Model Sabbatical Application: Russell Shitabata

2006-07

Part I: Applicant Information

Name: Russell H. Shitabata

Department: English Department in the Language, Literature and Communication Division

Extension: 3316

Home Phone: PRIVATE

Assignment:  Instructor, full-time contracted

FTE:  1.0

Years at Lane under contract: 7 (seven)

No previous leaves

Term requested: Spring 2007

Leave Location: University of Hawai’i at Manoa, University of Hawai’i at Hilo, and University

of Hawaii at West Oahu

I have read the guidelines and I understand them.

Applicant Signature:

Date:

Leave Information

Part I: Overview: What I plan to accomplish

              For my sabbatical, I plan to deepen my understanding of the Japanese American experience in Hawaii in the 20th century through a research project that will combine an oral history project with study of manuscripts and primary source materials that trace Japanese Americans’ role in sugar cane plantations.  My aim is to learn the social, economic and cultural histories of Japanese Americans in Hawaii using the lens of life on the sugar cane plantations.  Although in recent years the experience of Japanese Americans in internment camps during WWII has entered the mainstream American consciousness, this ordeal provides an incomplete picture of the collective life of Japanese Americans in early 20th century America.  As an instructor of Asian American literature and experience, I have found that an ethnic studies influenced approach best serves students and the discipline; the literature of a group informs and is informed by the socio-cultural experiences of an ethnic group. 

Because of the way that oral history combines the literary and the historical, this project will be of immense value to me professionally. I was hired by my department as part of its intention to have an active instructor and scholar of Asian American and Pacific Islander literature as a resource for the department as it diversifies its curriculum and responds to the diversity needs of its students.  By taking this time to conduct interviews that will become part of the archive of Japanese American history and culture, I feel that I will have produced an appropriate capstone to my faculty role at Lane thus far.    

Who and What

My project is two fold: I will conduct oral history interviews with two groups of Japanese American former sugar plantation workers who are living in Hawaii. The first group of interviewees are close family members who live on the Big Island and Oahu.  These are PRIVATE (Honolulu), PRIVATE (Hilo), PRIVATE (Honolulu), PRIVATE (Hilo), and PRIVATE (Honolulu).  I will also work with extended family members, and PRIVATE has agreed to serve as my contact point for this second group.  I have digital video equipment to record these interviews, and plan to create a short documentary video.  I already have a list of preliminary interview questions to ask the interviewees (See Appendix III). 

This summer (2006), I plan to have initial discussions with staff at the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in order to fine-tune my questions for Spring 2007.  My goal is to develop questions that are most likely to elicit illuminating responses and that will put the interviewees at ease. 

In addition to conducting live interviews, I will also consult primary source materials available at the Hawai‘i State Archives, the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and non-circulating interview tapes at Hamilton Library, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa.  The Center for Oral History has conducted extensive interviews with sugar plantation workers of many ethnic backgrounds; a brief summary of these interviews is available on the web http://www.oralhistory.hawaii.edu/pages/community/hamakua.html, but the full transcripts and tapes are only available at the Hamilton Library. Because of the important role that Japanese American sugar plantation workers played in Hawaii’s labor history,I also intend to spend time working at the library at the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawaii at West Oahu.  (Additional research materials can be found in Appendix I)

Four years ago, Professor Seri Luangphinith (of the University of Hawaii at Hilo) and I first began to discuss the importance and the possibility of conducting an oral history of Japanese American plantation workers. She has told me that she’s very excited to see this project come to fruition and she has had agreed to help me locate additional primary and secondary sources on the Big Island.  She has also asked me to speak about my project to her Eng 323: Literature of Hawaii students in April 2007 at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.  (See attached letter.)

Why

When I was an undergraduate in college, I conducted a rudimentary oral history interview  with my paternal grandfather, Tomotaro Shitabata.  As a student, I learned a few basic things about life in the time of plantation days on the Big Island of Hawaii.  At the age of 14 years old, he migrated from Japan to Hawaii in 1915.  He traveled eleven days by boat.  Any schooling he had had in Japan ceased once he began life in Hawaii.  At his first sugar cane plantation job he earned fifty cents a day for working eleven hours each day.  He lived in plantation housing for much of his life and worked his way up to be a supervisor.  In all he worked over 49 years for the Lapahoehoe Sugar Cane Co.

My grandfather worked the plantation from youth to retirement.  He and his wife raised seven sons and two daughters.  Two of their sons would also work at the plantation for over thirty years each.  For my project, I would like to capture the life conditions and experiences of plantation workers in the mid 20th century, not just their working conditions but their family life as well. 

There is a time consideration involved in any such project, as plantation life is quickly becoming a thing of the past.  At its peak in the 1960s, Hawaii accounted for the production of 11 million tons of sugar per year.  The 1990s was marked by the closure of the last sugar cane plantations on Oahu and the Big Island.  In 2004 production stood below 2 million tons.  Today, the last sugar plantations that have value beyond tourism are the Gay & Robinson plantation on Kauai and the Alexander & Baldwin operation on Maui, and even these are inflected by the tourism opportunities they present as windows into Hawaii’s “historic” past.  This pattern matches other declines in plantation level agricultural life in Hawaii.  As recently as a couple weeks ago Del Monte announced that it would cease pineapple plantation operations in Hawaii altogether.  Plantation agriculture is coming to a close in Hawaii and the island economy is much more clearly defined by tourism today. 

The people who can speak to the past life of Hawaii’s plantation heyday are also coming to their own close in life.  My grandfather passed away nearly 20 years ago, as did his oldest two sons.  His eldest daughter, my Aunt PRIVATE, has a failing memory.  But fortunately for my project, the two sons who combined have over sixty years working and living the sugar cane plantations still survive, as do their remaining five siblings.

Last year at Lane, Professor Ronald Takaki inspired the college community with his book A Larger Memory: the History of Our Diversity with Voices, and with his presentation to the college about the importance of understanding the stories of the diverse people who helped build this country.  His books and his visit here helped inspire me to take up this project for my sabbatical.  As a college instructor who has his Myth and Folklore students conduct oral history interviews of their own, and who has his Asian American Literature students read oral history materials for class, I would like to construct a more thorough and academically informed oral history project that can shape and augment my teaching of both of these classes, and act as a resource for my colleagues who wish to pursue similar aims.  Additionally, since I also often use Joseph Campbell's The Powers of Myth to teach Writing 121 (Freshman Composition), I feel that such a project would impact my teaching of both literature classes and composition classes at Lane.

As I remarked in my overview to Part I, the hard work of scholars in the past twenty years has aided our understanding of Japanese American experience of their internment during WWII.  In my own library alone I have some fifteen books that focus primarily on life in the camps or the effects of the camps on Japanese Americans after the war.  My own understanding of Asian American literature in general and Japanese American literature in particular has been influenced by this scholarship.  So why is it so important to learn about the lives of Japanese Americans working in Hawaii on sugar plantations?  Because while internment was a traumatic ordeal, it was not the only one that shaped Japanese American experience of being American.  Sugar is one of the most brutal cash crops because of its physical demands, and yet women, children and even elders worked for 50 cents a day, six days a week in the blistering heat (“Field Work and Family Work: Picture Brides on Hawaii’s Sugar Plantations 1910-1920” by Teresa Bill http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/hwhp/hawork/itm.picturebride.html ).  I hope to develop a deeper and first-hand understanding of the legacy that these workers have left.  In so doing, I will be better able to teach the literature and culture of this people and others who shared this work.

As the living archives of this experience—those who actually worked on the plantations—age, the urgency around uncovering their stories becomes greater.  As I approach things with an Ethnic Studies perspective in mind, my study and teaching of the literature of Asian Americans is highly informed by the larger cultural experience out of which literature develops.  To see the internment camps as the only major ordeal Japanese Americans experienced would be to only see a partial picture.

While currently only in the developing stages, I hope that my interviews and photographic research will provide me with the raw materials for a short video documentary.  People on the Mainland know little about the history and culture of Hawaii beyond picture-postcards and tropical vacations.  And yet Hawaii could teach many people on the Mainland about how diverse cultures can thrive together in common understanding.  This oral history documentary project might provide one path to a greater understanding of local Hawaiian culture, of which Japanese American culture is just a part.  And this would be of tremendous benefit to students and the entire Lane community.

When, Where and How

              To see that everything goes smoothly, the Spring 2007 project will be properly prepped in advance.  Since I travel to Hawaii for two weeks each summer, Summer 2006 will provide me with some time for pre-interview contact with the interviewees, as well as for arranging for permissions and dealing with any unforeseen questions that might otherwise arise.  In 2006 I will have time to spend a day at the University of Hawaii at Manoa archives to make arrangements for Spring 2007 access to the tapes.  This groundwork will make my work in Spring 2007 most productive.  I will scan the materials at the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, at the Bishop Museum, and at Hilo.  I will also meet with members of the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawaii at West Oahu.  Their work on the Great Hawaii Sugar Strike of 1946, of which my grandfather was a participant, is an important resource.  Professor Luangphinith and I will make plans for my visit as she develops her course, and she will direct me to the primary source materials at U Hawaii Hilo.

              In Fall 2006, I plan to apply for Lane Faculty Professional Development Funds to cover the cost of airfare to and from Eugene, and then to and from Honolulu and Hilo for Spring 2007. 

              In April 2007, I will spend the first two weeks of my stay in Kailua, Oahu, conducting interviews and researching materials at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.  The second half of my stay will be divided up between interviews with family members in Hilo and at the University of Hawaii, Hilo.  (See detailed schedule of activities, Appendix II).   

Part II: How this Oral History Project will contribute to my professional growth

              As I have written above, this project has been in my plan for professional development for many years. My teaching at Lane and the U of Oregon before that has convinced me of the importance of listening to the silenced voices of history to know the true history of the American experience.  As a Japanese American who studies the literatures and cultures of many Asian American communities, I feel privileged to have the opportunity to hear and record the history of my own extended family as it relates to the history of Japanese Americans, of Hawaiians, and of the larger American community. As an instructor of literature and writing, I know the power of stories to structure our experience and to act as conveyors of meaning from generation to generation. As an original contribution to the stories of sugar plantation workers, this oral history project will bring my scholarship and teaching to a new depth and level.

Part III: How this Oral History Project will be valuable to the college

              There are several ways that I can see my project contributing to the college.  First of all, having the opportunity to produce an oral history of the scope and direction that I have outlined will inform all of my teaching of writing and literature and literary history.  The content that I will come away with—an original understanding of people’s lives on sugar plantations in 20th century America—could have implications for work being done in other departments (history, ethnic studies, sociology) on sugar plantations that African American slaves worked on.   As I have already mentioned, my classes in literature and composition will be directly enhanced by this opportunity to develop professionally by creating a documentary oral history.

              The core value of diversity is one to which we all hope we give more than lip service.  I feel that this project honors that value by taking seriously the idea that we will continually develop respect and understanding for people of varied ethnic backgrounds.  The core value of learning is one that will be served in my own deepening knowledge and also in what I share with my colleagues.  I hope that my own project will serve as an inspiration to others on campus—students, faculty and staff—who wish to take it upon themselves to understand their own histories. 

              Finally, since the explicit aim of the English Department was to increase its expertise in Asian American literature and culture by hiring a specialist in this area, I see it as crucial that I continue to grow professionally and remain current in my field.

Part IV: How will I share my work with my colleagues at Lane?

              I plan to record, on tape or on video, the interviews that I conduct during my sabbatical.  I will also be visiting photographic archives and to collect other source materials (not the least of which will be my own photos of sugar plantations themselves).  I will share my findings and the product of my research with my colleagues at the annual in-service for sabbatical reports.  In addition, I plan to present my work to my departmental colleagues at our Faculty Professional Development in-service day.  These days have already been used for other faculty to share their sabbatical work in more detail than is possible in the college-wide sabbatical reports.  If I produce a written report, I would be happy to share it with any colleagues who are interested.

Appendix I

In addition to the primary source tapes and interviews available at the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaii, Manoa and the Hamilton Library, I will also consult the following texts.

Bibliography:

Adler, Jacob. Claus Spreckels: The Sugar King of Hawaii. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,1966.

Beechert, Edward D. Working in Hawaii: A Labor History. Honolulu: University of HawaiiPress, 1985.

Bottomley, W.T. A Statement Concerning the Sugar Industry in Hawaii: Labor Conditions on Hawaiian Sugar    Plantations;  Filipino Laborers Thereon, and the Alleged Filipino“Strike of 1924. Honolulu: Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association, 1924

Damon, Ethel. Koamalu: A Story of Pioneers in Kauai and What They Built in that Garden Island. Privately Published, 1931.

Dean, Arthur L. Alexander Baldwin, Ltd., and the Predecessor Partnerships. Honolulu: Alexander & Baldwin, 1956.

Dupuy, William A. Hawaii and It's Race Problem. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1932.

Duus, Masayo Mezawa. The Japanese Conspiracy: The Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Emmet, Boris. The California and Hawaiian Sugar Refining Corporation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1928

Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association. Proceedings of the Fortieth Meeting. Honolulu Star Bulletin, 1921.

---. The Sugar Industry of Hawaii and the Labor Shortage: What It Means to the United States and Hawaii. Honolulu: Hawaiian Sugar Planters' Association, no date.

Hawaii Laborers' Association. Facts about the Strike on Sugar Plantations in Hawaii. Honolulu: Hawaii Laborers' Association, 1920.

Johannessen, Edward. The Hawaiian Labor Movement: A Brief History. Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1956.

Kinney, W.A. Hawaii's Capacity for Self-Government All But Destroyed. Salt Lake City: F. Jensen, 1927.

Krauss, Bob and W.P. Alexander. Grove Farm Plantation. Honolulu: Pacific Books, 1976.Kuykendall, Ralph S. The Hawaiian Kingdom. Vol. 3 1874 – 1893: The Kalakaua Dynasty. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1967.

Okihiro, Gary Y. Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1965 – 1945. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991

Porteus, Stanley D. A Century of Social Thinking in Hawaii. Palo Alto: Pacific Books, 1962.

Thurston, Lorrin A. Memoirs of the Hawaiian Revolution. Honolulu: Honolulu Advertiser Publishing, 1936.

Vandercook, John W. King Cane: The Storyo f Sugar in Hawaii. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939.

Worden, William L. Cargoes: Matson's First Century in the Pacific. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1981.

Zalburg, Sanford. A Spark is Struck. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Pres, 1979.

Appendix II: Timeline

Preliminary Research Summer 2006

August 18- August 31, 2006

Monday, August 21

First Visit with Professor Seri Luangphinith, University of Hawaii, Hilo and consult University of Hawaii/Hilo archives.

Thursday, August 24

Gather permissions of interview subjects. 

Bishop Museum

Friday, August 25

Center for Oral History, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Monday, August 28

Center for Labor Education and Research, U of Hawaii West Oahu

Timeline for Sabbatical April 2007:

April 7:    Arrive in Honolulu, Hawaii

April 8:    Hamilton Library Archives, University of Hawaii, Manoa (interview tapes)

April 9:    Hamilton Library Archives, University of Hawaii, Manoa

April 10:  Read and examine Okinawans in Hawaii interview tapes, Center for Oral History, U

of Hawaii, Manoa

April 11:  Interview PRIVATE

April 12:  Interview PRIVATE and PRIVATE

April 14:  Review gathered data and interview materials

April 15:  Arrive in Hilo (Big Island).  Meet with Professor Luangphinith

April 16:  Presentation to Professor Luangphinith’s class.  University of Hawaii, Hilo, Primary

Source materials

April 17:  University of Hawaii, Hilo, Primary Source materials

April 18:  Interview PRIVATE, PRIVATE, and PRIVATE

April 19:  Return to Honolulu (Oahu)

April 20:  Center for Oral History Consult (tapes, other primary materials)

April 21-27: Review and organize collected materials; conduct follow up

interviews as needed; conduct interviews with any new subjects

whose names surface as a result of the initial interview process.

April 29:  Return to Oregon.

April 30 – May 31:  Continue research, review collected materials, conduct follow-up phone interviews, render materials into an audio, video, or written document (depending on the types of permissions acquired in Summer 2006).

Appendix III

Preliminary List of Interview Questions

Name:

Age:

1. How long have you lived in Hawaii?
2. Where were your parents from?
3. What age were you when you first worked on a plantation?
4. Did you ever work on a pineapple plantation? If so, how did it differ from your work on a sugar cane plantation?
5. What was your living situation like when you worked? (Did you live in camps or were camps already gone by the time you were working?)
6. What were your contacts with your bosses like?
7. How did you meet your spouse?
8. Did you have close friends at the plantations?
9. How was life different at the plantation compared to other jobs you had later in life?
10. What is your most vivid memory of life on the plantation?
11. What things about life on the plantation would you describe as pleasant?
12. What was the hardest thing about life on the plantation?
13. What other ethnic groups did you work with on the plantation?
    Was there any effort to keep ethnic groups separate?
14. What other social arrangements can you recall that stand out as significant to you?
15. If you were to tell a story about how plantation life made you who you are today, what would that story be?
16. If you were to tell a story about what you most disliked about plantation life, what would it be?
17. How did plantation life affect your family life?
18. Do you have anything else that comes to mind as you recall these days?