Retired BYU–Hawaii mathematics professor, Dr. David Furuto, said he was a third-generation worker at the Kahuku Sugar Plantation. His grandfather, Shintaro Furuto, who came from Hiroshima, Japan, and his father, Jitsuo Furuto, also worked at the Kahuku Sugar Plantation, he said.
Brooks Haderlie, the BYUH archivist, said the mills in Hawaii were shut down because other countries began to produce sugarcane and pineapple at a lower cost. For David Furuto, he said it was a sad moment when the Kahuku Sugar Plantation was shut down because it was part of his life.
Furuto echoed Haderlie, saying, “As the sugarcane industry struggled to keep up with technology and mechanization in sugarcane mills, the cost to upgrade the equipment and the increasing labor costs caused Hawaii’s sugar mills to shut down. The sugarcane industry had only one last sugar mill on the island of Maui, which finally closed around Christmas of 2016.” Furuto added each plantation ‘died’ one after another.
Furuto and his wife, Dr. Sharlene Furuto, a retired BYUH social work professor, discussed the history of plantations on Oahu and shared that people came from different countries to seek out their fortunes working in Hawaii’s mills.
“These descendants [came] from China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Portugal, Puerto Rico, etc.,” said Sharlene Furuto. “[They were able to] appreciate the blessings of democracy and the availability of good facilities for our health, education, religion, leisure, etc.”
Plantations in Hawaii
Sharlene Furuto shared in the 1860s, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acquired land in the town of Laie as a gathering place for the early Latter-day Saints.
She said, “A sugar mill was built in Laie, and the Saints planted sugarcane on much of the land. Sugarcane production in Hawaii at that time was very lucrative, and there were dozens of mills throughout the Sandwich Islands.”
David Furuto said, “When people on Oahu refer to a sugarcane plantation, they are usually referring to a large building with sugar processing equipment, including a sugar cane crusher, extracting raw juice, steam transformer, an evaporator, vacuum pans, centrifugal equipment, sugar drying machines, surface condensers, etc.”
He said the locations of sugar plantations on the island of Oahu were in Ewa, Aiea, Waialua, Kahuku and other places.
David Furuto said they used the terms Kahuku Sugar Plantation or Kahuku Sugar Mill synonymously. “Kahuku Sugar Plantation encompassed everything such as land, buildings, mill, etc.”
Working at the Plantation
David Furuto said his grandfather came to Hawaii, along with his wife, from Japan. He shared his grandfather and his grandfather’s three sons; Sadao, Jitsuo and Tokuo; also worked on the sugar plantation. “My father, Jitsuo Furuto, worked on the Kahuku Sugar Plantation, and later I worked on the Kahuku Sugar Plantation,” he said.
He recalled his father was a work-a-holic, and he expected his sons to work just as hard as he did. “Before I went to work at the Kahuku Sugar Plantation, I worked on our family farm of about 20 acres, which was considered big by Hawaii's standards.”
The reason his father expected them to work hard was so the Kahuku Sugar Plantation would hire them, he added. David Furuto said when he was old enough, he started working.
“So, when my foreman saw that I was an excellent worker, then my supervisor assigned me to work on the sabidon, [the weed poison] truck, which was a big promotion. Because I was such a hard worker, and a good worker, many other bosses wanted me to work for them. So, I became the highest paid kid at the Kahuku Sugar Plantation.”
He continued, “I became the third generation to work on the sugar plantation for several years.” He said the life lesson he learned from working at the plantation was, if he is a hard and good worker,then bosses would want to hire him.
Shutting down the plantations
Haderlie said, like most things, people in other countries were able to produce sugarcane cheaper and Hawaii stopped producing it.
“It was cheaper to do it in Central America and South America.” Haderlie explained labor in other countries cost less.
Haderlie added the same thing happened with the pineapple industry in Hawaii. He said pineapples were introduced to the islands in the 1800s and they grew well in the tropical climate.
“More pineapple was grown here in Hawaii than anywhere else in the world at that time, but then it got cheaper [in] other places. Now, there is still the Dole Plantation. But really, they only raise pineapple to sell to tourists and to local people. In my understanding, they do not export pineapple to other places anymore, so the economy has changed.”
Haderlie commented in 1971, the sugar mill in Kahuku closed.
David Furuto shared, “Unfortunately, I had relatives who worked at the Waialua Sugarcane Plantation, the Waipahu, the Ewa, the Waianae, etc., which just fell one by one. Hawaii, being part of the U.S.A., just could not compete with other countries, such as the Philippines, Mexico, South America, etc.”
He said the plantation was the primary employment for many local workers. He added it was especially hard on young people who lost their jobs after the plantation closed down. The younger workers moved away for higher paying jobs, he said, rather than collect government aid.
Furuto said he spent less than 10 years working on the plantation, but he is sure those who spent their entire lives working on the sugarcane plantations felt a great loss when they closed.