(Instrumental music) Last run, last day, man.
Bringing ‘um home.
March 27, 1996, the town of Pāhala in the Kaʻū district of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi.
Feels sad to see the sugar company phasing out, you know, after all these years we’ve been in business.
Can't do nothing about it.
After more than a century, sugar is shutting down.
If there's a job over here, probably I would be coming back again.
Because this is my home.
It's where I grew up.
Hundreds of people losing their jobs.
This day is their last.
I'm gonna miss all the guys.
Every now and then I see guys in the street and, 'Eh, remember that time and you remember this time?'
And I miss all the chattering with the guys down there.
Hi!
My name is Cliff Watson.
I'm a freelance cameraman from Honolulu and I work in television and video production.
I came to Pāhala to record some images of the sugar plantation and mill before it closed.
And hopefully to get some of the stories of the workers lifestyles which have been molded over time by this industry.
It's hard.
It was hard for me.
I felt sad that we were going down.
It's just one of those things.
It died an agonizing death, but sugar served its purpose.
With 120 something years it was in existence.
Sad to see an era go, but changing times.
You gotta move on to something else.
Audrey, my wife grew up in Kaʻū.
She still has family here so we try to visit as much as we can.
My first visit to Pāhala was about 13 years ago.
The more I learned about Pāhala, the more the history of the sugar town fascinated me.
Over the years, I realized that I wanted to document the changes taking place here, to preserve with my camera the passing of a lifestyle in Hawaiʻi before it disappeared.
When every mill has been built, they bought a photographer in to photograph it when it's brand, shiny new.
Everything glistening, all the, all the chrome is polished and all the steel is painted.
So, you've got all these photographs in history, in the archives and everywhere of all the mills looking like that.
There's a tradition of the funeral photographer making a picture of the deceased in their coffin.
So, in a way I think of myself as this photographer in relation to the death of sugar in Hawaiʻi.
Franco Salmoiraghi's photographic documentary projects have focused on preserving contemporary Hawaiian events and history in isolated communities throughout the islands.
He has photographed the people and places of Waipiʻo Valley on the Big Island, Kīpahulu, Maui, Kalaupapa, Molokaʻi, and the island of Kahoʻolawe.
Franco and I were working together on another project when I told him that I was documenting the closing of Kaʻu Sugar.
Franco lived on the Big Island for 10 years and had photographed the town of Pāhala and the mill in the early 1970s.
He decided to join me on subsequent trips to Pāhala and together we photographed the community.
It's a very poignant time in history, with this whole thing, with people losing their jobs, the mill closing and really the end of a really important era in Hawaiʻi that's been, you know, over 100 years.
13 mills here, this was the last one.
So, I felt a lot of excitement, you know, as a photographer.
Franco and I started out together, sometimes photographing the same thing.
At other times, we went off in separate directions.
We wanted to record as much as possible.
In a matter of time, this all would be gone.
Regardless of why the sugar industry is phasing out, the people of this community are going to miss the only way of life they have known for over a century.
Sugar meant jobs for workers and profits for owners.
With the immigrants who came to work in the fields came cultural diversity.
These immigrants brought their own traditions and disrupted the native Hawaiian community that lived there, before sugar moved in.
In 1858, there were only seven so called foreigners in all of the Kaʻū district.
But then the Americans began to arrive.
By 1870, they had acquired land, built homes for their families, and constructed mills.
And with the first harvest, the sugar industry was born.
My grandfather came from Portugal.
And he worked in sugar company.
And my father started when he was 14 years old.
He worked for 51 years.
I'm third generation.
My dad's parents came from Japan.
And they are, first, I guess they came in with a ship in Hilo, and they went to Laupāhoehoe, and they worked there in the sugar cane field.
This was a land of opportunity.
So, he came over here and he had, from what I understand, they had a three-year contract to sign with a plantation.
Within three years, he would make enough money to go back to Japan.
But so, he worked hard.
In the meantime, the three years came about, he wasn't able to do.
So, he called for his wife.
For 125 years, sugar meant work for generation after generation.
Well, there was security, there was security, you know, if you got into the plantation at that time, you got it made.
The sugar plantation had brought Audrey's grandfathers to Kaʻū over from Japan as contract laborers.
By the time her parents’ generation, the nisei were born, the number of workers peaked.
That was the 1920s when Pāhala was a thriving town.
People working hard and living by their strong beliefs, values, and cultural traditions.
The basic foundation is a family.
And like, my parents used to stress the work ethic.
In other words, you give a honest day's work, and you know, be truthful, you know.
And we've tried, my wife and I, we've tried to instill that in our children.
From the time you know, I was born and raised in Kaʻū and, you know, when I started to go to school, maybe from eight, eight years old, all the way up, we didn't have no problem with different nationalities, you know, we always work together.
It was a time and place where trust and honor had meaning.
I mean, you got to have integrity, because if you don't have that, I think you have problems.
But people's memories, basically are very positive.
And so, it's very interesting.
They remember basically the good times.
That's the thing that sticks with them the most, that everybody remembers the good part.
It's been very rare that you get a negative comment about life.
Let me take one more and make sure I get a good one of both of you.
Okay, she's okay.
Yeah.
Good.
Thank you.
Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Hawaiian, Portuguese.
We all had different camps.
We used to get so many camps they called this Japanese Mill Camp down there.
And there is a Korean camp way down this side.
They used to get, this is Spanish camp, yeah?
Yeah.
And this is the Korean camp up here.
And where we live that's the new Japanese camp, up here.
This road here that leads up right in front here, goes up, then you pass the last house you see up there, that slope up there used to be Spanish, a camp for Spanish people, imported laborers, contract laborers were Spanish.
That's why they call it, this the Spanish campus area.
With the company housing divided by ethnicity, the plantation camps were communities of immigrants where the final generation of sugar workers grew up.
We live in a small community there.
We had some kind activities.
We like to beat these people here in a bigger town.
That kind of competition you get.
So, even all nationality feels that.
We play for our community in Kapāpala, we'd like to beat these people in Pāhala.
That's the kind of feeling we had when we were young.
Like baseball, basketball, all sports activities.
For that matter, even the Filipino people used to, they love to play volleyball.
Yeah.
So, they have a team of Filipinos to challenge all the camps other there.
Different camps.
We are only one police over here and we used to, he had only one eye.
The cop had only one eye, but he caught all the crooks because he knew everybody in Pāhala.
His car I mean, if you seen his car was only second gear but you know, all you can hear his car whining, when he stopped you know, somebody was in trouble.
Well practically everywhere that movie theater, you know what I mean, that before the American- type talkies came in, they had the Japanese-type talkies where a man would be sitting there and he'd narrate right through the show.
Every Saturday night in the old days.
Every Saturday night there was a movie night.
Next to that theater is a bank, Bank of Hawaiʻi.
So, it was a rounded out community, you know, we had a bank, we had a theater, we had stores, we had a courthouse, we had a jail in the back.
It was a rounded out community with as I said, with hotel you know, it was a two-story thing.
And the bottom was a bar and the restaurant and the cowboys used to come from Kapāpala Ranch every Fridays.
And when I was a kid I used to hang around there because the cowboys would go in and drink and then they have a fight and they'd come outside wrestle around and we'd pick up all the loose change because you know.
(instrumental music) Today is really interesting being here with the mill shutdown being very quiet.
It was eerie in the mill after the shutdown.
It was quiet with very few people around.
We came across a group of workers removing their personal lockers.
Okay?
(Camera snaps) Thank you.
Everybody going home already.
See everybody packing up their own car and driving home.
You guys are on company time now or you're working for yourself?
We’re here to clear whatever stuff was taking out of this building.
Just yesterday, this was a place where many people in this community worked.
Today it is so different.
It's a strange feeling being here.
It seems as if the spirit of the mill is gone.
When we first came to the mill, this is sort of the portal.
People come and go would come and go here.
Many people going in and out and before the mill closed one afternoon at lunchtime, the I guess tradition, once, every once in a while the supervisors would give a luncheon party for the workers, and Eddie Andrade, who we interviewed was sort of in charge of it.
He would set up these 50-gallon drums that are cut in half, and they've made barbecues out of them barbecue pits, and there'd be two or three of them set up.
(Workers chatting) So, to come here now and to see it looking like this.
Yeah, it gives me goosebumps, it's really, it's just so different.
There's so much that I missed that I never thought I missed.
I would miss the mill.
But I do miss the mill.
I miss working there.
I loved the environment there I love the crew that I worked with, I loved some of the bosses that I worked with.
I miss them.
In the factory I tried all kinds during the weekend, we used to shut down for the weekend.
And I used to try all kinds of machines, you know, nobody was around, till finally I got caught.
And then the superintendent just, you know, chewed me out and said, if you want to learn, come and see him and he'll do it properly.
So, I went up and took him up on that.
And then that's how I learned all the different stations and then finally came supervisor.
I've used my hands on my life.
I'm a, mechanics is my forte.
I've got a technique, a feel for machinery that a lot of mechanics don’t have.
I can talk to the things I just work and I make them work.
Because I was the only women working there, I felt that I felt a little vibes from some of the men.
But the elderly gave me confidence in myself, the elderly made me comfortable.
Driving that cane truck and doing exactly what they did, there was something in me, I am scared.
But I said when we sit down and eat lunch with all these men, and I find out that they're just as scared as me and it gave me more confidence in myself and I says, I'm not feeling too bad.
There's men that are afraid of this pali too.
They're afraid this mountain.
You can say was more dangerous, like all the heavy equipment, you know, we handle and all that and responsible for.
So, every day that you know you go, you, you think you know when you get to the job site.
You're thinking for safety because somebody can get hurt or killed or...
When I got in the factory, I had more respect from them then what I got from the cane truck drivers.
I mean, the men were there for me and it gave me confidence in myself and it says, right on Jen, you can do it.
You can do it.
I said hey, more I never get one big head.
I just say hey working with this men made me more comfortable and are they treated me as an individual.
Kaʻu Sugar was the last commercial sugar company on the Big Island.
The last survivor of names like Naalehu Sugar, Hilea Plantation, Hawaiian Agriculture, Waiohinu Plantation and Hutchinson Sugar.
Names that belong to generations past.
I worked for this company 49 years.
I was born and raised over here, right in Kaʻū.
They call the Hīlea, way up, the sticks out there.
Life has really changed though.
The sugar, that's the one that keep our community up until today.
You know they're the ones, the main thing, for living over here, you know.
I'm, I’m very happy that we had this sugar production in our place.
Without that, I don't know.
Yeah, we depend on sugar all our life.
It's all that many of these people have known.
That they've come here.
They've grown up, they've worked.
They've gotten married, they've had children.
They've buried their parents.
They've buried their children here.
This is really their life.
They were only paid, were making $9 an hour, but life could be good.
Your life isn't dictated by the almighty dollar, you know you, you have your own paths that you follow and if your wants are met that way yeah, I think terrific living, yeah.
We're simple people.
And we don't want too much drastic changes in Pāhala.
We just simple people that want to take day by day kinda living and not that fast world.
Audrey and I have always managed to get back to Pāhala for the New Year's holiday.
One visit, we were welcomed into several different homes to celebrate the New Year with traditional Japanese food and drink.
On that day, we must have visited four homes.
Not like the olden days.
You get so many people get together.
You know, they pound mochi the whole day.
Those days, that, that was in our time though.
I know, a lot of them went from house to house.
And you know, and really party then enjoyed themselves.
Everywhere I went along too, but I would say those things were done more by people before my generation in fact.
You know, in our generation already was kind of slacking down, where you go to maybe only two or three families, only for your close friends.
But in the old days, they went to every house.
As far as my family is concerned.
Like Steve, he insisted we do it.
So, my family we get together, and then we pound our mochi, you know.
And every New Year's we all get together, my kids, you know, and we still do that.
Some cultural traditions lasts longer than others.
People in Kaʻū are friendly, but like people in other small towns, they're maybe a little suspicious of outsiders.
When I started this project, I expected they'd welcome the idea of sharing their stories and lifestyle for posterity.
But it was hard to get people to open up to the camera.
The people because we were so isolated by camps, they were very clannish.
You know, they tried to be together.
And I think that still exists today.
We are isolated.
Nobody seems you know, when you ask when you tell them ʻoh, I'm from Pāhala.
Pāhala, where?
Then you have to mention Volcano.
Okay.
Is it near Volcano?
Yes, so many miles away from Volcano.
But we're really isolated.
In a way it seems that Pāhala is even more isolated today.
Over the years, many people have moved away to find jobs elsewhere.
So, when the last day of harvest came to Kaʻu Sugar, and the trucks rolled through the town of Pāhala, it made news across the state.
The final crops of Kaʻū cane were processed under a sunless sky on a day some said was appropriately gray.
Kaʻu Agribusiness announced it would close it sugar division two years ago, after union members.
Remembers them in their splendor when he joined Kaʻu in 1972.
That's how it was when I was a news cameraman going to the location, shooting the story and getting back to the station in time for the news.
But after spending time in Kaʻū, I know the reality is more than just a 90 second news story.
The people here realize they are facing a transition period and many are ready for the challenge Well it's hard to see it go because it's a lifestyle that I think a lot of us owe a lot to sugar.
I mean, in varying degrees, maybe but I still think we do owe a lot to sugar.
I loved it.
I loved getting up, going to work going to work.
But I find I have to find myself to do other things to keep my mind off of it.
It was, it’s hard.
It was hard for me.
But I think we're still going through that transition period.
And things are in turmoil stages now.
Yeah.
But I think it'll be for the better though, for the better.
When Cliff Watson and I decided to come photograph the Big Island's Kaʻū district, we wanted to document with our cameras the transition of the sugar culture that has dominated this isolated community of Pāhala for over 125 years.
For us, it was an opportunity to be in Pāhala at a moment of important social, cultural and technological change, and to share that experience with the people who live here today.
These video and still photographs will hopefully find a true value for the community in the years to come.
Perhaps 50 years from now the images will help those with family roots here to know their ancestors and their history.
In the meantime, the people of Pāhala must find solutions for the present.
Some former sugar workers are trying their hand at farming small plots provided by Kaʻu Agribusiness, Eddie Andrade and his brother Patrick have set up a landscape business, while others continue to search for what life holds after sugar.