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Category: Asian American History

People wearing Japanese style straw hats stand or climb on carts loaded with sugarcane, some carrying the canes on their backs.

Holehole Bushi: Franklin Odo on the Work Songs of Japanese Sugarcane Workers in Hawai`i

Posted by: Stephanie Hall

Japanese agricultural workers began immigrating to Hawai`i in 1868, primarily to work on sugar plantations. This immigration peaked in the late 19th century. At this time the population of Native Hawaiians was crashing. As Hawaiians had more contact with Europeans they contracted diseases that they had no immunity to. Sugar plantations, mainly owned by American …

Posted in: Asian American History, Folksong, Pacific Islander History, Pacific Islands Americans

A man playing a guitar and singing to a close crowd of a dozen or so men and women

Ready for research: Documentation of Southern pottery, Southeast Asian cultures, and Armenian folk crafts

Posted by: Nicole Saylor

This is a guest post by American Folklife Center archivist Jesse Hocking, who is part of a new cohort of archives staff across the Library who were hired to help bring collections out of the processing backlog. The American Folklife Center is excited to announce that the collection of Nancy Sweezy (1921-2010), noted folklorist, potter, …

Posted in: Armenian Americans, Asian American History, Folk Art, Folklorists, Massachusetts, Material Culture