Baban: The passing of the plantation generation
| • | A lifetime of a changing century (graphic) |
| • | McGerrow Camp (map) |
By Wes Nakama
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Goze Nakama came to Hawai'i from Okinawa as a picture bride in 1924 — at the end of the era's wave of Asian immigrant workers — and labored on a Maui sugar plantation with her husband. She died in April at age 103.
Photos courtesy of Wes Nakama |
With time, we've come to realize her death wasn't just our loss: Baban's death may have marked the end of an era in our state's rich history.
Baban, you see, was one of the last immigrant laborers from the Far East to come work in Hawai'i's sugar plantations. She arrived in 1924, the same year Congress passed the Immigration Act (which came to be known as the Asian Exclusion Act). The act essentially stopped the 40-year parade of immigrant laborers to the islands.
Baban worked in the once-thriving sugar town of Pu'unene, Maui, which divided its bustling population of about 5,000 into several plantation camps: Camp 5, McGerrow Camp, Haole Camp, Spanish B, etc. Of the roughly 250 families living in McGerrow Camp, Baban was believed to be the last survivor of first-generation (issei) laborers.
The camps have been slowly dismantled during the past 40 years, and Pu'unene is but a ghost town. Now Baban, McGerrow Camp's last former resident, is gone as well.
Time warp
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| Yasube and Goze Nakama with their children — from left, Ayano, Sunao, Mitatsu, Emiko, Saburo and Masato — at McGerrow Camp on Maui, circa 1938. All eight of them lived in a two-room house with no bathroom. Goze worked six days a week in the fields while raising her children. |
But downstairs in our home, where my Baban and Jiian (grandfather) lived, on the lower slopes of Kamehameha/ 'Alewa Heights, I saw daily examples of plantation life even as the 21st century approached.
There was no predawn whistle from the sugar mill, but Baban and Jiian still awoke at 5:30 every morning as if to prepare for another long day in the fields. While an electric rice cooker long ago became standard equipment in Hawai'i's homes, my baban continued to cook rice the old-fashioned way: in a big pot on the stove.
Their meals remained simple and efficient: neatly chopped tofu, fish or Spam/luncheon meat with vegetables on small plates, accompanied by small bowls of soft, sticky rice cooked on the stove.
As cable TV, VCRs, CD players and other modern devices made their way into our living quarters upstairs, entertainment for Baban and Jiian consisted of listening to the Japanese station KOHO from an old white GE radio, or reading the Japanese-language Hawai'i Hochi newspaper.
Yes, they watched TV, but mostly it was Japanese programming on KIKU Channel 13 on a 13-inch screen.
The fanciest piece of furniture/ art downstairs was a butsudan (Buddhist family altar), from which the smell of incense would often make its way to the upper level.
As Honolulu grew into a metropolis of traffic gridlock, round-the-clock activity and air waves filled with cell phone conversations, Baban and Jiian continued to live a humble, quiet life with simple pleasures such as sitting on the back porch to sunbathe, or going for a short walk in the adjoining cemetery.
After spending my days at a private school with state-of-the-art facilities where kids played hand-held electronic games and took classes to learn computer programming, I would travel the five miles home and walk downstairs into what sometimes seemed like a time warp.
Our house used rotary phones, and to this day does not have an answering machine.
While others had to read books, watch a documentary or hear stories about Hawai'i's plantation past, I caught a glimpse of it every day — not just because Baban lived downstairs, but also because I spent most of my time there before preschool and during my summers in elementary school. I never had a babysitter or went to daycare; Baban, along with my Aunty E., helped raise me when my parents were at work.
Trips to Kam Shopping Center — usually by bus and later by taxi — were big excursions for the three of us. On rarer occasions we would catch the bus downtown and shop at places like Kress or Woolworth, stores that have vanished from Hawai'i's landscape like the plantation camps.
Often on those trips, Baban would reach into her coin purse and insist on giving me a $5 bill — which in her time was two days' pay.
Whenever my friends would come over, she would rush to the cabinet, grab a pack of Wrigley's Doublemint gum and offer them a stick. I don't know what kind of impression, if any, this gesture made on my puzzled buddies, who probably were used to more elaborate snacks. But knowing Baban's humble past, it made a huge impression on me. I am reminded of her generosity every April when I watch ABC's special presentation of "The Ten Commandments," in a scene where Moses' wife-to-be, a shepherd girl, contrasts her family to Egyptian royalty.
"We don't have much to give," she says, "but we give with our hearts."
Long years of toil
There still are thousands of nissei (second-generation Japanese) who grew up on Hawai'i's sugar plantations, and two mills still operate on Maui and Kaua'i. But there are precious few issei remaining who can relate to my baban's life journey.
Goze Nakama was born Dec. 15, 1900, as Goze Ajifu in the Kin district of Okinawa. She attended grammar school there through the sixth grade and hoped to continue further, but her father died when she was just 12, and her brother told her she would have to start working instead to help the family.
In 1924, Baban became a picture bride for Yasube Nakama, an immigrant working as a field laborer in Kahuku. She left her hometown in a horse and buggy for the port of Naha, where she boarded a boat for Kobe, Japan. From Kobe,
Baban took a train to Osaka, then boarded a ship for the long voyage to the unknown land of Hawai'i.
After getting married, Yasube and Goze spent a few years each in Kahuku and Wahiawa before settling down in Pu'unene in 1931. They had seven children, although one died when just a toddler in a 1934 accident.
While raising her six children, Baban worked 23 years for the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar company, mostly as a field laborer. One of her jobs was called hoe-hana, meaning she would walk up and down countless rows of sugar cane, using the hoe to clear away weeds.
For the first 11 years, Baban did this back-breaking work from about 6:30 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon, six days a week, 52 weeks a year, with no vacation or sick leave. The pay was between $40 and $50 a month.
It was hard labor for someone who stood 4 feet, 8 inches tall and weighed a mere 110 pounds.
When her work in the field was over, her work at home was just beginning. Being a mother of six is no easy chore today, but in the 1930s and '40s — with no microwave, fast-food restaurants or other modern luxuries — it was even tougher. Hours of her only day off, Sunday, were spent hand-washing clothes for the family.
The issei carried on for years with this mundane life of toil and struggle under a sense of duty characterized by the phrase "shikata ga nai" — it can't be helped.
Amazingly, my father said, Baban never showed bitterness or contempt, but was compassionate to a fault, often feeling sorry even for people better off than herself. Despite living in poverty in McGerrow Camp, she had trouble saying no to door-to-door salesmen because she felt so sorry for them.
I did not learn of Baban's picture-bride history until after her death, when we found her photo. Jiian had found such a perfect wife, I always assumed it wasn't just luck.
But "lucky" — or, as Baban would say, "Ohhh, rah-keee, yeh?" — was one of her favorite words. Her other favorite phrases were "Tankee-youu, noh?" She'd say it while smiling and nodding, her way of always looking at the bright side.
Sense of community
As rough as it was, plantation life in Pu'unene had its advantages.
Living quarters were tight — the Nakama family had eight people living in a two-bedroom house — and there was no indoor bathroom, so they did their business in an outhouse and washed up in a furo (community bath house).
But the physical closeness of the families made for lasting relationships and a strong sense of community. There was a clubhouse for the camp kids, who otherwise spent their free time playing together in the fields or swimming in the irrigation ditches.
My dad always said that growing up in such group environments ensures honesty. "Nobody could tell lies," he said, "because there were always witnesses."
There was one movie theater, one general store, one meat market (the building is still there) and one post office where everyone got their mail.
The camp atmosphere also produced a strong work ethic and appreciation for education among the second-generation kids. Most of the older ones — especially sons — were expected to start working by age 14.
Whenever my brother and I were watching TV and a commercial came on for the United Negro College Fund — the one where a young man's parents sadly tell him his education must be put on hold for another year — my dad would give a soft chuckle.
"You see that? That's what my parents told me, too," he'd say.
"Except they were talking about high school, not college."
(Ironically, World War II proved to be a blessing in some ways for nissei such as my dad, who suddenly could find jobs to support themselves through high school and took advantage of the Montgomery G.I. Bill to pay for college)
At the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum are poster boards showing the layouts of each plantation camp, including the surnames of those living in each of the houses.
Baban, Jiian and their children needed no such map. Even 60 years later, they remembered exactly which family lived in which house at McGerrow Camp: The Hajiros over there, the Takeyamas over here, the Oishis over there.
How many of us today can pinpoint which family lives in each of the 250 homes in our neighborhood? Unfortunately, I couldn't even name the 12 or so families living on our short dead-end street.
The entire town of Pu'unene held a giant reunion in 1978, inviting back all the people who had lived and grew up there in the boom time of the 1930s and '40s. Life back then was rough, but you wouldn't be able to tell by the laughter and fellowship shared by those who flocked to the gathering.
In 1961, Baban finally retired from HC&S and moved with Jiian to Honolulu to be with her children. In coming years, Baban and Jiian would have six grandchildren.
I consider myself one of the lucky ones, because I got to grow up in the same house with them.
When I visited the A&B Sugar Museum in Pu'unene last year, I took in all the exhibits displaying photos and artifacts from places such as McGerrow Camp.
Then I hopped on a flight back to Honolulu and enjoyed seeing another plantation treasure at home downstairs ... in the flesh.
Lifetime memories
As Baban turned 85, 90, 95 and even 100 years old, others marveled at her ability to recognize people she had not seen in years and remember names and events from more than half a century before.
A few years ago, my father introduced her to an old friend from McGerrow Camp. When he said his name was Nakamura, Baban remembered a family in McGerrow Camp known for using coffee cans as flower pots on their front porch, and to his amazement she quickly replied, "Oh, Koh-pay Nakamura, yeh?" That's what people had called his family 60 years before, in the 1930s: Koh-pay Nakamura.
A little more than two weeks before she passed away on April 2 at the age of 103, Baban was at the hospital, where the doctor had given a gloomy prognosis. My dad started to ask her questions to test the sharpness of her mind.
He said, "Mama, Pu'unene nihongo gakkoo no sochi sensei no namae, nandatta?" — "What was the principal's name at Pu'unene Japanese School?"
She immediately replied, "Maehara." That indeed was the principal's name — some 70 years ago.
Gone, not forgotten
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| Wes Nakama has been a member of The Advertiser's sports department for more than three years.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Which is a shame.
Because of the hard work and love for family from Baban, Jiian and their peers, most of their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren have lived — and will live — much easier lives.
Today we sit in our air-conditioned cars, drive to our jobs in air-conditioned shops or offices, complain about how slow our e-mail or computers are, use a cell phone to order dinner to pick up on the way home, and then grumble about what a lousy day we had.
But it still beats hoe-hana.
Despite her rough life, Baban never complained, stayed positive and always, always greeted people with an ear-to-ear smile.
That smile is what I will remember the most about my grandmother. That, and her favorite words, which we grandchildren of the plantation era should never forget to repeat:
"Tankee-youu ... rah-KEE, yeh?"
Reach Wes Nakama wnakama@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2456.
