Hawaii: Prologue Of History

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looked among themselves
for suitable husbands and wives, so breaking in from the outside even through
marriage was hardly possible. The only time they were successfully challenged
prior to statehood was when Sears, Roebuck and Co. opened a store on Oahu.
Closing ranks, the Big Five decreed that their steamships would not carry
Sears's freight. When Sears threatened to buy its own steamship line, the Big
Five relented. In the end, statehood, and more to the point, tourism, broke
their oligarchy. After 1960 too much money was at stake for Mainland-based
corporations to ignore. Eventually the grip of the Big Five was loosened, but
they are still enormously powerful and richer than ever, though these days they
don't control everything. Now their power is land. With only five other major
landholders, the Big Five control 65 percent of all the privately held land in
Hawaii.

Why was the 1946 Strike so important?

Before 1946, Hawaii's economy, politics and social structures were ...

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from the unsuccessful 1909 and 1920 Japanese strikes
and the 1920, 1924 and 1937 Filipino labor movements which failed because of
ethnic unionism. The great strike of 1946 started with a new premise of
organizing workers of all races into a single labor union. Never again would
workers be divided and conquered because of ethnic antagonism. This strategy of
ethnic solidarity was successful but it was not easy. A concerted effort to
include the concerns and issues of all Hawai'i's workers, to communicate in
every language was necessary for the multi-ethnic union to succeed.

The legacy of the great Hawaiian sugar strike of 1946 is the success we can see
today of Hawai'i's multi-ethnic ...

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