Japanese American Food: Hawaii

Between 1885 and 1895, more than thirty thousand Japanese came to work in Hawaii. The first were yatoi-dohi (menial workers) who came toshu kuuken (“empty-handed”) with a dream of striking it rich or at least of working hard and, through self-denial, sending money home to their indigent families in Japan. Japanese contract laborers first came as gannenmono (casual workers) and then as kanyaku imin (contract workers) from Kumamoto, Hiroshima, and Yamaguchi to Hawaii. By 1893, 70 percent of the 32,000 plantation workers (mostly in sugar cane) were Japanese. By 1900, the plantation populations included Portuguese (often the foremen), Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Okinawans, and Puerto Ricans. Okinawa was then (as it is again) part of Japan, but Okinawan Americans remained a distinct group in Hawaii. On the mainland they were assimilated into the Japanese American community and were interned during World War II. By 1924, when the Oriental Exclusion Act was passed, the total number of migrants from Japan was 220,000. Only in 1952 were Japanese residents allowed American citizenship; many by then were second- or third-generation residents. Kenjinkai (prefectural associations based on the prefect of origin of members) were formed as protective and mediating agencies for immigrants.