“When you visit the Dole plantation here on O’ahu or buy a Dole pineapple, you’re supporting the legacy of Hawai’i’s colonizers.”
A popular activist on Twitter has set the fast-food world on its heels, as well as island tourists, by claiming the “heavy association between Hawai’i and pineapples (Hawaiian pizza) is racist, exploitative paradise propaganda!”
oni ku’ulei, a twenty-four-year-old “Black/Kānaka Maoli bisexual beauty”, pronouns she/her, laid out her explosive tract in a Twitter thread, her opening gambit generating a wild 34.5k likes, 7,866 retweets and 173 comments.
When you visit the Dole plantation here on O’ahu or buy a Dole pineapple, you’re supporting the legacy of Hawai’i’s colonizers. Just some fruit for thought…
Here’s your reminder that the heavy association between Hawai’i & pineapples (“Hawaiian” pizza, etc) is racist, exploitive paradise propaganda. Pineapples are used to sell the fantasy of a tropical Hawaiian utopia to tourists. Factually, pineapples are native to South America. 🧵
— oni ku’ulei ☁️ (@lmnhzd) August 26, 2022
Here’s your reminder that the heavy association between Hawai’i & pineapples (“Hawaiian” pizza, etc) is racist, exploitive paradise propaganda. Pineapples are used to sell the fantasy of a tropical Hawaiian utopia to tourists. Factually, pineapples are native to South America.
Sanford B. Dole advocated for the colonization, or “westernization” of Hawaiian land, ppl, culture, & gvmt. Successfully. He was the first “president” of Hawai’i in 1894, despite Hawai’i not being officially annexed (STOLEN) until 1898. The Doles ended up in Hawai’i after his…
… great grandfather set out for Hawai’i as a Christian missionary with the intent to obliterate Native Hawaiian culture, beliefs, rituals, etc. James Dole, Sanford’s brother, is responsible for the pineapple industry in Hawai’i (circa 1901). Business was good! Eventually…Dole needed to keep up with labor demands. The Native Hawaiian population was severely incapacitated due to the disease that colonizers brought to the islands, an issue that still affects Hawai’i to this day. So, Dole hired and transported plantation workers from…the Philippines, Japan, China, & Portugal. This is why many Hwns have mixtures of these ethnicities (like me — Black, Hwn, Chinese, Filipina). Why almost all settler families are from those places. It has a lot to do with why the stereotypical visual of a Hawaiian is Asiatic.
On Hawai’i being a paradise utopia — Hawai’i does not only exist in the vacation of your dreams. Hawai’i is a real place, w/ real people, and the indigenous population is struggling. Houselessness, drug addiction, poverty, food insecurity, no livable wage, & rent is high AF.
Here’s a fun fact, it’s no longer cost effective to grow Dole pineapples in Hawai’i. They now grow the majority of their stock in the Philippines and are able to profitably reap the benefits of the perfect Hawaiian fantasy/facade. Dole made $9.3b in 2021.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t visit the Dole pineapple plantation while visiting Oahu, the train ride, the plantation garden tour, the chocolate-making demos as well as the three-acre pineapple maze a treat for young and old and all very well priced at thirteen dollars for adults and seven dollars for kids.
