means the “golden-lilies” so rapidly passing into oblivion) of the small-footed Chinese are encased in silk hose and patent leather pumps. Furthermore, she leads by the hand a small daughter in full American panoply, not omitting the butterfly bow of ribbon in her hair. If followed to her home she will be found eating her bowl of rice or stewed mushrooms with a spoon, instead of the historic chop-sticks, her children doing the same or more likely making their fingers do duty. Or, one meets a Japanese man, smiling with affectionate fatuity at the infant he carries in his arms; his own kimonoed and sandalled person topped with a regulation Panama hat. Or again, one attends a suffrage meeting with the audience made up of Hawaiian, Chinese and women of other nationalities, and listens to the familiar appeals for equal pay for equal work; amendments to the property laws; reduction of infant mortality; more schools. And so on, until one is permeated with a fine glow of wonder at the universality of it all, the “getting together” which is the surest promise of world peace, however much one may from an aesthetic standpoint regret certain of the departures. Then, too, the workrooms, public utilities, public amusements (and very generally acquaintances and friendships) untrammeled by racial boundaries, cause one to wonder anew not alone at the ease with which Honolulu has dispensed with those boundaries but also at the fact that in this year of our Lord they still prevail in the caste-ridden communities of the mainland. One says prevail rather than exist advisedly, because race prejudice undoubtedly exists in Honolulu, and is openly expressed. Thus far, however, the women and girls of Honolulu are unhampered in their opportunities, and no man’s right to decent public courtesy is violated by race feeling. An Hawaiian incompetent is equally liable to be replaced with a Portuguese, a Chinese, a Japanese, or what not. Certain of the minor industries employ no Japanese or Chinese help, fearing that a knowledge of processes will lead to “unfair competition”; but on the other hand shops manned by the Orientals in these very same industries are springing up all over the city. And not only do they spring up, but one finds they usually stay. Honolulu, in its industrial development, will need to consider the two-fold life, as it were, of the normal and the tourist population. The small shop, along various lines described more in detail under constructive suggestions, seems in fact the best means of taking care of the workers who might be trained in the needle trades and other kindred occupations, and for whom there is no opportunity to secure stenographic positions, or for clerical or shop work.
