A hui hou, Barbara.

We were sad to learn of the recent passing of plantation life scholar, Barbara Kawakami. She passed away this past December at the incredible age of 103.  Barbara built a terrific career as a historian after a decades-long career as a seamstress. In her 50s Barbara went back to school and got her bachelors and masters degrees and began publishing about a multitude of aspects of Hawaiʻi plantation life from work to fashion. In the 1980s through early 2000s she worked with UH West Oʻahu’s Center for Labor Education and Research  (CLEAR) to complete their Rice and Roses documentary series. Through our partnership with CLEAR and the generous support of Frank Moy and Marcia Mau, Barbara’s contributions to Hawaiʻi’s history live on in the numerous digitized programs and individual interviews that ʻUluʻulu has had the opportunity to digitize.

A fortuitous meeting between Barbara, Frank and Marcia led to a long friendship.  This, in turn, led to their long-term backing of the digitization of the immense Rice and Roses collection, that includes full-length programs and hours of raw footage. A sizeable portion of the interviews for these programs were conducted by CLEAR’s Chris Conybeare along with Barbara. She was especially invaluable when interviewing Japanese speakers. But it is clear that her own life experiences in plantations and her comfort with the topics helped ease people into talking about their past plantation lives. At times, even Barbara and her experiences were the subject of the interview.

Our Project Archivist, Jon Snyder, had the opportunity to work on the Moy funded CLEAR projects for a short time. Jon shared these thoughts on Barbara’s contributions after working with the material:

Thanks to the generosity of Frank Moy and Marcia Mau I was able to view a small portion of the work that Barbara Kawakami has done in collaboration with the Center for Labor Education and Research (CLEAR). Barbara’s efforts in collecting the first hand stories, photographs, and clothing samples worn by Japanese immigrants on the plantations of Hawaiʻi is an invaluable resource for everyone. Being able to hear from those who actually worked the fields provides the current and future generations a context so that we can better understand the challenging conditions and experiences that plantation workers had faced in the fields on a daily basis. Thank you Barbara for all you have done to help preserve the culture, stories, and lived experiences of those Japanese immigrant plantation workers.

We will miss you Barbara, but we are grateful for the literary and multi-media legacy you have left behind for us to continue learning from!

If you would like learn more about Barbara, the Moys and CLEAR we’ve provided some of the articles below:

• A tribute to Barbara Kawakami
• CLEAR, ʻUluʻulu receive more support from Virginia couple for Rice & Roses project
• Bringing Picture Brides’ Stories to Life
• Plantation History Preservation Project

We have also created a “Barbara Kawakami Tribute” theme on our website that consists of her work in front of and behind the camera.