1946: Legal Representation of Hawai'i's Working Class

Interview with Myer Symonds regarding ILWU during end of 1946 and the conditions in which Harriet and Symonds assisted the pineapple, sugar and longshore workers

Symonds discussed the plight of the working class he would come to represent during the Territory period of Hawaiʻi. There was a story of a young Portuguese girl experiencing sexual harassment by the plantation dentist. When she asked for Symonds legal representation for her case, he gave her his business card. She was told to approach her perpetrator with the announcement that she had legal representation.  This caused her perpetrator to recant his actions out of fear of legal consequence, and to buy the girl a new dress to replace the one he tore during his harassment. Symond’s work representing the working-class populations of Hawai’i provided them some justice against the abuse they experienced within the local plantation culture.