I applaud the Oct. 19 letter "Local culture was here long before sugar cane."
Read about Maui's cane growing history and you will see that it started in Hana, moved to Spreckelsville/Paia and then to Lahaina and the rest of the Central Valley.
My grandfather, in the early 1900s, worked the cane fields around Spreckelsville.
Workers were kept in camps by race, the Chinese being the first to work the fields. Then came the Japanese. They were hard workers and adapted better to plantation living with very strict rules. A 60-hour workweek was the norm. They even had lights out at a given time. Wow.
A worker could be fired for just having smoked while on the job. How ironic.
But things changed through the years. Big, faster machines took the place of horses and wagons and people with cane knives.
But the way, my family heritage comes from Hawaiian, Chinese and Portuguese. So don't tell me to move because I happen to own a home downwind from cane fields. I am as grass roots as you can get. Maui is in my DNA.
Soon, it'll be voting time. Vote wisely.
Is Maui in your DNA?
David Ventura Jr.
Kahului
