Hawaii - James Michener [494]
Throughout Hawaii these minor miracles of accommodation were taking place. When a child felt pain he said, "Itai, itai!” which was Japanese. When he finished work it was pauhana. He had aloha for his friends. He tried to avoid pilikia and when he flattered girls it was hoomalimali, all Hawaiian words. He rarely ate candy, but kept his pockets filled with seed, a delicious Chinese confection tasting like ice, sugar and salt all at once and made of dried cherries or plums. After a dance he did not eat hot dogs; he ate a bowl of saimin, Japanese noodles, with teriyaki barbecue. Or he had chop suey. For dessert he had a Portuguese malasada, a sweet, sticky fried doughnut, crackling with sugar. It was an island community and it had absorbed the best from many cultures. On this day, as Punahou battled McKinley in a game that was more thrilling to Honolulu than the Rose Bowl game was to California, Punahou, the haole heaven, fielded a team containing two Sakagawas, a Kee, two Kalanianaoles, a Rodriques and assorted Hales, Hewletts, Janderses and Hoxworths. That year Punahou won, 27-6, and Shigeo Sakagawa scored two of the touchdowns, so that as he went home through the streets of Kakaako the perpetual toughs taunted him contemptuously with being a haole-lover, but they no longer tried to assault the Sakagawa boys. They knew better.
Logically, the Sakagawas should have been able--what with the aid of scholarships for three of the boys--to retire Reiko-chan from the barbershop, allowing her to enroll in the university, but just as the family had enough money saved ahead for this, the consulate on Nuuanu Street convened the Japanese community and told them gravely, "The war in China grows more costly than ever. We have got to assist our homeland now. Please, please remember your vows to the emperor." And the fund had gone to help Japan resist the evil of China's aggression, though Goro asked his friends, "How can China be the aggressor when it's Japan that’s done the invading?" He wanted to ask his father about this, but Kamejiro, in these trying days of late 1941, had pressing problems which he could not share with his children, nor with anyone else for that matter, except Mr. Ishii.
They began when Hawaii established a committee of American citizens whose job it was to visit all Japanese homes, beseeching the parents to write to Japan to have the names of their children removed from village registers, thus canceling their Japanese citizenship. Hoxworth Hale was the committee member who visited the Sakagawas, and with Reiko as interpreter he explained on the day after Thanksgiving: "Mr. Sakagawa, Japan is a nation that insists upon dual citizenship. But since your five fine children were born here, legally they're Americans. Emotionally they're Americans too. But because you registered their names in your Hiroshima village years ago they are also Japanese citizens. Suppose the war in Europe spreads. What if Japan and America get into it on opposite sides? Your sons might face serious difficulties if you allow them to retain two citizenships. To protect them, get it cleaned up."
The five children added their pleas. "Look, Pop," they argued. "We respect Japan;, but we're going to be Americans." Their father agreed with them. He nodded. He told Mr. Hale that it ought to be done, but as always before, he refused to sign any papers. This the children could not understand and they sided with Mr. Hale when he said, “It really isn't right, Mr. Sakagawa, for you to penalize your sons, especially with three of them being Punahou boys."
But Sakagawa-san was adamant, and after Mr. Hale had left, and his family began hammering him with their arguments, he felt caged and finally kicked a chair and shouted, "I'm going away where a man