In this Book
- From Okinawa to the Americas: Hana Yamagawa and Her Reminiscences of a Century
- Book
- 2011
- Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
- Series: Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural studies
summary
Between 1889 and 1940 more than 40,000 Okinawan contract laborers emigrated to plantations in Hawaii, Brazil, the Philippines, and Peru. In 1912 seventeen-year-old Hana Kaneshi accompanied her husband and brother to South America and dreamed of returning home in two years’ time a wealthy young woman. Edited by her daughter Akiko, Hana’s richly detailed memoir is a rare, first-hand account of the life of a female Okinawan immigrant in the New World. It spans nearly a century, from Hana’s early life in a small village not long after the Ryukyu Kingdom’s annexation to Japan; to a sugar plantation in Peru and its capital, Lima; to her dangerous trek through Mexico and the California desert to enter the U.S. and start a new life, this time in the Imperial Valley and finally Los Angeles. Hana’s story comes full circle when she returns briefly, after forty-seven years, to Okinawa during the postwar American Occupation.
From Okinawa to the Americas will appeal to not only students of Asian American and disapora studies, but also those seeking to understand the complexity of Okinawan culture and the networks of family relationships in Okinawa and in its overseas immigrant communities.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- p. xix
- Introduction
- pp. 1-13
- Part I Tethered by a Silken Thread
- School Years
- pp. 34-58
- Victory Celebration
- pp. 59-65
- Growing Up
- pp. 66-74
- Part II Go, My Lucky Child
- Contract Labor
- pp. 93-99
- Yamagawa Kitaro
- pp. 112-128
- Part III On the Ship of Good Fortune
- Imperial Valley
- pp. 131-140
- Los Angeles
- pp. 141-154
- The World War II Years
- pp. 155-160
- Los Angeles Again
- pp. 161-164
- Part IV And Return
- Tethered by a Silken Thread
- pp. 167-179
- Selected Bibliography
- pp. 209-210
Additional Information
ISBN
9780824860950
Related ISBN(s)
9780824834005
MARC Record
OCLC
794925340
Launched on MUSE
2012-01-01
Language
English
Open Access
No