Flashback to the heyday of pineapple. If sugar was king, there was a time when Pineapple had certainly “princess” status in our economy.
Thanks to the University of Hawaii’s Center for Oral History we can bring back voices of the cannery days.
We looked at the workforce at that time. Most were women--but what happened when those cannery jobs disappeared? Growing, harvesting and canning pineapple--hard honest plantation work and part of the fabric of our island state.
If you did a stint at one of our canneries on Oahu or the neighbor islands you may have some sweet sticky memories to share. Share them with our talkback line at 792-8217.
Our guests today were:
Jowenna Ellazar, spokeswoman for Local 5. She was one of 2,700+ workers on Oahu and Maui to go on strike for 51 days.
Teresa Bill created and taught a course called Women and Work and also has written about women?s labor in Hawai?i.
And HPR’s News Director Bill Dorman
