The Hawaii Sugar Industry: A Case Study

Great Essays
When the Hawaii sugar industry obtained Korean workers into the American labor market, it only concerned about how these cheap labor forces from Korea effectively maximized its profits, but it ignored that some of these people were suffered from health problems in both physical and psychological aspects after they migrated from Korea to Hawaii. In order to seek solace and comfort, most bachelors started to gamble and visit prostitute houses. This massively distracted them from working in the sugar plantation and it ultimately leaded to a mess in these single men’s lives during their stay in Hawaii as a consequence. Since early 1910s, the system called picture bride had been introduced in Hawaii to solve this noticeable and influential …show more content…
(Choe, 28) Choe also adds that “ Many tried to escape without success, and still others refused conjugal relationships with their husbands for months” when these picture brides realized that they were deceived. (Choe, 29) Choe also depicts about how picture brides feel about their husbands and former husbands that “With a sense of having been deceived, several former picture brides spoke rather disdainfully of their husbands and former husbands, some with bitter feelings.” (Choe, 29) The author implicitly delivers an idea to audience that the picture brides only had two choices when they found out that the pictures their husbands sent to them were wrong, one was to accept fact and live with their husbands and another one was to divorce. Yet, none of them returned to Korea, Choe referred one of picture bride’s words in his article “My parents would be very shame, so I can’t go back. So after eight days, I (married him)… …Then, I didn’t talk to him for three months, living together in the same house. Therefore, the position of picture brides during that time appeared to be passive and they had less choice …show more content…
Korean traditional customs were affected from general Asian culture about the perspective of whether women should accept education overall, the old-fashioned Koreans believed and insisted that women were not supposed to be educated. Mrs Kang disgusted this tradition, so she made a decision on her own to be free from her parents’ control that she left her country to Japan and later moved to Hawaii to get married with a stranger, Mr Kang. When Mrs Kang states her stories about her childhood, she says “so we were staring at it wondering what in the world it could be.” This explicitly indicates how gravely she had dreamed that one day she would have an opportunity to visit somewhere in the world other than her home country. (Kang, 28) Also, when Mr Kang offered her a chance to come to Hawaii, she tried so hard to get the travel permit to the United States even though she had failed on physical test for many times. Hence, it can be seen that Mrs Kang had a high aspiration to approach education and escape from the bond of Korean feudatorial

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