COURTESY OF ARTHUR YOSHIDA A century after Ichizo and Natsu Tashiro came to Hawaii, 120 of their descendants are gathering in Kona this weekend.

Tashiro
descendants
celebrate

It has been 100 years since Ichizo
and Natsu Tashiro arrived
with dreams of riches

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By Rod Thompson
rthompson@starbulletin.com

HILO >> In 1902, Ichizo Tashiro, a farmer from central Japan, deeply in debt, brought his wife, Natsu, and one of his two children to Hawaii to earn some quick money on a Big Island sugar plantation.

"They were dreaming of going back to Japan with riches," said his grandson Masao "Mas" Hamasu.

Thirty-four years later, still on the Big Island, Tashiro paid off the last of the debt. He died three years later at 74.

"From all indications, he died very happy because all his obligations were completed," said Edgar Hamasu, brother of Mas.

Today, about 120 descendants of Ichizo and Natsu Tashiro will gather at Ohana Keauhou Beach Resort in Kona for a three-day celebration of "100 Years in the USA."

Mas Hamasu says if Ichizo were alive, he would be pleased with the successes of his descendants. Two examples: a great-granddaughter studying engineering and another great-granddaughter flying in from London where she is a financial consultant.

But the early years at "Six House Camp" above Paauilo on the Hamakua Coast were hard. The Tashiros had six children plus one who died in infancy.

Besides plantation work, Ichizo grew coffee and made and sold charcoal for income. Natsu made bootleg sake, for which she was once heavily fined, now a family joke.

Grandson Mitsuo "Ted" Hamasu remembers Ichizo drinking a gallon of sake in a night while talking with friends.

COURTESY OF THE TASHIRO FAMILY This historical family photo was taken in Kalopa, Hawaii, on March 10, 1927, at the 29th annual Tashiro New Year's gathering.

"He drank all night," said grandson Edgar, "but in the morning he'd be out there in the field, working, picking coffee, hoeing weeds from coffee.

"We were a pretty male-dominated society," said granddaughter Florence Wasai, who became an intermediate-school math teacher. "When we had a party, we (women) were serving them."

Natsu was "kind of a rugged woman," Wasai said.

Natsu used to roll and smoke cigarettes of Bull Durham tobacco, she said.

All the women of that generation smoked Bull Durham, said great-grandson Paul Nishimura. Then they tied the little, empty burlap bags that contained the tobacco onto faucets as filters, he said.

In 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and Edgar Hamasu's father tried to explain it to him.

"It's like our father and mother are fighting each other. How do you take sides?" his father said.

Edgar's older brother, Ted, had been drafted in 1940. He ended up in the 100th Infantry Battalion Separate, fighting in southern Italy.

Ice and snow made his feet swell so much, he could not get his shoes on. He was evacuated on a mule. But he remained in the Army for 20 years.

Back at home during the war, Edgar was hungry.

"We were so hungry while I was growing up. We didn't have much to eat," he said.

What they did have often was bacalao, salted codfish, relieved at times by meat from chickens killed in the back yard.

"I was the grand executioner," Edgar said.

They bathed in the furo hot tub after washing off outside the tub. Water was scarce at times. The whole family might soak repeatedly in the same furo water for weeks.

Edgar walked 3 1/2 miles to school carrying his gas mask.

"Everybody had gas masks," he said.

Edgar served in the Korean War as an intelligence specialist, then attended Michigan State University, where he studied planning. He was Hawaii County planning director from 1962 to 1964. Hawaii had been a state since 1959, and land speculation was rampant.

"The barn door was wide open," he said.

Unlike the plantation days, economic success was now so available that even tsunamis could not kill it.

The fledgeling appliance store owned by Paul Nishimura's father was wiped out by the 1946 tsunami. Nishimura's successor store was smashed by the 1960 tsunami. But the third store, Modern Appliance, is still functioning.

Nishimura's father, Tsugio, looked at the record of success of Tashiro descendants and summed it up in a Japanese haiku. In translation it says, "A tree, planted by the Pioneer, is flourishing beautifully."