This song illuminates the difficult working conditions on plantations in Hawaiʻi. The speaker describes the backbreaking work and trappings of the spending cycles for those plantation workers who resided on the plantation land and spent their salary at the company-owned plantation stores, often the only place to buy food and goods. Such stores operated on a credit system wherein workers, described by the song, would fall into debt, owing money to the company. The song’s narrator realizes that working does not make the workers earn and save money. Rather, it only makes their employers more wealthy. By the end of the song, the speaker decides to try a different system, growing their own food for their daily needs, instead of harvesting crops for someone else’s long-term profit.

The plantation system in Hawaiʻi consisted of a network of powerful, wealthy settlers who exploited the labor of Native Hawaiians and immigrant workers brought in from other countries, including those from Asia. This module offers an overview of the plantation system in Hawaiʻi, as well as the Native Hawaiian and Asian American organizers who fought for their human rights.