Plantation Journal

Plantation Journal Tipsheet - Help planning and writing out your plantation journal.

Project: You are going to write a journal pretending to be an immigrant plantation worker. These journals will be a mix of facts we have learned about the plantations in Hawai’i and imagination in creating a believable character. Your character should have a history, family members, and life. Your plantation worker can be from China, Portugal, Japan, Korea, Puerto Rico, or the Philippines. Different ethnicities arrived at different times and different types of people came. You need to be aware of this when creating your character. You need to demonstrate your knowledge about sugarcane plantations in Hawai’i in your journal entries.

Take time and plan out your character before starting to write. Create a basic history of their life. This will help you when you actually start writing and include personal details and explain how the character is feeling as events in their life occur.

Online Resources:

Plantation Journal - Google slides explaining the project with examples

Sugar Notes - Google slides of our class notes on sugar plantations and immigration

Sugar Strike Readings - 1920 and 1946 Strikes

Raising Cane: Hawaii's Plantation Labor - Audio stories of immigrants and their experiences on Hawaii's plantations.

History of Labor in Hawai'i - Long article on the history of workers in Hawaii.

Rice and Roses Documentary Part 1 Part 2 - Documentary on the 1946 ILWU Strike and some history of plantation labor in Hawai'i.

Japanese Laborers Arrive - Some background information on Japanese immigration to Hawai'i.

Filipino Laborers Arrive - Some background information on Filipino immigration to Hawai'i.

Filipino Labor Migration - More background information on Filipino immigration to Hawai'i.

Korean Laborers Arrive - Some background information on Korean immigration to Hawai'i.

Korean Immigration - Some background information on Korean immigration to Hawai'i

The Story of US Puerto Ricans - Some background information on Puerto Rican immigration to Hawai'i.

Puerto Ricans Arrive in Hawai'i - Some background information on Puerto Rican immigration to Hawai'i.

Chinese Laborers Arrive - Some background information on Chinese immigration to Hawai'i.

Chinese Immigration - Some background information on Chinese immigration to Hawai'i.

Portuguese Workers Arrive - Some background information on Portuguese immigration to Hawai'i.

Portuguese Immigration - Some background information on Portuguese immigration to Hawai'i.

Filipino Plantation Life - Information on the Filipino experience as plantation workers.

Japanese Plantation Life - Information on the Japanese experience as plantation workers.

Henry Akana and Plantation Days - One man's description of life on the plantation

Textbook Resources:

Strikes and Unions - pg 187-204 (188-190 has a list of strikes that could possibly be used for your journal)

Life on the Plantation - pg 209-221

Immigration to Hawaii - pg 95-105

Required Journal Entries: Each journal entry should be a minimum of 1 paragraph and written in the 1^st person. Journal entries SHOULD NOT be simply answering required questions and information. Be creative and add descriptions like getting married, picking up your picture bride, having kids, being in an accident at work, being yelled at by the field boss, etc… Include other factual information you learned about plantation life. Each entry needs to have a date and be signed by the character.

1. Leaving Home Country – Introduce your character and where they are from. Why did you decide to move to Hawai’i and work on a sugarcane plantation? Push factors at home and/or pull factors that drew you to Hawai’i? Immigration factors and the date MUST BE accurate to your chosen ethnicity.

2. Arriving in Hawai’i – How was your trip to Hawai’i? What are your 1^st impressions of Hawai’i? What plantation/island are you going to? What language are other people speaking?

3. Plantation Grind – What is life like for you each day in the plantation? Describe your day from waking up, going to work, and finally going back to sleep at night. Be detailed in what you are doing.

4. Strike! – Describe joining a union or working as a strikebreaker. Base your experience on a real strike we learned about. You should choose a REAL STRIKE that fits your timeline and ethnicity. What do the strikers want? Who is on strike? What are the plantation owners doing?

5. Post Strike – It is a few months since the strike is over. Has pay improved? Are there new perks? What else has happened as the result of the strike?

6. Final Entry – It is time to leave the plantation. Reflect on your time working on the plantation. Where are you going? Back home? To Honolulu? To the mainland? What do you plan to do?

*You can include more journal entries for extra credit. (This is a great way to improve your grade

Self-Portrait: Draw a self portrait of your worker (and their family) on the plantation. They can be working or at their plantation home. Portrait should be colored. This portrait will be the cover page of your journal.

Sample Journal Entry: Leaving Home Country

January 18, 1900

My name is Felipe Perez. It is the day after my 18^th birthday, but I am not happy. Last year’s two hurricanes destroyed much of my home island of Puerto Rico. My parents both lost their jobs as the sugarcane plantation they worked on was destroyed. My little brother Miguel died during the hurricane, and my mother has not yet recovered from his loss. My father decided that we are to move to Hawai’i. Some people came and told us we can find jobs on sugarcane plantations there. I don’t want to leave, but father is right, there are no jobs to be had in Puerto Rico. It will be a long time before everything is rebuilt here. We need jobs, a place to live, and food to eat. Hawai’i can provide us with all of that. I wonder if they speak Spanish in Hawai’i? Probably not, I hope I can learn whatever language they speak there. It is going to be a long journey by ship to Hawai’i, I better start packing up my things.

-Felipe Perez

Sample Journal Entry: Arriving in Hawai'i

April 10, 1900

It has been a long journey from San Juan to Hawai’i. We started off taking a ship to New Orleans, from there we took a long train ride to San Francisco. At San Francisco we went on a 2nd boat to Hawai’i. I was fine on the first boat trip, but I couldn’t handle the second trip and was seasick most of the way. I could not have been happier when we finally sighted Hawai’i. We landed on the island of O’ahu, destined for a plantation in Kahuku. O’ahu doesn’t seem so different than Puerto Rico, but there are so many different groups of people here. I have never seen Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese or Hawaiian people before we got here. I tried to talk to them, but none of them understood Spanish, but I could kind of understand that Portuguese man I saw as we got off our ship. It took us about a day going by mule cart to get from the docks to the plantation at Kahuku. We are staying in a small house near other new Puerto Rican families, we were all told to be ready to report to work tomorrow at sun up.

-Felipe Perez

Rubric: