Hawaii - James Michener [620]
"Many Chinese married Hawaiians," Judy argued. "Look at Leon Choy."
"And whenever one did," the sister explained, "we all felt sorrowful. You're a Chinese, Judy. You can't do this."
"Would you feel the same way if Kelly were a haole?" Judy asked.
"Identically," the sister assured her. "You're a Chinese. Marry a Chinese."
But Judy Kee was a very tough-minded girl, and in spite of constantly renewed pressures from her entire family she came home one night at four and announced loudly: "Now hear this! Now hear this! Everybody wake up. The most precious flower of the Celestial Kingdom is going to marry Kelly Kanakoa. And what are you going to do about it?" She stomped off to bed and waited as one by one the family came to see if she were sober and in her right mind.
At first Hong Kong flatly refused to attend the wedding, as did many of the leading Chinese and some of the remaining Hawaiian alii, but Judy said bravely, "Tonight at the Lagoon, Kelly, we'll announce our engagement, and then we'll sing 'The Wedding Song' in our own honor." And they did, and among the tourists it was a very popular wedding, but among the affected citizens of Hawaii it was a catastrophe. At the last moment Hong Kong thought of his obligations to Malama Kanakoa, and out of respect for her, he attended the ceremony, but he would not walk down the aisle with his daughter.
But at The Fort, Hong Kong found that the disgrace he was suffering through his daughter's headstrong marriage brought him closer to his colleagues. Hewlett Janders, whose son Whip was still living with the air force man in San Francisco, said simply, "You can never tell about kids, Hong Kong." And Hoxworth Hale, whose daughter Noelani was still brooding about the house and trying to sneak in a divorce without publicity, clapped his Chinese friend on the shoulder and confided: "We all go through it, but by God I wish we didn't have to."
"You think I did right?" Hong Kong asked in a sudden longing to talk.
"I'd attend my daughter's wedding, no matter whom she married," Hoxworth said flatly.
"I'm glad I did," Hong Kong confessed. "But I can't bring myself to visit them."
"Wait till the first baby's born," Hoxworth wisely counseled. "It'll give you an excuse to retreat gracefully." And Hong Kong agreed, but he felt that he might not want to look at a grandchild that was only half Chinese.
To THE SAKAGAWA FAMILY 1954 was a year that brought dislocation and frustration. It started in January when iron-willed Kamejiro, whose threats about leaving America no one had taken seriously, announced unexpectedly that he was sailing on Friday to spend the rest of his life in Hiroshima-ken. Consequently, on Friday he and his bent wife boarded a Japanese freighter and without even a round of farewell dinners departed for Japan. He told the boys, "The store will pay enough to feed me in Hiroshima. I worked hard in America, and Japan can be proud of the manner in which I conducted myself. I hope that when you're old you'll be able to say the same." Never a particularly sentimental man, he did not linger on deck gawking at the mountains he had pierced nor at the fields he had helped create. He led his wife below decks, where they had a sturdy meal of cold rice and fish, which they enjoyed.
It was usually overlooked in both Hawaii and the mainland that of the many Orientals brought to America, a substantial number preferred returning to their homelands, and in the years after World War II there was a heavy flow from America to Japan, of which the Sakagawas formed only an inconspicuous part. With their dollar savings such emigrants were able to buy, in the forgotten rural areas of Japan, fairly substantial positions in a poverty-stricken economy, and this Kamejiro intended doing. He would buy his Japanese relatives a little more land beside the Inland Sea and there it would wait, the family homestead in Hiroshima-ken,