All I Asking for is My Body

At this point, my interest in Hawaii sugar plantation life might be an obsession. I’ve been immersed in books, journal articles, phone interviews, maps and more. The history of sugar plantation workers in Hawaii is part of my ancestral history after all. It’s why I am a gosei, or fifth generation Japanese American born and raised in Hawaii.

I got my BA in English and minored in Ethnic Studies because I loved to write, and even then had a fascination with this  period in history. My mom, aunties and uncle were raised on a sugar plantation on Kauai but, I only had glimpses of it in short stories about their lives. I end up minoring in it, even though I had no idea what I could do with an Ethnic Studies minor.

Several decades later and I am rereading the same books I read as a college student. Take, “All I Asking for is My Body,” by Milton Murayama, for example, a novel I remember reading as an English major. It was a quick read that I didn’t appreciate until recently. I didn’t glean the pearls until I was older and understood the cultural ramifications hidden in a story about a boy growing up on a sugar plantation. During this second go, I was enthralled and view it as an underrated American novel that speaks volumes about the significance we put in underrepresented voices.

Murayama’s story is a genuine classic with insight into a world few of us will ever understand. It tells a true story of plantation life, and all its discrimination and ugliness while being hopeful and does it without too much sentimental nostalgia. It shares how a lot of plantation folks in Hawaii felt-that there was comfort, independence, fun and freedom in their childhood. At the same time, it sheds light on the more complex underworking of Hawaii’s transition into a commercial American society and racial and ethnic discrimination that was the foundation of the sugar plantation experience. This can be seen in a dialogue with the protagonist’s white teacher about the implications of being a scab during the sugar strike:

“The plantation divides, and rules, and you the exploited are perfectly happy to be divided and ruled. Do you see what I’m driving at? The Filipinos strike, and you are all too happy to break that strike. It’s a big deal. The plantation raises your pay. Doesn’t it prick your conscience just a little bit? Don’t you feel you’re cutting off your own nose?”

It also unabashedly shares what it’s like growing up in what was becoming an American culture in Hawaii. It shares the inner battle of losing your culture out of fear. It shares what was occurring on the inside of Japanese immigrants and their children who were suddenly forced to choose between their home country and the United States after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

His story is brilliant and I have a lot of work ahead of me to try to encapsulate a childhood that was not mine, but that I want my kids to know and understand.

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