Event

Franklin Odo was an early activist in Asian American Studies and taught in the field for several decades before he became founding director of the Smithsonian's Asian Pacific American Center and Chief of the Asian Division, Library of Congress. He now leads the "Asian American Pacific Islander Theme Study" for the National Park Service.

"Voices from the Canefields" is based on Franklin Odo's recent book. Based on folksongs from Japanese immigrant sugar plantation workers, his talk uses these lyrics as primary documents to trace the experiences of immigrant workers caught in the global movements of empire, capital, and labor during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the unexpected resurgence of these "holehole bushi" in contemporary Hawai`i and Japan.