THE HAWAI'I NISEI STORY
Americans of Japanese Ancestry During WWII

Ben Tamashiro's special series saluting the men of the 100th Infantry Battalion, "From Pearl Harbor to the Po," was initiated last January as part of the Herald's observance of the centennial celebration. In this final entry, he reflects on the past year. (Editor)

When the 100th left Honolulu in June 1942, the men had no return tickets with them. Tamotsu Shimizu's father understood this perfectly. In a scene re-enacted in many homes throughout the Islands, Tomoichi told his son that he was not too concerned over the prospect of him coming home in a coffin. What was uppermost in the immigrant father's heart and mind was the matter of honor: performance of duties in an exemplary manner; no hesitation that would give cause to bring shame to the family name.

But do these principles work? What, for instance, are the qualities by which men are judged to be great? Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish essayist and historian of a century ago, a writer with a highly romantic belief in the power of the individual, observed that "The history of the world is but the biography of great men." The quote is not an answer but is meant to open up a thought as to whether greatness is only for the few or whether it lies within the province of the many.

Whatever, if being great is to be something above the average in magnitude or intensity, perhaps Tomoichi qualifies in his own way. Beneath his stoic countenance lay an intense human quality. When Tamotsu came home to Ewa from the war three years later, minus an arm blown off in combat, he immediately returned to his old routine of threading his way every evening to the camp furo. It was a pleasure he had to forsake while he served in the army. Now, safe at home, his father followed him into the furo and proudly scrubbed his back for him. Under the soothing effects of the flow of water, Tomoichi was keeping his end of their understanding about honor.

The just-concluded Imin Centennial celebration is but a tiny slice out of our past. And, it can only be hoped that people in the bicentennial year of 2085 will yet be up to celebrating the coming of the Japanese immigrants to these Islands. If so, things like this year-long series of articles in the Herald about the 100th would be of interest, especially as it concerns the dramatic changes the immigrants went through to settle themselves into a new way of life in Hawaii.

Perhaps the most that can be expected of these stories is that they will help leave a record of the relationship of the soldiers of the 100th to the course of their upbringing. The story of Kaoru Moto is an example. Above and beyond his acts of heroism (he is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross), he tells of his Camp 1 days in Sprecklesville, Maui, where he was born. Camp 1 was for Japanese workers. Filipino and Portuguese workers were segregated in their own camps. The one for the Portuguese workers, though, was more commonly referred to as "codfish camp" and the road running alongside the camp "codfish road," But in the wake of the multitude of changing sociological attitudes happening everywhere, those intriguing and challenging ethnic identifications are fast disappearing from the plantation vistas.

Allan Ohata from Kalihi was born at the end of the First World War; he lived to fight in the Second. He was deeply interested in religion, but he never joined a church. In combat in Italy, he won a Distinguished Service Cross, but never mentioned it to his family. Only grudgingly did he show them the medal, and at that only once. He never told the family of his promotions, either-all the way up to captain. His life was full of such seeming contrariness.

His father was a stern individualist, one who couldn't tolerate working for others. He made his children stand at attention when they were addressed by him. A slap across the face would be their punishment for inattention. Before migrating to Hawaii from Hiroshima, he had served in the Japanese Army during the war with the Russians in 1904-05. Although the family knew very little of his service in Japan, it is probable that he served in the cavalry inasmuch as he loved horses. He kept a horse in a stable behind the flower garden. The horse was always beautifully groomed.

Allan seemed to have inherited his father's fighting qualities. In the battle where he earned his DSC, he and his men stood their ground against repeated enemy counterattacks.

After the war, Larry Miyasato went to school on the GI Bill, graduated from the University of Denver Law School and returned to Hawaii, only to gravitate to Montana because the opportunities for the practice of law in Hawaii, he felt, were limited. Today, he is the only nisei lawyer in a state whose wide open spaces are in sharp contrast to the limited sky above the island of Kauai, where he was born 67 years ago.

Coincidental with the publication of his story in the Herald, he had to return to Oahu for the funeral of his brother, at which occasion copies of the Herald were circulated among those present. It was the first time that the sansei members of the Miyasato clan had particular reason to take an interest in him. And through their questions about his life on Kauai and his part with the 100th in World War II, they got to discover a bit more about him, and about themselves. Such is the kind of nourishment we hope these stories have provided.

Sadao Munemori, born in California, came to the 100th as a replacement. He became an instant hit with the Island boys, so much so that in his letters home, he wrote longingly of wanting to visit Hawaii after the war; a wish that never came about because he was killed in the last push of battle in Italy up in the mountain passes leading to the Po Valley. For his sacrifice in saving the lives of two buddies, he received the Congressional Medal or Honor. Although he is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Los Angeles, his Medal or Honor is here in Hawaii, at the Army Museum at Ft. DeRussy.

Then there is Maui boy Mike Tokunaga with his marvelous lore of stories, one about an unfulfilled mission. One day on his way home from the war, he induced several of his companions to sit with him at the San Francisco Opera House where the initial deliberations on setting up the United Nations organization were being held. Afterward, they stopped at a nearby bar for a drink, but the bartender told them he didn't serve Japs. At which time they grabbed chairs, bottles, and anything else loose, busted up the joint, then took off before the arrival of the MPs. Mike, who is still hard at work as the state Deputy Comptroller has taken many a trip to San Francisco since that day 40 years ago. On these trips he has swung by the Opera House many times, but has never been able to locate that bar in question.

It is literally impossible to summarize Howard Miyake's story into a meaningful paragraph or two. It is our suggestion that readers go back to the May and June 1985 issues of the Herald for a look at a wonderful story about Shinto priests, butterflies, Burmese cats, a first marriage to a girl of Spanish-French-American Indian descent, then a second marriage to a girl from Japan and the birth of his one and only son on the day of the American Bicentennial celebration of July 4. 1976. And in between, his sojourn from the pineapple fields of Haleiwa, the place where he was born, through the local public educational system and on to the University of Hawaii, his service with the 100th and surviving the war despite severe wounds and a Silver Star for part of his memories, and on to graduation from the University of Colorado School of Law a law office in town a long tenure as Speaker of the House, and still active today, as president of the Japan-America Institute of Management Science (JAIMS) on Hawaii Kai Drive.

Trying to compress the story of Young O. Kim is about as difficult as Howard's. The only one of Korean ancestry in the 100th, Young O. is often referred to as the gutsiest fighter in the 100th. Inordinately fearless, he planned his operations according to his acute personal judgment as to the best way to beat the enemy. And in this manner, when he continued his service to the country in the Korean War, he was classified as "the best goddam' battalion commander" over there. Today, in Los Angeles, where he was born, he is a key member of the Japanese American National Museum Project, an undertaking to revitalize a Buddhist temple to house and preserve the story of Japanese Americans.

Last month's story about Ted and Mary Yamasaki was the last in the series. As it was recently published, I will not attempt to summarize the love story between The Maui boy and the girl from San Francisco. The story of Mary, however, is one of sacrifice that is as touching as the sacrifices in war.

Inadequate as this summing up has been, we take leave, perhaps to meet again another day.