Читать книгу Hawaii End of the Rainbow - Kazuo Miyamoto - Страница 8

AMONG THE IMMIGRANTS TO HAWAII IN 1891, there was a young man of twenty-two named Seikichi Arata. His forefathers had been professional warriors in Japan for generations and Seikichi had a fierce family pride, for it was only twenty-four years since the abolition of the feudal system in Japan which had flourished for at least seven centuries. Young Seikichi's ambition was to become an officer in the new Westernized army of the Japanese Empire—no longer a mere warrior of the Choshu clan as his forebears had been. He studied hard and in competitive examinations passed every subject, but at the last hurdle he was rejected because of his stature which lacked half an inch of the minimum requirement. Disgruntled and disappointed, it was pathetic to see him and also an ordeal to endure him. He was not the type to lose himself in dissipation to forget his frustrated hopes. He was silent and seemed infinitely unhappy. To console him, friends suggested he enter the police force, but he was not interested. In his mind, bigger dreams were taking shape. Rumors of emigration to Hawaii reached him. It was the talk of the countryside. Used to two and a half centuries of isolation from the outside world, banned under the penalty of death from leaving their homeland, this was extraordinary news to the people. True, several sons of Choshu had been sent abroad to study the arts and sciences of Europe and America, but that privilege was reserved for the selected and the elite. Now the rank and file had a chance to leave the country and seek their fortune in distant climes. To Seikichi, a big horizon of activity seemed to have been pried open. Denied entry into the army, he would be compensated by finding adventure and fortune in a foreign country. However, the entire family was opposed to this proposition. To leave the country of the gods for an unknown world was in itself an unthinkable revolutionary notion; to go as an immigrant laborer was a disgrace to the family name. If go he must, then he had to depart without the blessing of his parents and endure being disowned by the family. Balked by such ignorance and false family pride, he became more resolved in his determination to proceed to Hawaii.

In the Hawaiian Archipelago, the northernmost island is called Kauai, and is the oldest from a geological viewpoint. The topography is therefore less harsh than the other volcanic islands of more recent formation. The mountains are heavily wooded as only tropical lands can be vegetated and the bare and forbidding lava flows, common on other islands, are absent. In the center of this oval island is Mt. Waialeale, the second wettest spot on earth. (First place is conceded to a spot on the Himalaya Range in Assam, India.) Because of this abundant rainfall and the cool trade winds that continuously blow from Northern Canada and Alaska, the climate is moderated to ideal physical comfort in spite of its geographical position of 20° north latitude, which ought to make this a torrid climate. With Waialeale as its highest peak, a range of mountains form a wind-break against the northeasterly trades and so the windward slopes are steep and inaccessible. The moisture-bearing clouds, upon contact with the range of mountains, unload their cargo, producing almost daily rain. The angry waves of the Pacific keep up their incessant battering against the crumbling rocks of aging volcanic formation, and have produced a wild but picturesque coastline. Only wild pigs and goats roam on this inhospitable terrain called the Napali Coast.

On the leeward side, however, a virtual paradise has come into being. Here, protected and aging slowly, the lava had disintegrated to finer particles and the soil has become ideal for lush tropical vegetation. The gentle slopes of the mountains, though made irregular by the original flows of lava from the now extinct craters and subsequently chiseled off by gradual erosion by the elements, have produced a coastline of exquisite beauty with many inlets, coves, and sandy beaches. The contour of hills and mountains are rounded off, crowned with forests and vegetation so that an impression of gentleness is conveyed to onlookers. Not without cause is this island called the "Garden Island."

People have been coming to this and other islands of the archipelago for the past several centuries. First the Tahitians, inspired with adventurous yearnings developed by generations of cruising in the south seas, headed north in their search for habitable lands as population increases made their native habitat too crowded. They accidentally discovered these islands, settled there, and then sent for their kin. Many voyages were made back and forth in the following centuries. In their double canoes, they were guided by stars, wave and wind patterns, birds, and cloud formations. Especially in the voyages that were undertaken later, a pinpoint navigation was imperative in their northern cruise. Without natural enemies, a salubrious climate, rich soil, and abundant fishing in the surrounding sea, the population increased rapidly and it is chronicled that when Captain Cook visited Kealakekua Bay in the late eighteenth century, the native population numbered well over a quarter of a million happy and contented people. There was enough to eat for everybody.

Just a little work sufficed for the simple needs of the people. Nature was in her most beneficent mood and they multiplied accordingly, not plagued with any of the disease so rife among civilized men. Being in an isolated community, there were no epidemic diseases. A famous historical fact in epidemiology is that when Capt. Cook visited Kona, there was a case of measles among the sailors. From this focus, the virus of measles spread rapidly among the natives and thereafter it overran the islands like wildfire, causing thousands of deaths in its wake. A childhood disease, considered dangerous enough in some epidemics but usually innocuous and a relatively mild ordeal for civilized populations, it proved to be a scourge among the Hawaiians who had never been exposed to this malady and therefore had no racial immunity to protect them. Estimates were made later that perhaps one third of the population was carried off as a result of this epidemic, and finally, when every infectable one was affected, the virulence of the disease waned and it died out. The present day Hawaiians are prone to get tuberculosis when huddled together in city tenements, but their forefathers did not know that such a disease existed. Then came the venereal diseases. South Sea islanders have never been known to be prudes. For many decades whaling vessels found haven in the Hawaiian waters during winter months, and their sailors contributed their share to the Hawaiian downfall. Some cynic has coined the caustic phrase, "civilization is syphilization." Blessings of civilization are not always happy and beneficial.

The Hawaiian branch of the Polynesians prospered and multiplied, but as the earth became smaller with increased knowledge and improved means of navigation and as the greed of men drove adventurers to unknown corners of the world in search of fabulous riches, these somnolent islands could not long remain isolated, and were soon opened up to immigration from Europe and Asia. The factor that facilitated this migration of races to this out-of-the-way spot was the sugar industry that found native labor undependable and looked for workers of the old world that had been inured to centuries of uncomplaining toil. Natives did not know what real labor meant. The Portuguese were recruited in the Madeira and Azores Islands. Germans, Spaniards, Russians, Chinese, and finally Japanese were brought in to work on the sugar plantations. The Portuguese were industrious and obedient. They settled permanently, but did not like the low-waged indentured labor in the canefields and soon left the plantations to buy small farms and homestead. As independent farmers they might raise their own milk-cows, and chickens. For money to buy necessities of life, they worked on the neighboring plantation. Experiments with Germans, a boatload of whom came to Lihue, Kauai, and Spaniards that followed were equally unsuccessful from the sugar planters' viewpoint. They sought greener pastures in the continental United States and migrated further on from Hawaii.

The more successful immigrants for the needs of the sugar planters were the Chinese. They came from the province of Canton in southern China where the climate is much like that of the tropics, and had been used to long hours of hard labor. To construct the Southern Pacific Railroad, they were imported by the thousands as contract laborers to California and similarly thousands were brought to the Hawaiian Kingdom. As the custom of China forbade marriage of anyone not able to provide for a wife, young coolies that came to these islands for the most part were single. Very few females accompanied them. As a result they intermarried freely among the natives and a steady mixture of races came into being.

Despite the fact that the islands were under the rule of absolute monarchs of the line of the Kamehamehas, the power of the judiciary, executive, and military was in the hands of the Anglo-Saxons. These represented the moneyed sugar planters, and they were responsible for the introduction of new races into the community. The days of the New England whaling fleet which had found refuge in Lahaina and Honolulu during the winter off-season months were history, and the spiritual power wielded over the throne by the New England missionaries metamorphosed into a new generation of established capitalists who were sons and sons-in-law of these well-meaning but fanatical religious enthusiasts. The days of religious fervor were succeeded by the greed of a capitalistic generation. A treaty of reciprocity was concluded with the United States. In return for the American use of Pearl Harbor as a coaling station for the Navy, Hawaii's sugar was to have preferential tariff rates when landed at San Francisco. Though an independens monarchy, Hawaii was a mere appendage of the United States economically. British and German interests were jealous but powerless. Therefore, when the United States passed laws forbidding entry of Chinese into her ports and across her boundaries, Hawaii voluntarily followed suit. She was sensitive to the pendulum of American sentiment and forbade further recruiting of Cantonese labor to work in her sugarcane fields, because her sugar had to be sold in the markets of the mainland.

Deprived of this profitable fountain of cheap labor, a new source had to be tapped in order to keep the plantation going at a profit so that dividends would go to shareholders. Whatever may be said about the avariciousness and cold-bloodedness of these pioneers—their exploitation of native ignorance and in the appropriation and robbing of theis lands, credit must be given to their farsighted empire-building schemes They built for generations ahead, not merely for tomorrow. So wher King Kalakaua made a trip around the world in the 1880's, his itinerary included a visit to Japan. In the annals of the history of the Island Empire, Kalakaua was the first foreign sovereign to visit the empire and he was enthusiastically received. This royal visit paved the way for a conclusion of a treaty and revived migration of Japanese to the sugarcane fields of Hawaii. Previously, in 1865, such an experiment had been made but was soon given up after one shipload. A vigorous protest was made by the Japanese government when it learned that the immigrants wen harshly treated and the provisions of the treaty not lived up to by the plantations. From 1885 on, a steady stream of immigrant ships pliee between the ports of Japan and Honolulu and brought young men and women to the kingdom.

Thus we find young Seikichi Arata among the several hundred workers destined for the canefields for three years under contract (in other words, indentured labor) at twelve and a half dollars per month The plantations were to furnish housing, fuel, and medical care, bu the men had to feed themselves on this meager stipend. Seikichi was sent with fifty others to the Makaweli Plantation on the Island of Kauai. They were received as "new men" in a row of old, dilapidated bunk houses that had been used for a few decades by Chinese laborers. Built of the roughest 1 by 12 number, with galvanized iron for roofing, and painted with a white lime mixture, the external appearance of these barracks was neither inviting nor hospitable. The interior consisted of a platform about two feet above the floor extending the entire length of the room. On this platform, a thin straw matting was spread and tacked on. Blankets were to be spread for the night and folded against the wall during the daytime so that the room could serve as a living room. The walls were painted with whitewash, but having been done years ago, the bare boards exposed their ugly texture underneath the thin coating which was peeling off. Here and there, rectangular pieces of red paper on which Chinese ideographic characters were written were found pasted on the wall. These were legible and comprehensible to the newcomers and they had to admire the exquisite line in the strokes of the brush, but they could not help smiling at the meaning of the phrases. They were prompted by prayers for health, the keeping out of demons and bad luck, prayers for the coming of an ample harvest etc., and were written at New Year's time, just as Westerners would make New Year's resolutions.

How to clean up the place so that maximum pleasure might be derived even in such surroundings, was a problem to be met and solved immediately. Compatriots who had arrived earlier and were already established came instantly to meet the new arrivals. They were eager for news of their homeland, hoping to see familiar faces from their own villages, or men with whom friendships had been struck up in the ports of Kobe and Nagasaki while waiting for transportation. These men took the problem out of the newcomers' hands and tidied the room. They went to the store to buy straw mats to cover the platform and brought old magazines and newspapers to paste on the ugly walls. In a few hours the new arrivals were made to feel more at home. Breaking the ice by self-introduction, people were soon like old friends and news and experiences were exchanged. Of special interest was information regarding plantation life--what to expect and what was required of them. It was a relief to learn that the Makaweli Plantation was run by a manager with just and humane tendencies. The treatment of laborers on this plantation was incomparably better than on others, where horrid stories o inconceivable brutality were circulated throughout the islands. This brutality made the whole system of contract labor not unlike slavery.

The next day was allotted them to do as they wished in adjusting themselves to the new environment. In the red dirt of Makaweli, in the dusty leaves of the keawe tree, in the fluttering mynah birds, and in the green exuberance of the irrigated sugar cane, they discovered the richness of the tropics. The satiation of their curiosity regarding this Strange land was partially attained. As a rebound reaction, a homesickness fo their native villages and pine-clad hills of Japan assailed everyone as the curtain of dusk descended and enshrouded everything. But they wen to be here for three years. At the expiration of the contract there would be a maximum lump sum of nearly two hundred dollars. One could return with some pride to the native village. The only thing to do now was to take care of one's health, work hard, and save as much as possible Toward evening, the "luna," or overseer, came around and stood the newcomers in a single row. After scrutinizing them carefully, he begar assigning men to different types of work. Not all were to work in the fields. The aptitude and intelligence of each man was determined a once by the experienced eyes of the overseer. Through an interpreter Seikichi was told to report to the sugar mill the following morning.

At five o'clock the siren from the mill announced reveille and hur riedly they got up, performed their morning ablutions, and repaired to the mess room run by one of the wives, Mrs. Fukuda, and intimately called "Obasan" by all. Meals were extremely frugal, for the material! used were cheap. Monthly board to be paid for three meals a day wa four and a half dollars. By any stretch of the imagination, it would be impossible to visualize anything appetizing or substantial at this price There was just food enough to sustain the needs of the body, and perhaps the truth of the situation was that with the amount of energy expended in daily labor and toil, it did not matter very much as to how food was prepared or what variety there was: quantity was the prime requisite and the feeling of satiation was the only thing everyone asked for. To work, a man must have a full stomach. So a couple of bowls o rice were washed down with soybean soup, prepared with the additior of green vegetables or taro, and seasoned with dried, stony-hard, smoked tuna meat or dried shrimp. For the noon meal the tin lunch box contained about a pint measure of boiled rice and in a lesser compartmen boiled dried fish and pickled vegetables or plum. A pint bottle of tea completed the daily lunch on work days.

The sugar mill was an object of wonder to young Seikichi who had never been inside a factory. Beyond the village water-wheel, he knew nothing of machinery. Mechanical devices were a novelty and a source of never-ending wonder. The huge flywheels, the long strips of revolving leather that kept the different machineries in motion, and the incessant din of pounding noises that issued from steel in action, filled him with an awe and fear that did not leave him for some time as he stood in the engine room. The millhands who worked nonchalantly amongst these monstrosities appeared superior and courageous to him in every respect. He wished to be like them, to be at ease in this fearsome surrounding and feel himself the master of these monstrous and intricate devices. For these were in the final analysis, products of human imagination and creation. If the white men had produced such portentous slaves of labor, then he too must study hard to learn the secret of these objects and return to Japan equipped with a new knowledge of engineering. He had come to the islands simply to make money, but here was something additional and unexpected. To have become assigned to a place in the mill was providential indeed. He would make the most of it.

He was awakened from his ruminations in the big engine room by a summons to go to the next wing of the building. Here he was confronted by a pot-bellied white man, ruddy faced and double chinned, but with kindly blue eyes. "So, you are my new help. What is your name? Arata? Easy to remember. Sakimoto, take him around and show him the ropes."

George Weiman was the sugar boiler. Most plantations had, as chemists and sugar boilers, men trained in the technical schools of Germany. He was in charge of the most important job of seeing to it that the sugary syrup was properly boiled in large vats to bring about crystallization of sugar from the crude molasses. A corps of assistants kept up a twenty-four hour vigil over these vats, maintaining a constant optimum temperature of the syrup.

Arata was taken around by Sakimoto and taught what to do. "Young man, you are lucky to be given this job. In the first place it is easy. No back-breaking toil as your friends will have to do in the canefields. You will not even get dirty. But you must not sleep on the job. You have to be wide awake."

"Oh, I shall try my best. But frankly I am scared. I never saw such large over-powering machinery in action."

"That is correct. In Japan there are no such factories. These Germans are smart. Mr. Weiman is a very good man at heart. We are all behind him and will work to our bones not to disappoint him. I hope you will likewise do your best. Your job is to keep an eye on these thermometers and regulate the steam that heats the vats of cane sugar. When the mercury in this glass tubing goes beyond this line, turn the faucet this way and when it is below this line let in some more steam by turning the faucet the other way. To slip up on this job means thousands of dollars of loss." Only intelligent and responsible men could be entrusted with the job, Sakimoto told him. Seikichi should be honored to be picked by the overseer for this particular assignment. Even if it were an empty compliment, to be accorded a favorable opinion was not unpleasant.

For the ensuing three years Seikichi Arata worked hard and conscientiously. He mastered his job and was dependable. But, however hard he tried he could not come to love it. Perhaps his inability to understand the basic theory of sugar manufacture, its chemistry and application, and the lack of books in his vernacular to read and study, were the reasons why he could not like mill work. He determined to go into commercial fields for his life work. With the passage of the years, he came to love Kauai as a place to live and possibly raise a family. The carefree atmosphere of this new country, not tied down by century-old traditions and taboos, and an immense opportunity that existed for those that would settle and seek their fortune, changed Seikichi's original intention of returning to his homeland at the expiration of the three year contract. Being the second son, he was not obligated to look after his parents. There was no breach of filial piety if he stuck to his land of adoption. In spite of the disowning declaration that had been made by the family, this impetuous rupture was soon repaired by the nominal and formal patch-work of an uncle, and the family in Japan was thrilled to hear about this new land of opportunity. News spread fast and the stream of migration of the sons of Choshu to the Hawaiian Kingdom was steady. Many came to Kauai. Life became more congenial to the immigrants. The gregarious instinct was especially evident when different races settled in a community.