Japanese | Page 2 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 3, 2024 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Shashin Hanayome

Omiai, the practice of arranged marriages, had been common among Japanese samurai families, as they often needed to arrange unions across long distances to match their social standing. (Koch)

Beginning in the Meiji Period (1868-1912) Omiai spread through all classes of Japanese society. (Koch) During this time, these marriages were an agreement between two families, and children had no right to choose their own spouse. (Ishimura)

Under Japan’s Civil Code of 1898, the government legally defined arranged marriages and the patriarchal household system, which has been practiced by the upper-class warrior clans, the nobility and merchants alike during feudalism, as the authentic and traditional marriage and family system. (Tanaka)

Husbands simply had to enter the names of their brides into their family registries. Thus, men and women became legally betrothed no matter where they resided. (Nakamura)

The practice came to Hawaiʻi, tied back to Japan.

A shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

The first to arrive were the Chinese (1852.) The sugar industry grew, so did the Chinese population in Hawaiʻi. Concerned that the Chinese were taking too strong a representation in the labor market, the government passed laws reducing Chinese immigration. Further government regulations, introduced 1886-1892, virtually ended Chinese contract labor immigration.

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaiʻi’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi.

Kalākaua’s meeting with Emperor Meiji improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government and an economic depression in Japan served as motivation for agricultural workers to move from their homeland. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi arrived in Honolulu aboard the Pacific Mail Steamship Company ‘City of Tokio’ on February 8, 1885. Subsequent government approval was given for a second set of 930-immigrants who arrived in Hawaii on June 17, 1885.

With the Japanese government satisfied with treatment of the immigrants, a formal immigration treaty was concluded between Hawaiʻi and Japan on January 28, 1886. The treaty stipulated that the Hawaiʻi government would be held responsible for employers’ treatment of Japanese immigrants.

Between 1885 and 1907, thousands of Japanese came to Hawaiʻi in numbers so great that by 1897 Japanese constituted the largest single ethnic group in the Islands. In 1888, there were 6,420 Japanese in Hawaiʻi; in 1890, 12,360; in 1896, 24,407; in 1900, 61,111. By 1900, the Japanese composed nearly 40% of the population in Hawaiʻi. (Ogawa & Grant)

Many decided to stay – but it was men who initially came to work and men outnumbered adult women 2-to-1 in the Territory; in some communities, the sex ratio was even more skewed. The men needed brides.

Letters were written home requesting that their parents contact the matchmakers in the village so that respectable women could be found. Pictures of the men were taken by professional photographers who often used the same worn suit over and over so that these laborers looked a little more distinguished.

Picture brides’ personal backgrounds were varied: While most were daughters of farmers or fishermen, some picture brides came from lower and middle-class family backgrounds – daughters of Christian ministers, teachers, shop owners and entrepreneurs, for example. (Tanaka)

Women did have greater marital opportunities in Hawaiʻi because of the gender disparity within the Japanese community and while some marriages did end in divorce, the majority of men and women accepted the arranged marriage. (Nakamura)

In general, the picture bride practice conformed to traditional marriage customs as parents or relatives in Japan chose wives for single migrant men working in America and Hawai’i. In Japan, heads of households met through an intermediary. (Ogawa & Grant)

These go-betweens arranged meetings between family heads who discussed and negotiated proposed unions with little input from the prospective spouses. An exchange of photographs sometimes occurred in the screening process, with family genealogy, wealth, education and health figuring heavily in the selection criteria. (Nakamura)

Portraits were then tucked into the letters. In time they would receive from Japan the exciting news that a bride had been found and if approved, arrangements would be made to send the young woman across the ocean to this foreign land. Inside the envelope would also be the photograph of the prospective bride.

The wife was entered into the husband’s family registry, making the marriage official under Japanese law. Many of these women then married their husbands immediately upon arrival in Hawaiʻi, in mass marriage ceremonies performed on the wharf. (West & Seal)

Many picture brides were genuinely shocked to see their husbands for the first time at the Immigration Station. Picture brides were often disappointed in the man they came to marry.

Husbands were usually older than wives by ten to fifteen years, and occasionally more. Men often forwarded photographs taken in their youth or touched up ones that concealed their real age. (Nakamura)

The first major waves of Japanese Shashin Hanayome “picture brides” began in 1908 and before all immigration was stopped from Japan in 1924, these tens of thousands of women would reshape the Japanese community in Hawaiʻi.

In addition to being wives and mothers who took care of the home, Japanese women immigrants also worked alongside their husbands in the fields. (Ogawa & Grant)

Between 1907 and 1923, over 14,000 picture brides arrived in Hawaiʻi from Japan; they bolstered the Islands’ female population. A 1927 census of all 43-sugar plantations reported that while the ratio of Japanese men to women was 1.5:1. (Bill)

And, as might be expected, this early period of stabilization of the Japanese family coincided with a high birth rate. The birth of the second generation (nisei,) in effect established the identity of the first generation (issei.) (Ogawa & Grant)

The establishment of families was soon followed by the growth of Buddhist and Christian churches, a variety of language newspapers, and self-help organizations that served the needs of the immigrant community. (Ogawa & Grant)

“According to some historians, the majority of Japanese born in the United States can trace their ancestry to a picture bride.” (LA Times)

Japanese picture brides – on ship

Japanese picture brides – on_ship

Picture Brides on ship

Japanese picture brides – Angel Island immigration station-‘Ellis Island of the West’

Japanese – Groups-PP-46-5-019-00001

Japanese – Groups – Early-PP-46-4-012-00001

Japanese sugar plantation laborers

Japanese Woman_and_Child-PP-46-9-010

Japanese Woman and Child-PP-46-9-011

Japanese – Woman-PP-46-8-036-00001

Japanese – Groups – Early-PP-46-4-005-00001

Arrival of Japanese contract laborers at Honolulu Harbor-HSA

May 16, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Life in the Islands During WWII

Japan’s method of declaring war on the US was a four-wave air attack on installations in Hawaiʻi on the morning of December 7, 1941. It was executed in what amounted to five phases.

Phase I: Combined torpedo and dive bomber attack lasting from 7:55 am to 8:25 am; Phase II: Lull in attacks lasting from 8:25 am to 8:40 am; Phase III: Horizontal bomber attacks between 8:45 am to 9:15 am; Phase IV: Dive bomber attacks between 9:15 am and 9:45 am and Phase V: General attack. Raid completed at 9:45. (Maj Gen Green)

The first order of business was the issuance of orders immediately essential to the internal security of the Hawaiian Islands. The next was providing means for enforcing those orders. (Maj Gen Green) Later in the morning, the Army’s commanding officer met with Hawaiʻi’s Territorial Governor.

“General, I have thought it through. I feel that the situation is beyond me and the civil authorities and I think the safety of the Territory and its citizens require me to declare martial law.” (Governor Joseph Boyd Poindexter to General Walter Campbell Short, December 7, 1941; Green)

“He asked General Short if he concurred in his conclusion and General Short said that he did. The Governor then asked General Short if he would accept the responsibility and General Short replied that he saw no other way out. Whereupon, the Governor stated that he would declare martial law and inform the President in accordance with Section 67 of the Organic Act.”

The men arose, shook hands and the Governor said, “I wish you luck.” (Maj Gen Green)

A rush of nationalism surged over the country, and everyone did his or her part to support the war effort. Children collected scrap materials, such as rubber and metal, to help supply the armed forces. (Taylor)

Tens of thousands of young men from Hawaiʻi enlisted and were shipped out to bases on the US mainland and to fight in Europe and the Pacific. In their absence, over 500,000 soldiers from outside Hawaii were based in the Islands at the height of the war. (PBS)

Immediately after the attack, Boy Scouts helped to extinguish fires that resulted from the attack, transported supplies and messages, went door to door informing residents of the blackout policy and even stood as sentries on roadways.

Day-to-day life during World War II, whether on the continent or in the Hawaiian Islands, changed. Hundreds of general orders were issued under the name of the commanding general.

Martial law with its seemingly endless string of rules and regulations dictated minute details of daily life, setting limits on things that were once part of daily life: curfews, registration, blackouts, drills, rationing, air raid sirens, censorship … detention (for some.)

The Army also instituted a 6 pm to 6 am curfew for anyone not on official business and drew up intelligence reports on 450,000-people in Hawaiʻi. Every citizen over the age of six years was fingerprinted, registered and issued an identification card.

The military ordered a strictly enforced nighttime blackout. Anyone caught with a lit cigarette, pipe or cigar during the blackout was subject to arrest, as was anyone else if the light of their radio dial or kitchen stove burner could be seen through the house windows.

Homes, schools and businesses were directed to prepare bomb shelters. Everyone was issued a protective gas mask and students were trained in their use and conducted drills where an Army officer would fill a classroom with tear gas and have the students walk through to be sure their masks were functioning properly. (Taylor)

Gasoline was rationed, the possession of arms was prohibited to unauthorized persons, radio transmitting sets and short wave sets were regulated, photo materials were rationed and the local telephone company was taken over to insure the maximum availability of it to the military. (Maj Gen Green)

Food was rationed; sugar was the first food to be rationed. Across the country, to prevent hoarding and skyrocketing prices, the Office of Price Administration issued 123-million copies of War Ration Book One, which contained stamps that could be used to purchase sugar.

Because the islands were so isolated, shipping and receiving supplies, and even mail, became a logistical nightmare. To supplement food needs, Americans planted “victory gardens,” in which they grew their own food.

Transportation between the islands and the mainland was stopped. Only those needed to fill positions in the islands were allowed to travel. (Taylor)

All outgoing mail was read by military censors, and letters that could not be edited with black ink or scissors were returned to the sender to be rewritten. Long-distance telephone calls were required to be in English so that military personnel could listen in. (White & Murphy)

Fearing that Japanese invaders might try to disrupt US currency, the military confiscated and burned more than $200-million in US paper money, and replaced it with bills with HAWAII overprinted on them.

In addition, people in Hawaiʻi were forbidden to make bank withdrawals of more than $200 in cash per month or to carry more than $200 in cash. (White & Murphy)

Japanese in Hawaiʻi had it worst. Many Japanese Americans were incarcerated in at least eight locations on Hawaiʻi. They were put in these camps, not because they had been tried and found guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and, as such, they were deemed a “threat” to national security.

In the Islands, between 1,200 and 1,400 local Japanese were interned, along with about 1,000 family members – 120,000 people were interned on the continent. (Not a single Japanese American in Hawaiʻi was ever convicted of espionage, treason or sedition.) (NPS)

Although originally it was believed that martial law would last only a short time, it lasted for almost three years. After it was terminated, curfews and blackouts still remained in effect until October 24, 1944. (Schneider)

To get a glimpse of conditions in the Islands at the time, read and see ‘Under the Blood Red Sun,’ written by Graham (Sandy) Salisbury. (Nelia reads the book to her 5th grade class each year at Kainalu.)

March 5, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The “Japanese Problem”

Race, Ethnicity, Nationality, Culture, Heritage, Identity … some have suggested that about 100-years ago, folks used “racial” referring more specifically to nationality rather than ethnicity. In other words, the concern then was that a foreign nation was gradually supplanting parts of another.

Never-the-less, at the time, folks were concerned with the growing numbers of foreign nationals, especially Japanese; racial conflicts were developing and the military feared Japanese expansion. Growing immigrant population, including those from Japan started to concern some in the Islands, as well as on the continent.

In response, the Commission of Relations with Japan, appointed by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America retained Professor HA Millis of the University of Kansas who authored the “Japanese Problem in the United States” (1915.)

He “believe(d) in restriction in numbers and in keeping the laborers from immigrating to this country. But once here, the Japanese should not be discriminated against.” (Millis; New York Times)

However, a later incident in Hawaiʻi (1920) is viewed as a catalyst to actions that resulted in The Japanese Exclusion Act to address what were real, as well as imagined conceptions, misconceptions and opinions.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves; let’s look back.

The early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully.

Since it was a crop that produced a choice food product that could be shipped to distant markets, its culture on a field and commercial scale was started as early as 1800 and it continued to grow.

The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Company, was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i. On July 29, 1835, Ladd obtained a 50-year lease on nearly 1,000-acres of land and established a plantation and mill site in Kōloa.

It was to change the face of Hawai‘i forever, launching an entire economy, lifestyle and practice of monocropping that lasted for over a century. Sugar gradually replaced sandalwood and whaling in the mid-19th century and became the principal industry in the Islands.

Sugar was the dominant economic force in Hawaiʻi for over a century, other plantations soon followed Kōloa. A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape.

Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system. By 1883, more than 50-plantations were producing sugar on five islands.

A shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge; the answer was imported labor. Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants” (providing the legal basis for contract-labor system,) labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

The first to arrive were the Chinese (1852.) Between 1852 and 1884, the population of Chinese in Hawaiʻi increased from 364 to 18,254, to become almost a quarter of the population of the Kingdom. The US Chinese Exclusion Law of 1882 (effective in Hawaiʻi in 1902) closed further immigration of persons of Chinese ancestry to Hawai’i, except for the few individuals who could qualify for an exempt status.

In 1868, approximately 150-Japanese came to Hawaiʻi to work on sugar plantations and another 40 to Guam. This unauthorized recruitment and shipment of laborers, known as the gannenmono (“first year men”,) marked the beginning of Japanese labor migration overseas. (JANM)

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaiʻi’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi; this improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi arrived in Honolulu on February 8, 1885. Subsequent government approval was given for a second set of 930-immigrants who arrived in Hawaii on June 17, 1885. More followed.

In 1919, in commemoration of the coronation of Emperor Yoshihito (and a sign of good Japanese-Hawaiian relations,) Japanese in Hawaiʻi offered to construct a modified duplicate of the fountain in Hibiya Park Tokyo in Kapiʻolani Park.

The official presentation of the “Phoenix Fountain” was conducted by Consul General Moroi who announced the fountain was a “testimonial of friendship and equality of the Japanese residing in the Hawaiian Islands.”

One Japanese speaker noted, “We are assembled here to mark a spot of everlasting importance in the annals of the history of the Japanese people of Hawaiʻi.” (It was later replaced and is now known as the Louise Dillingham Memorial Fountain.

But discord was imminent.

Growing immigrant population, including those from Japan, started to concern some, in the Islands, as well as on the continent. Many Americans had begun to look at Japan and the Japanese with deep suspicion.

In 1920, demanding increases in pay, Japanese sugar workers on Oʻahu struck the plantations – approximately 6,000 workers, over three quarters of the labor force, walked off the job (only Oʻahu workers walked off, they relied on neighbor island for support.)

Though the strike was on Oʻahu, its impact was felt across the Islands.

At about this time, Olaʻa Sugar Company was established in Puna on the Island of Hawaiʻi; Juzaburo Sakamaki was hired as the company’s only regular interpreter.

As interpreter, Sakamaki was the only pipeline between the company and the Japanese immigrants who made up the majority of the labor force at Olaʻa Plantation. Sakamaki had sided with management during the labor dispute.

Then, a small item in the June 4, 1920 Honolulu Star Bulletin noted, “The home of a Japanese eight miles from Olaa was blown up with giant powder last night.” The newspaper did not give the name of the victim, but it reported that the man was in a back bedroom at the time and was not killed, even though the front of the house was destroyed. (UC Press)

It turns out the attack was on Sakamaki’s home.

The Territory of Hawaiʻi charged leaders of the Federation of Japanese Labor with conspiracy to assassinate Sakamaki in order to intimidate opponents of the strike and alleged, further, that the strike was part of a concerted effort to take over the Islands by Japan.

It took the jury less than five hours to reach a verdict on the fifteen defendants. Judge Banks then sentenced all the defendants to “be imprisoned in Oʻahu prison at hard labor for the term of not less than four years nor more than ten years.” (UC Press)

Some suggest it was the catalyst for legislation restricting immigration into the US.

On December 5, 1923, Rep. Albert Johnson, chairman of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, had submitted to the House a new immigration quota bill. Having heard about the “Japanese conspiracy” over and over from Hawaiian representatives, Johnson finally decided to propose a new law prohibiting the immigration of all Asians.

The subsequent Johnson Reed Immigration Quota Act ((Immigration Act of 1924) limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890 (down from the 3% cap set by the Immigration Restriction Act of 1921.)) It passed both houses of Congress with overwhelming majorities: in the House 308 to 58 and in the Senate 69 to 9.

I am reminded of the simple question, “Can we, can we all get along … can we, can we get along?” (Rodney King)

September 12, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sake

When you drink sake
You feel like the springtime,
And the loud cries
Of impatient creditors
On the outside
Sound in your ears
Like the voices of nightingales
Singing most sweetly.
(Japanese drinking song, Burton Holmes Travelogues, 1870)

Sake is a traditional alcoholic beverage in Japan. It is made through fermentation, like beer and wine. Sake is made from rice, a staple food in Japan. (NRIB)

It is not exactly known when people began making sake in Japan; however, it is believed an alcoholic beverage made from rice was already made in the Yayoi period (300 BC- 250 AD) when rice cultivation was brought from China to Japan. (NRIB)

A Dec 18, 1910 article in the San Francisco Call notes, “It is said that 7 per cent of the entire rice crop of Japan goes to the making of this amber fluid, which contains about 13 per cent of alcohol and is characterized by five distinct tastes, according to experts – ‘sweetness, sharpness, sourness, bitterness and astringency.’”

In Hawai‘i, a century after Captain James Cook’s arrival, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Japanese came to Hawai‘i to work on the sugar plantations between 1885 and 1924, when limits were placed on the numbers permitted entry.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Most suggest the first Sake brewery outside of Japan was in Hawaii, the Honolulu Japanese Sake Brewery Co. Many people still believe that to be true, but it was likely the fourth sake brewery established in the US. The Japan Brewing Co was incorporated in Berkeley, California in June 1901. In addition, two other California sake breweries were established in 1903 and 1907. (Auffrey)

However, the Honolulu sake brewery was more successful, more long lasting, and left a much greater legacy than any other of the early Sake breweries in the US. (Auffrey)

“The Honolulu Sake Brewery and Ice Co Ltd, was built in 1908 by Tajiro Sumida and Tomokuni Iwanaga as the Honolulu Japanese Sake Brewery Co, Ltd.”

“‘The reason it was started is because of the early Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii to work as plantation laborers,’ Emil A Nomura, the brewery’s assistant brewmaster, said the other day.”

“‘You see,’ Nomura said, ‘with the meager wages these workers earned, there was barely enough money left to indulge in the privilege of drinking sake, the Japanese people’s favorite drink. And sake from Japan was expensive, because of import duties and things.’”

“To remedy that drinking man’s urge for his favorite brew, the Sumida-Iwanaga partnership designed the world’s first warm-weather sake brewery.”

“The new brewery differed from any traditional Japanese brewery because it was refrigerated and capable of producing sake all year. ‘The factory had to be refrigerated because sake has to be made in a cool room (as cool as 43 degrees),’ Shinsaburo S Sumida, the brewery’s present president said recently.”

For a time, it was “The only brewery in the world which makes sake year round.” “Sumida explained that until the Pauoa brewery was built by his father and Iwanaga, sake had only been made in winter months, usually from the end of October through February, because its fermentation-mold stages of brewing are easily spoiled by heat.”

The Hawai‘i sake brewery faced several other challenges …

Prohibition in 1920s … However, “The booming brewery, however, didn’t let the no-booze era dampen its spirits. Instead, it froze brewing operations, turned up the brewery’s refrigerators, reopened as an ice factory and skated through the lean Prohibition (and Depression) years.”

“With repeal, in 1934, the ice house thawed itself out, increased its working capital from $150,000 to $250,000 (400 shareholders), imported five sake experts from Japan to supervise the installation of new machinery and went back into the brewing business.”

“With World War II came new problems: a rice shortage which didn’t allow rice to be used as anything but food and a sociological shakeup in Japanese American society.”

“‘It was an order,’ recalls Sumida. ‘We couldn’t use rice for making sake, so at that time we started making shoyu (soy sauce).’ And so the Pauoa brewery-factory shoyued its way through the war, and eventually resumed sake operations in 1948.” (SB & Adv Jan 17, 1971) The Honolulu Sake Brewery ceased operations in 1989.

A side story on Japan’s sake industry …

The Japanese started producing small glass floats in the early-1900s and the first Asian floats came ashore along the West Coast just before 1920.

These Japanese floats are part of early recycling efforts – initial Japanese floats we made from recycled sake bottles. Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from these sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight).

To accommodate different fishing styles and nets, the Japanese experimented with many different sizes and shapes of floats, ranging from 2 to 20 inches in diameter. Most were rough spheres, but some were cylindrical or “rolling pin” shaped.

The earliest floats, including most Japanese glass fishing floats, were hand made by a glassblower. Recycled glass, especially old sake bottles, was typically used and air bubbles in the glass are a result of the rapid recycling process.

By 1939, millions of Japanese glass floats were being used; although Japanese glass fishing floats are no longer being manufactured for fishing, there are thousands still floating in the Pacific Ocean.

July 16, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

First Japanese Mormon

Missionary work has been a central concern of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (whose members are commonly known as Latter-day Saints or Mormons – the latter name derives from the Book of Mormon, the Church’s key scriptural text).

The first “foreign” mission attempted was into Ontario, Canada. From 1832 on, individuals or groups of missionaries opened the British Mission, the next foreign mission attempted by the church.

From its small beginnings, the British Mission became the most successful foreign mission of the church in the nineteenth century. As early as 1844, Mormon missionaries were working among the Polynesians in Tahiti and surrounding islands

In the summer of 1850, in California, elder Charles C Rich called together more elders to establish a mission in the Sandwich Islands (Hawai‘i). They arrived December 12, 1850. Later, more came.

In 1901, Japan was opened as the twentieth foreign mission, while the older missions continued to grow. (BYU Library) But Japanese joined the Mormon faith well before the formal mission to Japan.

Frequent contacts between the Japanese and the Mormons prior to the opening of the mission in Japan in 1901 are well documented. Following the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, Ogden, Utah, became an important railroad junction, where just about every Japanese traveler stopped on his way to much of the US and Europe. (Takagi)

Some of the Japanese people so contacted affiliated themselves with the Mormons well before 1901; however, Japanese immigrants to Hawai‘i seem to be the first Japanese Mormons.

Several have suggested that Tomizo Katsunuma (1863–1950) and Tokujiro Sato (ca. 1851–1919) were the first Japanese Mormons.

In 1860, King Kamehameha IV met with the first delegation of Japanese people to visit the Hawaiian Islands. During this visit the king proposed a friendship treaty with Japan. This action, along with the rise of the sugar industry and the surrender of the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan, led to the first Japanese contract laborers being recruited to come to the Hawaiian Islands.

This unauthorized recruitment and shipment of laborers, known as the gannenmono (“first year men”,) marked the beginning of Japanese labor migration overseas. (JANM) This predated the government-sponsored Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants arranged following the visit of King Kalakaua to Japan in 1881.

The exact number of people who immigrated in 1868 has varied (about 150 to Hawai‘i); an American businessman, Eugene M Van Reed sent them to work on sugar plantations (and another 40 to Guam).

A reported 51 men remained on O‘ahu, 71 were sent to Maui, 7 to Lanai, and 22 to Kauai (five women and an infant were also aboard). The sugar plantations and different individuals contracted them. (Hughes, Ke Ola) Tokujiro Sato was one of them.

Tokujiro, also known in Hawaii as Tokujiro Sato, Toko, Toku, or Sasaki, has a claim to being the first Japanese Mormon convert. E Wesley Smith, President of the Hawaiian Mission noted (in the November 1919 issue of the Improvement Era):

“During my recent visit, through the different conferences on the Islands of Maui and Hawaii, I had the privilege of meeting the first Japanese convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is now living at Kukuihaele, Hawaii. We held an interesting meeting in his home and spent the night there.”

“Becoming interested in Brother Toko, I learned that he was born in Tokio, Japan, in the year 1849. At the age of seventeen he worked his way to Hawaii, arriving here in 1866. In 1879 he married a Hawaiian by the name of Kalala, and they have happily passed their ruby anniversary. He joined the Church in 1892, and has been and is still a faithful member.”

“He related to me many interesting incidents that took place here many years ago, among which was the Walter Murray Gibson trouble, and how he witnessed Gibson’s unlawful rise to power, and his dishonorable failure. An interesting sketch of the life and adventures of Walter M. Gibson, by Andrew Jenson, Assistant Historian of the Church, is found in Volume 4 of the Improvement Era.”

“Brother Toko is now seventy years of age, hale and hearty, and able to work six days a week raising Kalo (a Hawaiian vegetable used in making poi) for the market. In this way he earns an honest living. He has a large family of bright children.” (Smith, October 22, 1919)

Several have noted that there are some inconsistencies in Smith’s report, including some dating, but it does confirm that in Kukuihaele on the island of Hawaii there was a Japanese man who claimed to have arrived in Hawaii long before the government-supervised program of emigration began in 1885.

It likewise notes that there were Japanese whom a Church leader regarded as belonging to the Church, the man having been baptized before the opening of Mormon missionary work in Japan in 1901. (Takagi)

Some descendants suggest Tokujiro was a samurai; that is not confirmed. However, reportedly, he did have a samurai sword that was later presented to his employer, Samuel Parker. The sword apparently hung in the Mana Museum for some years before it was closed. (Hughes, Ke Ola)

Others note, that by the time he left home at the age of sixteen or seventeen, Tokujiro may well have already been an accomplished tatami maker in his own right. Family oral history has it that he was skilled in carpentry and helped build houses in the Waipio Valley on the northeastern coast of the island of Hawaii.

With the enactment in Japan of the Household Register Law in 1871, it may have been around this time that Tokujiro took the surname Sato.

Initially, when he arrived in Hawaii, he chose to be called Toku or Toko. Shortening of Japanese names to adapt to the Hawaiian manner of speech was an extremely common practice in those days. When the time came to pick a surname, he could have easily adopted the name chosen by his family in Tokyo. (Takagi)

Sometime after arriving on the island of Hawai‘i, Tokujiro married Kalala Keliihananui Kamekona, a Hawaiian with mixed Irish and Chinese lineage. According to family sources, Kalala Keliihananui Kamekona was the daughter of Kamekona (from the Waipio Valley) and Kaiahua (from the neighboring Waimanu Valley).

Tokujiro had become fluent in the Hawaiian language so that sometimes he was asked by a court of law to act as an interpreter. Such an assignment was not unusual for the gannenmono who stayed in the Hawaiian islands, because, with very few or even no other Japanese around, they had to assimilate into the Hawaiian community.

A story is told of Sentaro Kawashima, a young Japanese immigrant, who was taught by Tokujiro to speak Hawaiian and English, farm taro, and make poi and okolehao (homemade alcoholic spirit). (Takagi)

The Tokujiro Sato family was far from being the typical Mormon family of contemporary America. Their religious understanding and practice were constrained both by the cultural settings of the day and by the different expectations that the Church had of its members.

The descendants remember Kalala as fond of drinking okolehao and as being “cranky” most of the time, possibly because of her drinking habit.

In his later years, perhaps with the increasing population of Japanese, Tokujiro came to emphasize his Japanese identity. Although he exclusively spoke Hawaiian to his children, he spoke Japanese to some of the grandchildren as they developed proficiency in that language. (Takagi)

Tokujiro died in his home shortly after his meeting with E Wesley Smith in 1919, and after a funeral held presumably at a Latter-day Saint chapel, he was buried in a cemetery located on the Pacific shore. His grave no longer exists because it was washed away in a tidal wave.