Daughter of Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

  “My mother Rachel was a remarkable woman,” she told them, her voice quaking a bit, “but you’ve all known that even longer than I. I’ve been privileged, these past twenty years, to discover just how remarkable. I’m lucky, you see: I had two mothers. One gave life to me; one raised me. But they both loved me. You know, some people don’t even get that once.”

  She smiled as she recalled, “It took me a while to say the words ‘I love you’ to my makuahine. It was a different kind of love than I felt for my okāsan, but founded on the same things. I cherished my adoptive parents for the home, the love, and the past we shared. I cherished Rachel for the love she showed me, the past she opened up to me, and the home I never knew: this place. The people she cared for. All of you.

  “There’s only one disadvantage, really, to having two mothers. You know twice the love … but you grieve twice as much.”

  She took out the old slip of writing paper and glanced down into her mother’s casket. Death had mercifully drained the fluids from Rachel’s face and, though scored by time, it appeared as beautiful as ever to Ruth. She began to read:

  “Pono, Haleola, 'eia mai kou keiki hanauna, Rachel!”

  Some of the mourners were puzzled, but one old-timer recognized the words and repeated the call to ancestors: “Pono, Haleola,” he said, his aged treble sounding quite clear and strong, “'eia mai kou keiki hanauna, Rachel!”

  Now Peggy spoke, her voice as resonant and proud as her mother’s: “Henry, Dorothy, 'eia mai kou kaikamahine, Rachel! Henry, Dorothy, here is your daughter, Rachel!”

  A few more mourners picked up the chant, some in Hawaiian and some in English.

  “Kenji-san, 'eia mai kou wahine male, Rachel,” Ruth said. “Kenji, here is your wife, Rachel.” She struggled with the next words: “O Rachel, here you are departing! Aloha wale, e Rachel, kaua, auwē! Boundless love, O Rachel, between us, alas!”

  As the mourners repeated that last word, Ruth heard for the first time the resonant Hawaiian wail of “Auwē! Auwē!”—“Alas, alas!”—which sprang from every heart at once.

  Peggy handed Ruth a small dish of poi, the dress Rachel had worn on the day they met at the Hotel Saint Claire, and the cloth doll in its kapa skirt that Henry Kalama had made for his little girl seventy-six years ago. Ruth tucked them all in the casket beside her mother.

  “Here is food, clothing, and something you loved,” she said. “Go; but if you have a mind to return, come back.”

  She leaned over her mother, tenderly kissed her forehead as she had Etsuko’s, and told her again that she loved her. Peggy did the same, bidding aloha to her Grandma Rachel before she was overcome by tears. The casket was closed and lowered; within twenty minutes an earthen blanket had covered it, and Rachel Aouli Kalama Utagawa slept again beside her beloved Kenji.

  * * *

  After thanking each guest individually for coming and listening to their fond memories of both Rachel and Kenji, Ruth and Peggy spent a few private minutes at their graves and then on the beach, sitting and gazing out to sea. Earlier that day, their escort, Hokea, had given them a tour of the settlement, but now Ruth realized that there was still one place at Kalaupapa she wanted to see.

  Hokea led them to an empty, closed-up cottage, its chipped paint bleached by the sun, on Goodhue Street. “Your mama shared this with her friend Leilani at first,” he said, taking them up the steps to the front porch. “After Leilani died, Rachel lived here alone until she met your papa, and after they married they lived here together.”

  They entered a large front room with three windows. It was musty and layered in dust, but Ruth could imagine it once being charming and cozy.

  “This was originally a two-bedroom cottage,” Hokea explained, “but Rachel and Kenji made the second bedroom into their living room. It was remodeled in 1930 after Lawrence Judd became governor and poured a lotta money into modernizing and renovating the settlement. He really cared about us.”

  Ruth glanced into the kitchen, which led into the bedroom, which also had three windows. She tried to imagine the bed that had once been there, the curtains on the windows, the dresser where Rachel said she had placed Ruth’s annual birthday gifts—and what happened here on a day a little more than fifty-four years ago.

  “This is where I was born,” Ruth said in wonderment. “Right here. In the middle of the night. Mother told me how the midwife delivered me and how they had only a few precious hours alone with me before they had to hand me over to the settlement nursery.”

  Ruth stood there, trying to absorb all the detail she could, filling a hole in her life with images of Rachel and Kenji on that night, holding and loving their only child in these brief, stolen moments. She could almost see their faces looking down at her, smiling, as dawn’s light sifted between drawn curtains, heralding the end of their time with her.

  Finally she said, “This is all I wanted to see. Mahalo, Hokea.”

  Back at the visitors’ quarters, Ruth and Peggy went through a pile of documents, photographs, and letters that Rachel had kept over the decades. On top was a letter in familiar handwriting: the one Etsuko had written to Sister Mary Louisa, assuring her that Ruth and her new family were all comfortably settled in Florin. She smiled to see her okāsan’s careful signature and, below that, their old address in Florin. But there was another address, at the head of the letter, which piqued Ruth’s interest even more:

  Sister Mary Louisa Hughes

  The Kapiolani Home for Girls

  1650 Meyers Street

  Honolulu, T.H.

  Ruth put the letter in her purse and asked Peggy, “Do you mind flying back to San Francisco on your own? I just realized I have some business to attend to in Honolulu. I’ll catch a later flight back.”

  “Well … sure,” Peggy said. “What kind of business?”

  “Unfinished.”

  * * *

  Honolulu had grown considerably since Ruth’s first visit here in 1954, but the traffic was still a breeze compared to driving into San Francisco at rush hour. She drove her rental car east on Nimitz Highway to H-1, getting off at Middle Street. She pulled over, studied her AAA map, then continued on Middle Street, passing through quiet residential neighborhoods as she turned left onto Rose Street and then right onto Meyers Street.

  Meyers Street ascended a steep hill and ended in a loop; on the outside of that loop was a ring of modest single-family homes and, on the inside, an “island” of more homes and a few apartment houses. All were lushly landscaped with green hedges, fan palms, banana plants, and purple bougainvillea.

  Ruth parked along the curb. On the mauka side of the street were actual mountains, the leeward slopes of the Ko'olau Range. The Kalihi Valley was a wedge of green above a circle of mostly concrete and asphalt. She walked the circumference of the loop, searching for some vestiges of an orphanage, but saw nothing but residences. She stopped beside a parking lot and looked out at the city sprawling west to Diamond Head.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  She turned to see a Hawaiian man looking curiously at her.

  “Aloha.” She smiled and extended a hand as she approached him. “My name is Ruth Harada. When I was a little girl, I lived in an orphanage that used to be here—the Kapi'olani Home for Girls. Have you heard of it?”

  “Oh yeah,” the man said, shaking her hand, “but didn’t it close down a long time ago?”

  “Yes, in 1938; all the girls were placed in foster homes. I haven’t been here since I was five years old. I’m just looking to see if there’s anything left of it. The address was 1650 Meyers Street. Do you know where that is?”

  The man glanced up the street. “I think that’s up around the bend. C’mon.” As they followed the curve of the road, he added, “This whole subdivision was built around 1950. Underneath is all coral stone.” They came to one of the apartment buildings on the inner “island.” “Okay, that’s 1644 … 1646 right next to it … it’s probably on the other side of this building.”

  When they f
ound it, 1650 was just a number on one of the apartments. Ruth searched for anything that might seem familiar, but …

  “Doesn’t look like there’s anything left of it,” the man said. “Sorry.”

  “Well, mahalo for helping,” Ruth said, disappointed.

  “No worries.” The man returned to his house as Ruth stood dejectedly on the street. This had been a total waste of time. She headed for her car.

  Somewhere a dog barked.

  Instinctively, Ruth turned around.

  A small black-and-white dog—looked like some kind of terrier mix—stood in the center of the road, barking.

  “Hey, little guy,” Ruth said. “You live around here?”

  She saw no collar on him, but then Ruth was routinely irked by the number of people who didn’t tag their dogs.

  As she approached the terrier, his barking became more insistent. But as soon as Ruth came within a few feet, the dog suddenly turned tail and ran.

  Ruth’s heart started racing, she didn’t know why.

  Nor did she know why she felt the need to run after him—but she did.

  “Hey! Stop!” she called. But the terrier just kept galloping down Meyers Street.

  Ruth knew she could never catch him, but nevertheless she continued to run. She had no idea why she felt such a sense of urgency, but at this moment catching this dog seemed like the most important thing in the world.

  “C’mon, boy! Stop!” She was getting short of breath. “Stop! Stop, buddy! C’mon!”

  The distance between them opened up as the dog raced downhill even faster.

  “C’mon, boy! Stop! Stop! Only, stop! Only!”

  The name came out of her in a scream that shocked her so much she lost her footing—and fell.

  She sprawled, face forward, breaking her fall with her hands. The scrape of the asphalt as it skinned her hands made her cry out.

  tumbling down the hill, rocks and pebbles raking her skin

  She lay in the road, her hands bleeding, but all she could think of was

  his light brown fur painted black by the night, the amber circles in his eyes flashing briefly as he turned his head. Ruth listened helplessly to his cries, feeling a grief and sorrow and anger unlike anything she had ever known

  Anger. Buried deep. This deep.

  Ruth rested her hand on the dog’s front legs and closed her eyes, enjoying the softness of his fur, their shared contentment. She wanted to stay like this, warm and loved, forever.

  It hadn’t been forever. But miraculously, she had him back now—how their chests had touched, the warmth of his body, his heart beating against her, feeling as though their heartbeats were one and the same.

  She held that moment in her arms and swore never to let it go again.

  “Only,” she said softly, like a long-forgotten prayer. “Only…”

  She pushed herself up into a sitting position. She heard someone running toward her, but her attention was fixed on the little black-and-white terrier. He had stopped running, had even come a little closer, and was gazing at her with a dog-smile and what seemed an almost human comprehension.

  “Are you all right?”

  Ruth turned her head to see a young Chinese American woman standing above her. “Do you need help getting up?”

  Ruth turned back to the dog, who was running away again, downhill.

  The woman helped Ruth get to her feet. Ruth thanked her.

  She looked at Ruth’s bruised, bleeding palms, said, “Let me get some Bactine and Band-Aids for those cuts,” and hurried back to her house.

  Ruth looked down the street. The dog was nowhere to be seen. But that was all right. She smiled because she knew, now, who it was.

  The practical, Japanese part of her said it was just a stray dog, or a lost pet. But her Hawaiian half chose to believe it had been her 'aumakua, Rachel, taking a familiar form to point Ruth where she needed to go—toward the past, and a friend, she had lost.

  She tore off a chunk of sandwich and offered it on the palm of her hand. His tongue ladled it up and into his mouth, and Ruth giggled at the pleasant tickle of it on her skin.

  She remembers the pain of losing him, but she smiles at the happiness he brought her, cherishing the joy she felt at his side. She even begins to recall the love in the eyes of a woman wearing a nun’s white cowl.

  She feels a peace that has eluded her all her life. She is Japanese, she is Hawaiian; she is hapa, and she is whole.

  Author’s Note

  The Japanese American exclusion and internment—from the declaration of Executive Order No. 9066 on February 19, 1942, to the closure of the last of the main camps on March 20, 1946—spanned barely more than four years. And yet it looms large in America’s collective conscience as it does in the memories of those who lived through it and the future generations who were impacted by it. But unlike other cases of injustice—slavery, or our nation’s mistreatment of Native Americans—this occurred not centuries in the past but in 1942, by which time we should have known better. President Franklin Roosevelt should have known better. But the same man who gave hope to millions during the Depression and guided the nation through a harrowing world war also enacted one of the greatest civil rights violations in U.S. history—ordering American citizens into concentration camps for no reason other than the color of their skin and the shape of their eyes.

  Sadly, it seems, we are never as enlightened, as inoculated from fear and racism, as we might wish we were.

  In 1980, the National Coalition for Redress/Reparations (NCRR) was founded by Japanese American citizens from across the country. Among its founding principles were to petition the United States government for monetary and other redress for “each individual who suffered deprivation of liberty” during World War II and to “educate the general public about this tragedy so as to prevent such events from happening again.” The NCRR was joined in this fight by the Japanese American Citizens League, the National Council for Japanese American Redress, and members of Congress—white, black, and some, like Senators Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga of Hawai'i, who were themselves of Japanese descent.

  Eight years of ultimately successful lobbying led to the passage by Congress of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The legislation formally apologized on behalf of the people of the United States for the internment, stating that it was based not on legitimate security concerns but on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” A total of 82,264 surviving internees were each paid twenty thousand dollars in compensation, and the Civil Liberties Public Education Fund was established to inform the public about the internment. Five thousand dollars apiece was paid to 645 people of Japanese ancestry who had been living in Latin America when war broke out and whom the United States had forcibly deported from these countries and sent to internment camps in the United States. These Latin Japanese were not released from U.S. custody until February 1948, almost two years after Japanese Americans.

  One of those determined NCRR members was Guy Aoki, who would later cofound Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA), which holds Hollywood to account for its casting and portrayal of Asian Americans. Guy, who is a friend of mine, graciously agreed to read my manuscript and vet it for inaccuracies. I am indebted to him for his wide knowledge of Japanese American history and culture, his persistence in confirming every fact, and his keen eye for detail. My thanks, too, to Tomoko Nagata and Marisa Hamamoto, who helped Guy with some of the Japanese-language phrases in this book.

  I am equally grateful to National Park Service Rangers Rosemary Masters and Patricia Biggs at the Manzanar National Historic Site. Upon my visit to Manzanar, Rosemary recommended pertinent books, and later she sent me links to rare color photographs of wartime Manzanar and updated texts from the park’s exhibits. She also replied to my email follow-up questions, and her colleague Patricia Biggs, who wrote her Ph.D. dissertation on the Manzanar riot, generously answered my questions on the su
bject.

  Any study of Manzanar must begin with the foundational classic Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, but also instructive were The Evacuation and Relocation of Persons of Japanese Ancestry During World War II: A Historical Study of the Manzanar War Relocation Center by Harlan D. Unrau; Photographs of Manzanar by Ansel Adams; The Unquiet Nisei: An Oral History of the Life of Sue Kunitomi Embrey by Diana Meyers Bahr; Manzanar Martyr: An Interview With Harry Y. Ueno by Sue Kunitomo Embrey, Arthur A. Hansen, and Betty Kulberg Mitson; Ganbatte: Sixty-Year Struggle of a Kibei Worker by Karl G. Yoneda; Children of Manzanar by Heather C. Lindquist; Images of America: Manzanar by Jane Wehrey; Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family by Yoshiko Uchida; Nurse of Manzanar by Samuel Nakamura derived from My Memories of World War II by Toshiko Eto Nakamura; “The Manzanar Riot: An Ethnic Perspective” by Arthur A. Hansen and David A. Hacker (Amerasia Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 1974); “The Problem People” by Jim Marshall (Collier’s, August 15, 1942); “Resistance, Collaboration, and Manzanar Protest” by Lon Kurashige (Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 70, No. 3, August 2001); “A Report on the Manzanar Riot of Sunday, December 6, 1942” by Togo Tanaka (War Relocation Authority document); Remembering Manzanar: A Documentary (National Park Service); and the archives of the Manzanar Free Press on Calisphere.org.

  Details of life at Tanforan Assembly Center were drawn from The Kikuchi Diary by Charles Kikuchi, edited by John Modell; Citizen 13660 by Miné Okubo; I Call to Remembrance by Toyo Suyemoto and Susan B. Richardson; Betrayed Trust by Motomu Akashi; The Invisible Thread by Yoshiko Uchida; and the archives of The Tanforan Totalizer at Calisphere.org.

  For the history of Tule Lake Relocation/Segregation Center, I looked to Tule Lake Revisited by Barbara Takei and Judy Tachibana; Tule Lake: An Issei Memoir by Noboru Shirai; Encyclopedia of Japanese American Internment edited by Gary Y. Okihiro; and the WRA documents “Tule Lake Incident” by John Bigelow, Japanese American Evacuation and Resettlement Study, Part II: Period of Army Rule by Rosalie Hankey, “Tule Lake Incident: Sequence of Events: Sept. 30–Nov. 5, 1943” by Anonymous, and Semi-Annual Report, July 1 to December 31, 1943 by John D. Cook.