Rows of wooden houses nestled in the swaying sugarcane fields of Maui. These were the laborers' neighborhoods of the island at one time.

"It is not a view of the past through rose-colored lenses but a realistic look at what life was really like in the plantation era.

Like the author, I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s in another plantation community called Spreckelsville on Maui….

The honesty and frankness of this Memoir, which would have been cathartic but painful for the author, makes this a story that would be appreciated by those who shared these plantation experiences and by their children and grandchildren who want to know what it was like living in the 'olden days'.” —Professor Leonard Andaya, co-director of Asian Studies, University of Hawaii, and co-author of A History of Malaysia 

“I did not want to stop reading it. I wanted more.” —Mrs. Ramona Pencerga, Resident of Paia for more than 75 years

“Jackie Pias Carlin has added both color and detail to the tapestry of Hawaiian and Filipino American history with the publication of Spirit of the Village A Maui Memoir.

The author’s willingness to share her story of growing up in a sugar plantation camp on Maui, revealing personal experiences from humorous to painful, make this a unique, appealing and important book.” —Gail Ainsworth, historian and author of Maui Remembers: A Local History

"If there is one book to read in 2006, the centennial celebration of the initial Filipino immigration to Hawaii, it is Jackie Pias Carlin’s Spririt of the Village A Maui Memoir….

 Indeed, she has more to tell, and her memoir stirs in us a greater interest in knowing more about the Filipino community and the many contributions they have made to making Hawaii special."
—Victor C. Pellegrino, Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii