Problem
Why do the authors of "The Trouble with Disparity" think that anti-racism and disparity language will not address economic inequality in the United States? How might unions address the decline of public services and social nets for all "races"? How might unions foster respect for differences while building unity around workers' rights and economic equity?
Look closely at the pictures of the "bango tags" plantation management used to identify workers. "H" stood for Hawaiian, "J" for Japanese, "Y" for youth and so on. When you have an opportunity, visit CLEAR in the library - we have more sample bango tags in the display case outside of the archive. These tags were modeled after tags used in the south to identify slaves. Plantation management did not know the names of the agricultural workers in Hawai'i; they were not identified by name, but by number.
As you have learned, plantation workers in Hawaii were not only separated by ethnicity but they were paid according to their ethnicity/race and they were identified the bango tags. This makes it even more inspiring that Hawai'i plantation workers were able to collectively organize agricultural unions across language and race and take Hawai'i back from plantation owners and put it in the hands of Hawai'i workers. Please include your thoughts or reaction to these bango tags from Hawai'i plantation history.