Center for Oral History > Projects > Individual Lives

Individual Lives

Hanahana: An Oral History Anthology of Hawai‘i’s Working People

Violet Hew

“The mother never leaves the house. The mother always stays home to receive the guests. And the father takes the children from one Chinese house to another. We knocked at the door and we would enter when the door opened. And then we wished each other ‘Happy New Year,’ you know. And then the owner, the adult, will give us little gifts wrapped in red paper. Usually, in the early days, we used to get twenty-five cents.” —Violet Hew

Back to Hanahana: An Oral History Anthology of Hawai‘i’s Working People