Hawaii (136 page)

When Reiko-chan was a long-legged, flashing-eyed girl of twelve she was ready to take her all-important verbal examination for admission into the privileges of Jefferson. Her parents washed her with unusual care, dressed her in a white smock with ruffles, and polished

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her shoes. Kamejiro wanted to accompany her, but she begged him not to do so, only to find when she got to Jefferson that he was required to be with her. She ran back to get him, and when her mother saw how heated up she had become in doing so, she was given another bath, and with her father's apprehensive hand in hers she returned to Jefferson, where a teacher picked up the report from Reiko's elementary school and read silently: "Reiko Sakagawa. Grades A. Behavior A. Knowledge of American customs A. English A." The investigating teacher smiled and passed the report approvingly along to the other two members of the board, but one of these had at her elbow an additional report on the Sakagawa girl, and this said simply, "Father, privy cleaner."

"How do you spend your days this summer?" the first teacher asked.

In a sweet, clear voice Reiko-chan replied, with careful attention to each syllable, "I help my mother with the washing. And on Sundays I go to church. And when we have a picnic I help my brothers get dressed."

The three teachers were impressed with the precision of the little girl's speech. Obviously she was a girl who belonged in whatever excellent schools a community could provide, and the first teacher was about to mark the official ballot "Passed," when the third teacher whispered, "Did you see this? Her father?"

The damning paper was passed from hand to hand and the teachers nodded. "Failed," wrote the first. Then, smiling sweetly at Reiko-chan, she explained: "We are not going to accept you at Jefferson, my dear. We feel that you speak a little too deliberately ... as if you had memorized."

There was no appeal. Kamejiro and his brilliant daughter were led away and in the summer sunlight the father asked in Japanese, "Did you get in?"

"No," she said, trying desperately not to cry.

"Why not?" her father asked in dumb pain.

"They said I spoke too slowly," she explained.

It was Kamejiro, and not Reiko-chan, who began to weep. He looked at the fine school, at the lovely grounds, and realized what a great boon his family had lost. "Why, why?" he pleaded. "At home you talk like a fire machine! Why do you talk slow today?"

"I wanted to be so careful," Reiko-chan explained.

Kamejiro felt that his daughter had failed the family through some conscious error, and his rage overcame him. Raising his arm, he was about to punish her when he saw that tears were hanging in her eyes, so instead of thrashing her as he intended, he dropped on one knee and embraced her. "Don't worry," he said. "Goro will get in. Maybe it's even better that way, because he's a boy."

Then he grabbed his daughter lovingly by the hand and said, "We must hurry," and the event toward which he hurried proved how deeply confused he was, for after having tried with all his

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prayers to get Reiko-chan into Jefferson so that she could be even more American, he now rushed her back home and into a kimono so that she could join her brothers in demonstrating that she was perpetually a Japanese. For this was the emperor's birthday, and the community was assembling at the Japanese school. As each family entered, the parents bowed almost to the floor before the portrait of the august emperor, then led their children to an allotted place on the tatami, where they sat on their ankles. At eleven the teacher appeared, ashen-faced, so grave was his responsibility that day. A former army officer rose and explained, "In Japan today, if the teacher who reads the Imperial Rescript mispronounces even one word or stumbles once, he is required to commit hara-kiri. Let us pay attention as we hear the immortal words of the Emperor Meiji as to what makes a good Japanese."

Slowly, painfully, the teacher began reading. In Japanese life the Imperial Rescript was unlike anything that western nations knew. It had started out in 1890 as a simple announcement of what Japan's educational policy should be, but the nation had found its clear statement or citizenship so appealing that the Rescript had been made immortal. Children and soldiers had to memorize it and lead their lives according to its precepts. It taught love of country, complete subjugation to the divine will of the emperor, and obedience to all authority. In beautiful language it taught a staggering theory of life, and in humble attention to it, Japan had grown strong. When the teacher ended his reading of the terrifying words, huge drops of perspiration stood out on his forehead, and each member of his audience was freshly dedicated to Japan and willing to sacrifice his life at the command of the emperor.

The army officer rose and said, "Let us remember Japan!" And all bowed, thinking of that distant, sweet and lovely land.

The crowd now went outside, where an arena had been set up, and two enormous men visiting from Japan waited, stripped down to the merest loincloths, and after a priest had prayed over them, they went to their respective comers of the arena and grabbed handfuls of salt, which they scattered about the mat upon which they were to wrestle. Kamejiro whispered to his attentive boys, "Haoles who say Japanese are runty should see these menl" The preparations continued with painful deliberateness for forty minutes, then in a flash of speed, the two giants crashed into one another, groaned and hefted until one pushed the other across the boundary. The Japanese cheered, then burst into hilarious laughter as two of their own fatties, men from the plantations, appeared nearly naked to conduct their own wrestling match.

In the afternoon, officials from the consulate drove up in a black car and told the listeners, "Grave events are shaping up in Asia. The perpetual evil of China once more threatens us, and we cannot say what fearful measures our august emperor may be required to take. On this solemn day, may we rededicate our lives to the land we

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love." There was a great deal more about the ominous events that imperiled the homeland, but nobody was very clear as to what they were. However, a collection was taken to aid the emperor in this hour of need, and the Sakagawas contributed money that had been intended for a new dress for Reiko-chan. She was allowed to place the coins in the box, and she quivered with love of Japan as she did so.

Now the celebrants moved to the public square in Kakaako, where under a banyan tree they performed the ancient, ritualistic bon dances of Japan. The children were an important part of this dance, weaving in slow measures in and out, their colorful kimonos swaying in the soft night breezes, and one group of elderly ladies, who had learned their hon dances in villages thousands of miles from Hawaii, found tears in their eyes as they watched delicate Reiko-chan moving through the graceful figures. One old woman asked, "I wonder if she knows how beautiful she is? Such a flawless skin and her eyes so Japanese!"

Kamejiro, who overheard these words of praise, blushed and told the women, "We are training Reiko-chan so that when she returns to Japan she will be recognized as a fine Japanese."

"She is one now," the women said approvingly.

When the emperor's birthday celebration ended, the old confusions returned, and Kamejiro warned his sons, in one breath, "This sacred day should remind you of how important it is that we get our family back to Japan," and, "You boys saw that Reiko-chan missed getting into Jefferson. You are not to miss." So the tiny Sakagawa shack became a drill hall with all the children speaking English.

Even in its first year Jefferson demonstrated its success. With better teachers and better facilities it promised to turn out graduates who were proficient in English and who were sure to make good records at mainland colleges. Some of the plantation owners began to wonder if perhaps the English-standard schools weren't too good. Hoxworth Hale observed: "Why you get almost as fine an education at Jefferson as you do at Punahou. No tax-supported school has to be that good." But there were other protests of a more serious nature, for it had become apparent to laboring groups that their children were not going to be admitted to the superior schools, no matter how proficient their English, and some radical labor men began to argue: "We pay taxes to support these fine schools to educate those who don't need them. It is our own children who ought to be going to those schools, for then the differences between groups in the community would be diminished."

Sometimes at night, as Kamejiro listened to Reiko-chan drilling her brothers in English, he thought: "Everybody in Hawaii has it better than the Japanese. Look at those damned Kees! They have big stores and their sons go to Punahou. When the Chinese came to Hawaii, things were easy."

Now it was Goro's turn to try his luck at Jefferson, and like his

sister he reported to the jury of three teachers. Like her he brought with him a rather striking report: "Grades A. Behavior B. Knowledge of American customs A. English A. This boy has unusual capacities in history." The test began, and he spoke with delightful fluency, explaining the Civil War to the teachers.

It looked as if they would have to accept him, when one teacher used a device that had been found effective in testing a child's real knowledge of English. She slowly lifted a piece of paper and tore it in half.

"What did I do to the paper?" she asked.

"You broke it," Goro said promptly.

Again the teacher tore the paper and asked, "What did I do to it this time?"

"You broke it again," Goro said.

"We're sorry," the chairman announced. "She tore the paper. The word is tore." And Goro was rejected.

When his father heard the news he asked dumbly, "What was the word again?"

Goro explained, "I said broke when I should have said tore."

"Broke!" Kamejiro cried in anguish. "Broke!" He did not know the word himself, but he was outraged that his son should have misused it. He began beating him about the shoulders, crying, "How many times have I told you not to say broke? You stupid, stupid boyl" And he continued hammering his son, not realizing that if it had not been the word broke it would have been some other, for the children of Japanese men who dug out privies were not intended to enter Jeffersom.

IN 1936 Kamejiro Sakagawa faced a most difficult decision, for it became apparent that his grand design of educating five children from kindergarten through graduate school could not be attained. The hardworking family simply did not have the money to keep going. It was therefore necessary that some, at least, of the children quit school and go to work, and discussions as to the various courses open to the Sakagawas kept the family awake many nights.

The fault was not Kamejiro's. He would have been able to maintain the four boys in school and at the same time permit Reiko<:han to begin her university course except that news from China was increasingly bad. Time after time either the priest at the language school or the consular officials reported to the Japanese community that the emperor was facing the gravest crisis in Japanese history. "This sacred man," the priest intoned, "tries to sleep at night with the burden of all Japan on his shoulders. The very least you can do is to support our armies in their victorious march across China." The armies were always on the verge of victory, and certainly the Japanese newsreels showed the capture of one new province each week, but the Japanese forces never seemed to get anywhere, and in August of that year the consular official made a very blunt

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statement: "I want fifty thousand dollars sent from these islands to help save the Japanese army."

The Sakagawas contributed seventy of those dollars and that night assembled the family. "Reiko-chan cannot go to college," Kamejiro said bluntly. The brilliant little girl, president of the girls' club at McKinley and an honor student, sat primly with her hands in her lap. As a good Japanese daughter she said nothing, but Goro did. "She knows more than any of us. She's got to go to college. Then she can become a teacher and help pay our way."

"Girls get married," Kamejiro rationalized quietly. "Pretty girls get married right away, and the education and income are lost."

"She could promise not to get married," Goro suggested.

"It is boys who must be educated," Kamejiro pointed out, "though why both you and Tadao railed to get yourselves into Jefferson I cannot understand. Are you stupid? Why don't you learn to speak English right?" he fumed in Japanese.

"Please," the gentle girl begged, "you've seen that only the sons of people the plantation leaders like get into the good schools."

Kamejiro turned to look at his daughter. The idea she had suggested was startling to him and repugnant. "Is that right?" he asked.

"Of course it's right," Reiko-chan replied. "And Minoru and Shigeo won't get in, either."

"Nothing wrong with McKinley," Goro snapped, defending the wonderful rabbit-warren of a school where Orientals and Portuguese and indigent haoles went. It was a comfortable, congenial school, arrogant in its use of pidgin even in classrooms, and many of the islands' political leaders graduated from it, even if none of the business tycoons did. A boy could get his jaw broken at McKinley for speaking good English, but he could also get a good education, for the school always contained dedicated teachers who loved to see brilliant boys like Goro prosper.

"Forget McKinley," Kamejiro told his children. "What kind of job can Reiko-chan get that will bring in the most money?"

"Let her work for three years, then Tadao and I can get jobs," GOTO suggested, "and she can go on to the university."

"No," Kamejiro corrected. "I have noticed that if boys stop, they never go back. Reiko-chan must work from now on."

It was at this point that the quiet girl almost sobbed, and her brothers saw the involuntary contraction of her shoulders. Goro, a big husky boy, larger than his father, went to his sister's chair and put his hand oni her arm. "Pop's right," he said in English. "You'll get married. Pretty girl like you."