Generations of Maui families are feeling the body-blow of the reality that Hawaii’s last sugar plantation will close at year’s end, but not all are able to articulate those feelings.
Alexander & Baldwin Inc. said Wednesday it will end sugar farming at Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. and lay off most of its 675 workers.
News of the sugar plantation’s closure is “very sad, because we came here to Hawaii when my father was working sugar cane,” said Larry Badua, owner of Badua’s Creperie & Catering at Queen Ka‘ahumanu Center in Kahului.
Badua was 13 when his family came to Hawaii from the Philippines for his father’s job at the HC&S mill in Paia.
That closed about 10 years later and he moved to a different mill, but now no longer works in sugar.
“I think it’s going to be a big impact in labor. It’s going to hurt a lot of people, and I’m not sure how hopeful (they can be) to get another job someplace else, to do what they’ve been doing. It’s really very sad,” Badua said.
Sugar is an ingrained part of Hawaii’s culture, Badua observed, noting that “a lot of tourists learn about the culture,” about how the different cultures in Hawaii melded in the sugar fields, which makes Hawaii what it is now. Since the mid-1800s, waves of immigrants have been brought to Hawaii from Japan, China, Korea, the Philippines and Portugal to work on sugar plantations, where their separate cultures blended into a local hybrid.
Badua anticipates impact on his business. “I’m not sure what will be the percentage, but I’m sure a lot of people will be saving money and not spending,” he said.
Some on Maui were happy to see the sugar plantation close.
“I think that’s amazing,” said Michael Bears of Haiku. “I think that shows progress,” calling the plantation operation “completely unsustainable.”
“The amount of spraying and the amount of pollutants thrown back into the environment from that industry is pretty devastating, so yeah, that’s great news,” he said.
“From everything I’ve seen, (sugar) was brought in … and everything they’ve had to do to sustain that industry” was not good for the environment or the workers. “The hours they work, I’ve seen how they’re treated, and their (work) conditions. I don’t see it (sugar) benefiting anyone but the Baldwin family,” Bears said.
Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa asked that “community members be respectful to one another about this issue, as people are very emotional right now,” in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. He encouraged residents to “do our best to help each other out so that we can all get to the next stage of Maui’s future.”
Before that next stage can begin, there will be grief.
“I’m upset,” said Megan, 31, a salon employee in Kahului, who declined to give her last name. Her father worked for the company for 35 years. So did both her grandfathers, one Filipino, the other Portuguese.
“I’m sure nobody’s happy about the cane burning, but I mean I’m sure they could go about this (decision) in a different way,” Megan said.
“I’m just thinking of all the families that are going to be affected by this,” she said, emotion causing a catch in her voice.
She no longer lives with her parents and said they are dependent upon her father’s HC&S income as her mother is a homemaker.
Her father worked in industrial, versus agricultural jobs at the plantation. Megan happily remembers “going to visit my dad on his lunch break … when I was younger.” During school breaks, or “whenever we were off and my mom would have time, we would go meet him under the mango tree,” she said.
She has more difficult memories of “watching him work really hard, but getting transferred over to a different job with less pay. He’s getting older, and that’s hard.”
On the Net:
>> hcsugar.com/2016/
>> ilwulocal142.org/blog/index.php
>> co.maui.hi.us/index.aspx?nid=1894
