Abstract
This study first examines the historic context of immigrant and native laborers working at the early 20th century Japanese sugarcane plantations in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) located in northern Micronesia. The focus then shifts to archaeological inquiry on the island of Tinian, where the material record of the labor class has been preserved and examined in sufficient detail to appreciate some of the contributions immigrant laborers made toward building a sense of their own community and “belonging” so far from home. While still remaining at the bottom of the social class structure of this new plantation economy, many immigrants were able to acquire through their own labor some of the economic measures of higher status and self-achievement long denied them at home.
