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Back to Asian American Voices

Asian American Voices

Title   Working in the Cane Fields
Author  
Annotation   Plantation songs describe caneworkers’ lives.
Year  
Text   Awake! Stir your bones! Rouse up!
Shrieks the Five o’Clock Whistle.
Don’t dream you can nestle
For one more sweet nap.
Or your ear-drums I’ll rap
With my steam-hammer tap
Till they burst.
Br-r-row-aw-i-e-ur-ur-rup!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! w-ak-e-u-u-u-up!

Filipino and Japanee;
Porto Rican and Portugee;
Korean, Kanaka, and Chinese;
Everybody whoever you be
On the whole plantation—
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! w-ak-e-u-u-u-up!
Br-r-row-aw-i-e-ur-ur-rup!
Source   “The Five O’Clock Whistle,” Kohala Midget, April 27, 1910.

 

This site was updated on 23-Nov-09.

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