Okinawan “Talking Story” in the Midwest - 1999
On December 5, 1899 thirty men departed the Okinawan port of Naha aboard the S. S. Satsuma Maru as the first group of Okinawans bound for the sugar plantations in Honolulu, Hawaii. They arrived in paradise on January 8, 1900 and began building a life in this new land. Eight years after the arrival of the initial group of plantation laborers from Okinawa, the United States and Japan issued the Gentleman’s Agreement, which drastically restricted Japanese immigration. Within those eight years nearly 10,000 Okinawans made the passage to Hawaii - among them my ancestors. I was born a sansei, or third generation Okinawan-American, in Honolulu, Hawaii, sixty-four years after that first ship left Naha.
My maternal great-grandfather left Okinawa for Hawaii in 1907 and my paternal grandfather arrived in the islands in 1908. They both came to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations but soon found themselves in other professions. My maternal great-grandfather was born in Goeku, Okinawa, just north of the capitol city Naha. He was extremely creative and carved sculptural planters from stone in his free time. He walked to work in a stone quarry just north of where I was born, on land that the University of Hawaii now occupies. I remember living with them when I was very young. “Gigi” died in his sleep while taking a nap in the bedroom we shared. I was five years old and images from that day still float through my mind. My great-grandmother seemed to disappear from my life after “Gigi” died. I was puzzled by that for quite a while because I couldn’t remember the day she died. I realized years later that she had left Hawaii to die in Okinawa.
My paternal grandmother had four sons and my father was the youngest. My paternal grandfather died prematurely at the age of forty. My grandmother was pregnant with my dad at the time so my father never met his father. “Yamashiro baban” was a strong woman who lived long enough to see the birth of every grandchild.