Observations of Racism

While the movie today was most intriguing, what I found even more interesting were the subtle hints at racism within the different ethnic groups.  For instance, in the early stages of the movie, the plump Japanese woman is singing in the sugar fields that she only works for 65 cents a day, unless she sleeps with an Chinese man and would earn double.  This spurs competitive singing by the Chinese that they are actually better in every way imaginable.  The other racial tension was during payday, where the Filipino was complaining that Japanese men were making more than him during the same amount of hours.  The Japanese retort by saying that they just work harder and better, which then sparks the fight. The final scene that I found racism evident was where the sugar plantation boss scolds the foreman for threatening with a whip.  He makes a point of saying it was not like the "old days," meaning back in the day whipping Asiatic women into working harder was apparently common practice.