Okinawans celebrate
100 years in Hawaii
The yearlong fete will honor
Schedule of events
the 26 issei who paved the way
on Jan. 8, 1900, for the
18,600 who followed
Okinawa gives memorial rock to Hawaii By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin
Chinzen Kinjo was on the first of many boatloads of Okinawans to arrive in Hawaii 100 years ago. He was seeking a better livelihood than the harsh poverty of his home could provide.
Kinjo also knew that his success or failure could determine how many other Okinawans would get the same opportunity.
It was a long struggle receiving permission from the Tokyo-appointed governor to leave Okinawa. Japanese rulers worried Okinawans would not make a good impression overseas.
So Kinjo often told his children years later, no matter how hard the plantation work or what discrimination or humiliation he might face, he would not cause trouble.
"He had to think about the people coming after him," Carol Kinjo, 71, said about her late father. "They opened the path to Hawaii."
A century later, the Okinawan community of Hawaii is honoring the issei, or first generation of ancestors to arrive in the islands. On Jan. 8, 1900, a boat unloaded 26 Okinawans to work at the Ewa Plantation. During the next 24 years until the U.S. government banned Japanese immigration, 18,600 Okinawans came.
This weekend, Okinawan-Americans will kick off events in the yearlong "Okage Sama de 2000: Bridging a Century of Uchinanchu Aloha." Uchinanchu refers to people of Okinawan ancestry. Community leaders estimate 40,000 to 45,000 live in Hawaii.
"We're remembering all the families who made possible our existence here," said Albert Miyasato, president of the Hawaii United Okinawa Association. "The young people will take over, carry on the legacy and move on."
Event organizers are expecting 1,000 from outside the state to attend this weekend's ceremonies, most from Okinawa, including Gov. Keiichi Inamine and a contingent of mayors. Hawaii has the oldest overseas Okinawan community, and the two island places maintain a close relationship.
Okinawans consider Kyuzo Toyama the father of Okinawan emigration, and Friday his ashes will be interred at Mililani Memorial Park after a decade-long effort by the local community. Toyama died in Okinawa in 1910. His brother in California took Kyuzo'a ashes there. Now they will finally rest in Hawaii.
Toyama, born in 1868, was an educator and the driving force behind getting the first group of Okinawans to Hawaii. Japan's Meiji rulers made Okinawa, once an independent kingdom, a prefecture in 1879. Although Japanese had been in Hawaii for years, the internationally minded Meiji officials were concerned that Okinawans would not be good representatives overseas, said Ruth Adaniya, a second-generation Okinawan who taught history at Leeward Community College for 20 years. Despite Japanese discrimination against Okinawans, Toyama finally persuaded the governor to let them leave their impoverished and typhoon-battered island.Hawaii was much like Okinawa: similar climate supporting a pineapple and sugar cane industry, both independent kingdoms taken over by foreign powers at about the same time.
But it was not easy for the early immigrants: not only did they arrive in a foreign land without a common language, they faced discrimination from the Japanese already here. Their language, culture and looks were different.
Of the 26 Okinawan men to first arrive in Hawaii, only two still lived here by 1935, Adaniya said -- Chinzen Kinjo and Tohachi Nakama. While two others left for the U.S. mainland, the majority returned to Okinawa, Adaniya said.
Carol Kinjo, who grew up in a multi-ethnic community in Kailua, remembers how she was still teased for her accent and for eating pork -- Okinawans ran the hog-raising industry. "It was embarrassing and demeaning," she said.
Other Okinawans changed their names to the Japanese version to make life easier.
But when World War II started, people started to forget about differences and concentrate on common concerns, Kinjo said. By the time her son went to school, "it was all mixed, He didn't even know about nationalities by that time."
Adaniya, who grew up among Kalihi Valley hog raisers, said Okinawans later dominated the food and restaurant business, and other opportunities opened.
Today, Okinawans are active in 51 ethnic groups throughout the islands with an impressive Hawaii Okinawa Center in Waipahu. The main building is named after brothers Albert and Wallace Teruya, who founded the Times Supermarket chain and were generous donors.
Many local volunteers such as retiree Stanley Higa maintain the gardens and run the center's office.
While some Okinawans moved on to the mainland or South America, Dexter Teruya said local Okinawans are proud their ancestors ended up here.
"This was the first place Okinawans emigrated to," said Teruya, chair of the Okinawan Centennial Celebration Committee who has cousins in Brazil. "I'm personally grateful my family came to Hawaii."
Okinawa gives
memorial rockMarines transported the 18-ton rock
By Susan Kreifels
from the village of the 'father' of emigration
Star-BulletinAn 18-ton memorial rock placed beside the Hawaii Okinawa Center was a gift from Okinawa to honor the emigrants who left there 100 years ago and planted roots in these islands.
But it probably represents much more.
The piece of marble comes from Kin Cho, the village where Kyuzo Toyama was born in 1868. Toyama is considered the father of Okinawan overseas emigration. It was Toyama who finally convinced the governor there to allow Okinawans to work in Hawaii plantations in 1900.
Edward Kuba, chairman of the Okinawan Centennial Celebration Commission for the state, said the U.S. Marine Corps transported the rock to Hawaii in November.
It was also Kin Cho where a 12-year-old Okinawan school girl was raped in 1995 by two U.S. Marines and a sailor, stirring public outrage in a place where the heavy U.S. military presence was already controversial.
The unveiling of the memorial on Saturday will be led by Kin Cho Mayor Katsuhiro Yoshida and will include a Marine representative.
"They bent over backward to get it to us," Kuba said about the U.S. military. "This creates good will."
Okinawan Centennial events: Centennial events
Friday 9:30 a.m.: Ashes of Kyuzo Toyama, "Father of Okinawan Overseas Emigration," interred at Mililani Memorial Park.
5:30 p.m.: Banquet at Sheraton Waikiki Hotel, Hawaii Ballroom.
5:30 p.m.: Aloha Party, $15.
For more information: Call the Hawaii Okinawa Center at 676-5400.
