Interview with Harry Urata at Makiki Cemetery #1
Interview with Harry Urata conducted by Chris Conybeare and Franklin Odo recorded in Makiki Cemetery for the program Hole Hole Bushi: Songs of the Cane Field. The interview continues to discuss the holehole bushi songs and their meaning. The songs describe what the Japanese people were going through as contract laborers in the plantation system in Hawaiʻi. They also talk about how many Hawaiian words are part of the holehole bushi songs. Holehole itself means "to strip, as sugar-cane leave from the stalk [Hawaiian Dictionary Pukui and Elbert]. One song they talk about in the interview talks about where the worker should go when their contract was over. Some workers left the plantation system or ran away and assumed new identities and some would go to jail and these songs discussed these issues.
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