Hawaii’s Back yard
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi
Hawaii museum gives insight
of plantation lifeRobert Castro relives his childhood every time he guides visitors through Hawaii's Plantation Village. The 58-year-old docent grew up on the Oahu Sugar Co.'s plantation, where his dad worked for 43 years (both his grandfathers also worked for more than four decades on various island plantations). Coincidentally, his family's home was located right across Waipahu Street from where Hawaii's Plantation Village now stands.
Developed by the nonprofit Friends of Waipahu Cultural Garden Park, this fascinating outdoor museum opened in 1992. It showcases the cultures and contributions of the multiethnic workers who came from faraway lands to labor on island sugar plantations beginning in the mid-1800s.
The first major wave of Chinese arrived in 1852, followed by the Japanese (1885), Portuguese (1878), Puerto Ricans and Okinawans (1900), Koreans (1903) and Filipinos (1906). Castro's father's family came in 1879 with the second large group of Portuguese from Madeira; his mother's family immigrated seven years later.
Comprising two dozen buildings that would have been found on a working sugar plantation at the turn of the last century, Hawaii's Plantation Village reveals how each ethnic group lived, worked and played. It features houses, temples, a general store, infirmary, camp office, social hall, barbershop, tofu-making shed, community furo (bathhouse) and more.
Most of the buildings are replicas of structures that existed on Oahu, Maui, the Big Island and Kauai between 1852 and 1946. Two are original; the Chinese Cookhouse, circa 1909, is on the Hawaii Register of Historic Places, and the Wakamiya Inari Shrine, built in 1914, is on both the national and Hawaii registers of historic places.
COURTESY OF CHERYL TSUTSUMI
A visitor rests in front of the Okinawan House. At right, a handmade maraca decorates a wall in the Puerto Rican House.
Houses are furnished with period artifacts, including photographs, books, furniture, clothing, musical instruments, lamps, vases, cookware and sewing machines -- most donated by kamaaina who scoured closets, basements and garages for treasures to add to the Village's one-of-a-kind collection.
LIKE CASTRO, several of the guides come from plantation families, and during the 90-minute tour, they weave warm personal memories into their commentaries. On special occasions such as Easter and Christmas, Castro recalls his home would be filled with the heavenly aroma of Portuguese sweetbread, which his grandmother baked in the outside forno, or brick oven.
"It was an expensive bread to make because it contained a lot of egg yolks, sugar and butter," Castro says. "I remember my grandmother kneaded the dough on the kitchen floor because she needed the space. When it was time for the dough to rise, she put it in a huge pan and covered it with sheets. When the bread was baking, the wonderful smell really made your mouth water!"
At Hawaii's Plantation Village, a domed forno stands behind the Portuguese House, its door ajar so you can peek in and imagine it packed with fragrant loaves of sweetbread during the holiday season. In the adjacent Puerto Rican House, lovely hand-carved and hand-painted maracas decorate one wall. They were made from the fruit of the laamia (gourd) tree, which the Hawaiians also used to make their uliuli, or feathered rattles.
"The fruit is not edible to humans," notes Castro. "The Hawaiians would bury it in the ground, and the ants would eat the insides. When the gourd was hollow and dry, they would fill it with the seeds of the canna plant to create the rattling sound. Interestingly, it was the Puerto Ricans who taught the Hawaiians to use the canna seeds for their uliuli."
In the Japanese Duplex, an assortment of kaukau (food) tins rests on the kitchen table. Castro explains they were made in Ohio, and were initially used by coal miners and factory workers on the mainland. Merchants brought them to Hawaii, where plantation laborers found them to be just as handy to store their midday meal. "The kaukau tins had two layers," says Castro. "They put their rice, potatoes or bread on the bottom, and the top was for their meat and vegetables."
COURTESY OF CHERYL TSUTSUMI
Curtains made of rice bags shade the windows of some of the homes. Skilled seamstresses transformed the durable cloth bags into a host of other practical items, including clothing, dish towels, bedsheets and bedspreads. "People were very conscientious about recycling back then," points out Castro. "Why throw away the rice bags when they still could be useful?"
From charcoal irons to worn books to lovely statuettes of the Madonna, each carefully placed artifact, however small, provides a glimpse into the lives of the 395,000 courageous pioneers who left their homelands and everything familiar to start anew in Hawaii.
Even the village's landscaping was designed to reflect the era. Dozens of tropical trees and plants thrive on the 50-acre site, including the tamarind, whose tart seeds were used for a soup base by the Filipinos and to flavor the tasty Chinese treat known as "crack seed." From the pods of the achiote tree came bright red seeds that the Puerto Ricans made into cosmetics and food coloring.
The monkeypod, nicknamed the "umbrella tree" because of its thick, wide canopy, yielded strong, beautiful wood that Japanese and Portuguese craftsmen fashioned into tables, chairs, bookcases, bowls and other household items.
CASTRO HAS BEEN a docent at Hawaii's Plantation Village for four years. In 1998, while he was a senior majoring in history at the University of Hawaii's West Oahu campus, he completed his practicum at the village, which included being trained as a docent. He continued volunteering in that capacity after he graduated in 1999.
"I enjoy sharing the plantation experience," Castro says. "That may sound cliché but it's true."
Two days a week, he helps the Plantation Village fulfill its mission: "To ensure that the lifestyles, struggles, sacrifices, innovations and contributions of our plantation forebears will continue to be known, acknowledged and visible as the cornerstone of Hawaii's successful society."
Address: 94-695 Waipahu St., Waipahu Hawaii's Plantation Village
When: 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays to Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays
Admission: $7 for adults ($5 for kama'aina), $4 for 62 and older, and $3 for ages 5 to 12
Call: 677-0110
Web site: www.hawaiiplantationvillage.org is under construction and should be up in January.
Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a Honolulu-based free-lance writer
and Society of American Travel Writers award winner.
