Hawaii

by James Michener

  Of course, when the gardener Ichiro Ogawa, who had been saved from internment by Hewlett Janders, later insisted that he ought to get a raise from the $1.40 a day that Janders was paying him, big Hewie hit the roof and accused the little Japanese of being unpatriotic by demanding a raise at such a critical time in America's history. "I think of your welfare all the time, Ichiro," Hewie explained. "You must leave these things to me."

  "But I can't live on $1.40 a day any more. War expense."

  "Are you threatening me?" Janders boomed.

  "I got to have more money," Ichiro insisted.

  As soon as the Japanese had left, Janders called security at Pearl Harbor. "Lemuel," he spluttered, "I've got a workman out here whose loyalty I'm damned suspicious of. I think he ought to be carted off right now."

  "What's his name?"

  "Ichiro Ogawa, a real troublemaker."

  And that night Ogawa was spirited away and committed to a concentration camp on the mainland, after which there was less agitation for increased wages.

  NO ONE living in Hawaii escaped the effect of Pearl Harbor, and on the morning of December 8 practically no one could have even dimly foreseen the changes he would undergo. For example, gruff Hewlett Janders became to his surprise a full captain in the navy with control over harbor facilities. He wore an expensive khaki, some of the finest braid in the Pacific and ultimately a presidential citation for having kept the port cleared for war material.

  John Whipple Hewlett's wife was caught on the mainland and had to stay there for three years. Nineteen, descendants of the old New Bedford sea captain, Rafer Hoxworth, saw service in uniform, including two girls who went into the WAVES. On the other hand, a total of nine female descendants of old Dr. John Whipple married military officers whom they happened to meet in Honolulu.

  Of course, the most dramatic impact fell upon the Sakagawas, but I will save discussion of that till later, for it is important that everyone understand how this large family of Japanese aliens became, by virtue of the war, full-fledged Americans. It was ironic that years of pleading for citizenship had got the Japanese nowhere--good behavior availed them nothing--but as soon as the Japanese government destroyed Pearl Harbor and killed more than 4,000 men, everything the local Japanese had wanted was promptly given them; but as I said, I should like to postpone that ironic story for a while.

  Apart from the Sakagawas, the impact of that dreadful day of bombing and defeat fell heaviest upon the sprawling Kee hui. Two days after the bombing had ended, Nyuk Tsin, then ninety-four, was taken on a tour of the city by her grandson, Hong Kong, and as she saw the confusion into which the white citizens of Honolulu had fallen, she perceived that the next half year was going to provide the Kee hui with a vital opportunity for material growth, and that if it failed this rare chance, the hui would have no further claim to consideration.

  That night Nyuk Tsin summoned her sons and abler grandsons, and when her little house in Nuuanu was jammed, and the blackout curtains were in place, she said, "All over Honolulu the haoles are preparing to run away. Asia, do you think the Japanese are going to invade Hawaii?"

  "No."

  "Then why are the haoles running away?"

  "They may have better information than I do," careful Asia replied.

  "Will the Japanese airplanes come back?" Nyuk Tsin pressed.

  "I hear our airfields at Wheeler and Hickam were destroyed," Asia reported, "but a navy officer at the restaurant said that even so, next time we would drive the enemy planes away."

  Nyuk Tsin thought about this for some time and pressed her wrinkled old hands against her sunken cheeks, then passed them back along her almost vanished hair. "Hong Kong, do you think the Japanese will be back?"

  "They may try, but I don't think they'll succeed."

  "Do you think Honolulu is a safe place for us to gamble in?" Nyuk Tsin asked. "I mean, will the Japanese be kept out?"

  "Yes," Asia said.

  "Does it matter?" Hong Kong asked. He was forty-eight, a hard, honest man who had been taught by his father, Africa Kee the lawyer, all the tricks of survival. Having been refused a standard education at Punahou which would have softened his attitudes, he had acquired from his father a sure instinct for the jugular. As yet he was not well known in Hawaii, having been content to allow his popular uncles to stand before the community as ostensible leaders of the great Kee hui, but Nyuk Tsin, who ran the hui, knew that in Hong Kong she had a successor just as smart and diligent as herself. Therefore, when he asked, "Does it matter?" she listened.

  "If Japan conquers Hawaii," Hong Kong pointed out, "we will all be executed as leading Chinese. So we don't have to worry about that. The F.B.I. won't allow us to escape to the mainland, so we don't have to worry about that, either. We've got to stay where we are, pray that the Japanese don't win, and work harder than ever before."

  Nyuk Tsin listened, then dropped her thin hands into her lap. "Our adversity is our fortune," she whispered. "We can't run away, but the haoles can. Like frightened rabbits they will be leaving on every ship. And when they go, soldiers and sailors with lots of money will come in. When they arrive, we'll be here. This war will last a long time, and if we work hard, our hui can become stronger than ever before."

  "What should we work at?" Asia asked.

  "Land," Nyuk Tsin replied with the terrible tenacity of a Hakka peasant who had never known enough land. "As the frightened haoles ran away, we must buy all the land they leave behind."

  "We don't have enough money to do that," Hong Kong protested.

  "I'm sorry," Nyuk Tsin apologized. "I didn't explain myself correctly. Of course we can't afford to buy. But we can put down small deposits and promise to pay later. Then we can work the land and earn the money to pay off the debts."

  "But how can we get hold of enough money to start?" Hong Kong asked.

  "We must spend every cent of cash we have," Nyuk Tsin replied. "Asia, you take charge of that. Turn everything into cash. Let us run the stores on Hotel Street, because that's where the soldiers will come. Put all our girls to work. Australia, could your granddaughters start a hot-dog stand in Waikiki?"

  The hui laid plans to lure every stray nickel from passing military men, but the most important tactic was still to be discussed. "Tomorrow morning, every man who is able must report to Pearl Harbor," Nyuk Tsin directed. "If the shipyard was as badly damaged as they say, lots of men will be needed. They'll be afraid to employ Japanese, and our men will get good jobs. But every penny earned must be given to Asia."

  The family agreed that this was the right procedure, so Nyuk Tsin turned next to Hong Kong: "Your job will be the most difficult. You are to take the money that Asia provides, and you are to buy land. That is, pay just enough to get control. And remember, when people are running away in fear, they'll accept almost any cash offer and trust in faith to get the balance."

  Hong Kong listened, then asked, "Should I buy business land or private homes?"

  There was some discussion of this, but Nyuk Tsin finally directed: "Later, when the war is over, the big money will be in industrial land. But right now, when the island fills with people, everybody'll want homes."

  "So what should I do?" Hong Kong asked.

  "Buy homes now, and as their rents come in, apply the money to business property," Nyuk Tsin advised. Then she looked at the senior members of the hui and said, "The next years will require courage. When the war ends, people will hurry back to Hawaii and say, 'Those damned Chinese stole our land from us.' They'll forget that they ran away in fear, and we didn't. But then what they say won't matter." She laughed tremulously and chided her men: "I've never seen grown men so afraid as you are tonight. If you could run away, too, you'd do so, everyone of you. But fortunately the F.B.I. won't let you. So we must all stay here and work."

  From this night meeting behind bomb-proofed windows, three changes occurred in Honolulu. First, a good many of the small stores that catered to servicemen, selling them greasy food, soft drinks and candy bars
, came to be operated by members of the Kee hui. Prices were kept reasonable, the stores were kept clean, and every establishment made money. Second, at Pearl Harbor, when the accelerated rebuilding of that damaged base began, a surprising number of the auditors, senior bookkeepers, expediters and managerial assistants were named Kee. Their wages were good, their work impeccable, and their behavior inconspicuous. When draft boards asked the navy, "Are you fellows out at Pearl hoarding manpower?" the navy apologetically released Mendoncas and Guerreros, but never a Kee, for the latter were essential to the war. Third, when the military began to fly in hundreds of civilian advisers, and in the case of senior officials, their families too, these men found that if they wanted to rent quarters they had to see Hong Kong Kee; even generals and admirals were told, "Better check with Hong Kong." As the war progressed and Hawaii became horribly overcrowded, with every house renting at triple premium and every store jammed with customers, only Nyuk Tsin and Hong Kong realized how inconspicuously the Kees were converting their rent money into commercial land sites.

  THE MOST subtle effect of the war fell upon Hoxworth Hale, who was only forty-three when it began. Of course he volunteered immediately, reminding the local generals of his World War I experience, but they replied that he was essential to H & H, many of whose activities tied in with military requirements. He was therefore not allowed to rejoin the army. Later, when he heard that a group of Yale men were organizing a submarine outfit, he fought to get into that, feeling that he was well fitted for submarine duty, but the navy rather stiffly pointed out that the Yale men involved were more nearly his son s age than his. He therefore had to stay in Honolulu, where he worked closely with Admiral Nimitz and General Richardson, making a substantial contribution to the war effort. Along with his other duties he served as head of the draft board and chairman of the Office of Civilian Defense.

  In the former capacity he was pleased at the forthright manner in which young Japanese in Hawaii volunteered for military duty, and thought that the Army's arbitrary rejection of the boys was unwarranted, and he wrote to President Roosevelt to tell him so: "I can speak of first-hand knowledge, sir, and these Japanese boys are among the most loyal citizens you will find in the nation. Why can't you order your people to form a combat team composed of Japanese intended for use in Europe only?"

  On the other hand, he was distressed that so few Chinese stepped forward to bear arms in defense of America. "If they don't volunteer," he stormed one day, "I shall direct our draft boards to flush them out with cyanide of potassium. Where are they all?" When he had civil authorities look into the matter, he found that most of them were out at Pearl Harbor, and he asked Admiral Nimitz, "Do you mean to tell me that all those Chinese boys are essential to the war effort?" He was surprised when Nimitz looked into the matter and reported curtly: "Yes. We've got to have somebody out there who can use slide rules."

  In early 1942 the air corps asked Hoxworth to join a group of senior officers who were flying to various South Pacific islands to study the possibilities for new airstrips, and he of course quickly consented, for with his wife in a depressed spell during which she could not converse intelligently, with his daughter in a mainland school, and his son in the air corps, he had no reason to stay at home, and the pleasure he got from climbing into uniform, with the simulated rank of colonel, was great.

  His military contribution to the journey of inspection was not significant, but his sociological observations were of real import, and whenever the PBY started to descend at bases like Johnston Island, or Canton, or Nukufetau, and he saw from the cramped windows the crystal lagoons and the wide sweep of sand upon reef, he recalled all that one of his ancestors, Dr. John Whipple, had written about the tropics, and he was able to instruct the air corps men on many points. When he first stepped upon an atoll reef he had the peculiar sensation that he had come home, and although for years he had forgotten the fact that he was part-Polynesian, that ancient ancestry came flooding back upon him, and often while the officers were inspecting possible landing areas, he would remain upon the reef, looking out to sea, and long-submerged components of his blood came surging before his eyes, and he could see canoes and voyagers.

  But these were not the subtle influences of which I spoke. They began when the PBY landed on Suva Bay, in the Fiji Islands. Hoxworth climbed into a small British boat and went ashore to meet the governor, a proper Englishman with an American wife, and the visit started out like any normal wartime trip to an island that might soon be invaded by the enemy; but as the group started looking into Fiji affairs, Hoxworth Hale began building up impressions that disturbed him deeply.

  "Why are the Indians here kept apart?" he inquired.

  "Oh, you can't do anything with an Indian!” the British secretary to the governor replied.

  "Why not?" Hoxworth asked.

  "Have you ever tried working with an Oriental?" the Englishman countered. Hale made no reply, but as he studied the sugar fields in Fiji, he found them exactly like the sugar fields in Hawaii, and he had certainly worked with Japanese in precisely such surroundings, and without too much trouble. He reflected: "Indians were imported into Fiji, and Japanese were imported into Hawaii, for the same purposes at about the same time. But with what different results! In Hawaii the Japanese are reasonably good Americans. Here the Indians are totally undigested. What went wrong down here?"

  "One good thing about it, though," the Englishman pointed out. "If you Johnnies want to pre-empt land for your airstrips, you don't have to worry about the bloody Indians. They're not allowed to own any."

  "Why not?" Hoxworth asked.

  "Orientals? Owning land?" the smart young man asked rhetorically, but to himself Hoxworth replied: "Bloody well why not? If I understand correctly, the Kees now own half the homes in Hawaii. Best thing ever happens to a Japanese is when he gets a little piece of land and starts to tidy it up. Makes him less radical and woos him away from labor unions."

  "So the Indians own none of the land?" Hoxworth asked aloud.

  "No, we restrict that very severely," the young man assured him. "Nor can they vote, so we won't have any trouble there, either."

  "You mean, the ones born in India can't vote," Hoxworth queried.

  "Nor the ones born here," the aide explained, and Hoxworth thought: "How differently we've done things in Hawaii." And the more he saw of Fiji, the happier he was with the manner in which Hawaii's Orientals had been brought into full citizenship, with no real barriers hindering them. Did the Indians go to college? There were no colleges; but in Hawaii there were and God knows the Japanese went. Did the Indians own the land on which their crowded stores perched? No, but in Hawaii the Chinese and Japanese owned whatever they liked. Did the Indians participate in civil government? Heavens no, but in Hawaii their Oriental cousins were beginning to take over some branches. Did Indians serve as government clerks? No, but in Hawaii Chinese were sought after as government employees.

  And so throughout his entire comparison of Fiji and Hawaii, Hoxworth Hale saw that what had been done to build the Orientals into Hawaiian life had been the right thing, and what the British in Fiji had done to keep the Indians a sullen, hateful half of the population was wrong; and it was from Fiji that Hale acquired his first insight into how fundamentally just the missionary descendants had been, for he concluded: "In Hawaii we have a sound base from which our islands can move into a constructive future: Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Caucasians and Hawaiians working together. But in Fiji, with the hatred I see between the races, I don't see how a logical solution will ever be worked out." Then he added grimly, but with humor, "By God, the next time I hear a Japanese sugar worker raising hell about a union, I'm going to say, 'Watanabe-san, maybe you better go down to Fiji for a while and see how the Indians are doing.' He'd come back to Honolulu and cry at the wharf, 'Please, Mr. Hale, let me back on shore. I want to work in Hawaii, where things are good.' "

  And then, when he was congratulating himself on the superior system evolved by h
is missionary ancestors, he attended a banquet given by Sir Ratu Salaka, a majestic black Fijian chief with degrees from Cambridge and Munich, and when this scion of a great Fijian family appeared dressed in a native lava-lava, with western shirt and jacket, enormous brown leather shoes, and medals of valor gained in World War I, Hale intuitively felt: "In Hawaii we have no natives like this man."

  Sir Ratu Salaka was a powerfully oriented man. He spoke English faultlessly, knew of the progress of the war, and stood ready, although now well along in his fifties, to lead a Fijian expeditionary force against the Japanese.

  "Remember, my good friends of the air corps," he said prophetically, "when you invade such islands as Guadalcanal and Bougainville, where I have been on ethnological expeditions, you will require as scouts men like myself. Our dark skins will be an asset in scouting, our knowledge of the jungle will enable us to go where your men could never penetrate, and our habit of secrecy in movement will allow us to creep up upon our opponents and kill them silently, while their companions sit ten yards away. When you need us, call, for we are ready."

  "Will you have Indian troops with you?" Hale asked.

  At this question the dark-skinned host exploded with laughter. "Indians?" he snorted contemptuously. "We put out a call for volunteers and out of our population of more than a hundred thousand Indians, do you know now many stepped forward? Two, and they did so with the firm stipulation that they never be required to leave Fiji. In fact, if I remember, they weren't even willing to go to the other islands of this group. No, Mr. Hale, we wouldn’t t use any Indians. They didn't volunteer, and we didn't expect them to."