For travelers looking to get a true taste of Hawaiian life, crack seed stores provide insight to the immigrant culture that makes the islands so profound
during the pandemic, most of Rainbow Crack Seed’s customers have always been locals. For families hungry for a taste of normalcy and nostalgia, the store’s treats became a small pleasure during a time when people weren’t allowed on
as COVID-19 numbers fluctuated. Wanting to operate as normally as possible, the Ha family invested in sanitizing and safety measures to keep themselves and their customers safe. They shortened store hours but still opened daily, limiting the amount of patrons inside at one time to follow social-distancing rules.
Local patron Philip K. Ho, 90, loves the more traditional Chinese crack seed snacks, like preserved fruit. Born to a Chinese immigrant mother and a local Chinese father descended from plantation workers, Ho remembers moving to Kaimuki in east Oahu as a boy. His descendants still live there today.