AH QUON McELRATH

In 1986 local historian Barbara Kawakami and Women’s Studies Professor, Alice Chai introduced us to their project on picture brides. They had collected stories and photos from a sampling of women who came to Hawaiʻi as picture brides, with marriages arranged by families in which the bride and groom only knew each other from exchanged pictures. The stories told by women from Japan, Okinawa, and Korea, contained a range of human emotions from sadness to joy and often humor!

Robert Muroda was born in Hawai‘i and worked on the Wai‘anae Plantation. He shares a story told to him by his mother, a famous plantation midwife during the early 1900s. Delivering babies in the field where the pregnant patient was working was not uncommon!

Mrs. Endo came to Hawai‘i as a picture bride in 1913. While working in a remote field in 1922, she was seriously injured. Her harrowing story is told to us by historian, Barbara Kawakami.

Ayako and Masaki Tabusa were married in 1932. There was some anxiety on the part of Ayako and her family since she was a “city girl”, marrying a “country boy” and they would be moving to the country and plantation life! Still it seemed to work out since when we interviewed them they had been married for more than 50 years! They recall the wedding and celebration at the Waipahu Japanese Social Club.

In our archive we have an example from the remembrances of historian and former plantation worker, Barbara Kawakami. It was a new beginning for her when she he took a job as a maid for a well to do haole (Caucasian) couple. Barbara was both terrified and excited about this opportunity to see how others lived. It was her first real experience with haole culture and she was fascinated with the food consumed by her employer. Among other things, she was intrigued about, Jello!

Noboru Shimabuku and Henry Texiera grew up on Hawaii Island’s Olaa Plantation. When we interviewed them in 1996 they were both retired. Initially they teased each other about trips to “Vegas” but soon switched to talk story about games they used to play!

Oʻahu Sugar Company worker Kaku Kumasaka (1899-1987) recounts to historians Barbara Kawakami and Franklin Odo her first night in Hawaiʻi as a newly arrived picture bride in 1922.

Ewa sugar plantation worker, Haruno Tazawa (1897-1994) immigrated to Hawaiʻi from Fukushima, Japan. She shares with historian Barbara Kawakami her first impressions of Hawaiʻi as a newly arrived picture bride.

Oahu Sugar Company worker Sashichi Kumasaka (1895-1987) sings a holehole bushi. The lyrics were sung by Japanese plantation workers to a standard folk melody that accompanied their laborious cane stripping work. "Bushi" is the Japanese word for melody and "holehole" is Hawaiian for the dried sugarcane leaves that had to be manually stripped from the stalks at harvest.

Oahu Sugar Company worker Kaku Kumasaka (1899-1987) and her husband Sashichi (1895-1987) model for historian Barbara Kawakami some of the original clothing Mrs. Kumasaka sewed for their work in the sugar cane fields.

As a bride, Kamiko Yahiro moved into her home on the Oʻahu Sugar Plantation in 1926. When we visited her in the 1980s, Ms. Yahiro still maintained the lifestyle of a bygone era, providing us with a window on the past.

Barbara Kawakami recalls that school students were punished for speaking Japanese or pidgin!

Barbara Kawakami dropped out of school to be a seamstress and help her mother earn income. She collected stories of plantation picture brides. She would return to school earning a BA in Fashion Design and an MA in Asian Studies. She introduces Mrs. Shizu Kaigo and friends as they display the special 3 layer kimono that Mrs. Kaigo wore for her wedding in 1916.

Barbara Kawakami remembers her first day at August Aherns School. She spoke no English, and her first encounter with her haole (Caucasian) teacher was a frightening experience. She thought she was being attacked by an obake (ghost)!

Barbara Kawakami remembers some good times in the 1920s with trips to the ocean near Pearl Harbor, for catching crabs and digging for clams and oysters.