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Far from paradise, or Siberia

At the turn of the last century, the Hawaiian Board of Immigration imported more than 1,500 Russians, mostly from Siberia, to work on the islands’ sugar plantations. It was a last-ditch effort to make the then-US territory of Hawaii more white. But soon after arriving, the Siberians went on strike.

Image: A Russian plantation worker and his family in Hawaii, c.1918. Credit: Russian Collection, Hamilton Library/University of Hawaii at Manoa

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5 minutes