Novel recalls life in Honolulu's Pake Patch

By Wanda Adams
Advertiser Books Editor

SHIGEZAWA

The neighborhood was called Pake Patch — which is also the title of Shigezawa's new book, "Paké Patch, Growing Up in Old Hawai'i: A Novel" (hardback, self-published, $24.95).

"I go there near the HMSA building and I stand over there a long time because I feel this is exactly where my heart was. But I've moved a long way from that," said Shigezawa, who now divides her time between homes on Wai'alae Nui Ridge and Las Vegas.

"Today, you cannot imagine what it was like but there are so many people, some of them prominent people, who grew up there and remember it," said Shigezawa, who was born in 1922 and lived in the Sheridan Street home until just before World War II. "On my side of the street were the very poor families. On the other side, toward McKinley, were the people who had culture and class — the ones who taught piano and samisen."

But the Hironakas considered themselves fortunate: Their house was ramshackle but they had a big yard with fruit trees. Yoshio Hironaka was a white-collar worker, a bookkeeper. Shigezawa's mother had a job at the Dairyman's ice creamery across the street. And both the older Hironakas were Nisei, American citizens.

"It was a hard, hard life; people were just barely existing," she said. "But we all helped each other. In case of a funeral or a wedding, all our zabutans were used, we all sent our plates or serving dishes, we all prepared food. We had this feeling of togetherness that you don't find today. There was no other place to go for help but to each other."

Shigezawa's novel, set mostly in the 1930s and '40s, concerns a young girl who lives in Pake Patch but dreams of going to school and having a career until World War II sends her life in a new direction.

Many of the incidents in the novel are autobiographical and they reveal a woman whose feet are planted in two different worlds: the old, in which conformity, endurance and obedience come first, and the new, in which independence, initiative and striking out on one's own are valued.

"Paké Patch" is available at Bestsellers bookstores ($24.95) or by mail order from Edward Enterprises, 641 Waiakamilo Road, Honolulu, HI 96817-4423 ($24.95 plus postage of $3.95 in Hawai'i; otherwise $5.75); call 841-4231, Ext. 234, to order.

It is her own indignant speech that Shigezawa places in Harumi's mouth when the young girl confronts a man on the bus who is taunting an elderly Japanese. With typical humor, she admits that she made herself more articulate in the book, and that she was quick to hop off the bus after the incident, even though the stop was a good mile from her house.

Unlike Harumi in the book, Shigezawa didn't join the WACs, an opportunity urged on her by her mentor, Aldyth Morris, with whom she worked at the War Manpower Commission. "I've always regretted that, always," said Shigezawa. "I think if I had done that, maybe my life would have been very different."

Pake Patch responded with patriotic fervor when the war started, Shigezawa recalls: "They sent their sons. They encouraged them to fight. The mothers, especially, sacrificed a lot. I watched these things happening and, oh the suffering, but those women gave the impression all along that everything would be OK."

Shikata ganai. It can't be helped, they said.

"Japanese are proud. People thought, 'What can you do? No use talk about it,' " Shigezawa said.

Clearly, when Shigezawa says she has moved a long way from Pake Patch, she means in more than just time and space.

"It was a different kind of world," said Shigezawa. "We are more free thinkers now."

She recalls a handsome Caucasian Marine captain she often sat next to on the bus. She looked forward to seeing him each day, but was shocked when someone suggested she go out with him.

"It was a period of my life when I was going through changes, separating myself (from what was expected and accepted), but I wasn't ready for that. I thought if I went out with him once I would fall in love with him and it would ruin my whole life. I knew the captain would never marry me," she recalled. "I wanted so much to go to school and all that. I really and truly just wasn't going to fall in love with anybody."

In fact, she had fallen in love, almost at first sight, with Jeffrey Shigezawa of Maui, whom she met during her senior year at a territorial high school conference. "When I saw him, I thought, 'This is my real life.' I knew I was going to marry him because he was tall and good-looking, and he was really smart. I came home and told my mother ... and they all laughed at me."

But later, after years of corresponding with Jeffrey, she had the last laugh.

Now she and her husband have a son and a daughter — and two grandchildren, the reason she had the book published. The manuscript actually dates back to a writing class she took after she retired, but it sat in a closet until she became a grandma at age 78: "Before my grandchildren, I could care less, but now I have a reason. I wanted them to know what it was like in Pake Patch."