It is so weird to read articles about saving the culture of the locals by retaining sugar cane burning. I suppose it reflects the need to retain jobs, but it reveals a profound effect upon the companies that brought slave labor over here and stole land and water from the Hawaiians to grow and export a commodity to faraway lands. The companies kept the people decentralized as they presided over the government and development, like the island is today, to reduce problems and keep people disempowered.
If you have ever gone to a native reservation, you see some dressed in cowboy outfits - they dress as their oppressors did and do.
How long has sugar been in the islands, 150 years?
That isn't nearly as long as the local culture has been here, and it doesn't serve to protect the people who have enslaved you from the beginning. They may have brought you here from faraway lands, to a different life, but they used your life force for their own greed and still do today.
Christina Hemming
Paia
