takaki ch 10

Takaki ch 10

Takaki’s tenth chapter, “Pacific Crossings: Seeking the Land of Money Trees,” describes life for Japanese and Japanese-Americans during the early 1900’s. Takaki shows that the Japanese migrant workers were treated very poorly and were paid about four dollars less per day than the Portuguese workers doing the same job. This angered the Japanese laborers so they went on strike on the main Hawaiian island. The Japanese workers from other islands sent funds to the strikers so they could survive. The landowners then hired other Asian groups to work creating social classes within the different ethnic groups. They wanted to keep the ethnic groups separate so they would not join up and revolt, much like the Eastern Americans, with indentured servants and slaves. The chapter then explains how the Japanese people joined with the Filipino people to make the Hawaii Laborers’ Association, which allowed for more power to go to the Asians; however, they were still not allowed to become naturalized citizens. The chapter then goes on to describe that life in California was much more intense. They had to deal with hot weather in the desert and cold weather in the mountains. Even the American-born children were not treated as equals, even though they completed more school than the average American, two years of college.

One question that I think would lead to a good discussion is why did the Filipino accept the smaller, dirtier shacks than the Japanese when they were from similar backgrounds, and almost similar numbers? I would say that they did this because of the way the white men ordered them. Since the Filipino people came to Hawaii later than the Japanese, the white men forced them to act as an inferior race to the Japanese. This was to control the workers more by making the Japanese feel superior over the Filipinos so they would not socialize.

I think it is interesting that the workers were able to form a common language, called Pidgin English so they could communicate with plantation owners, and other workers. This common language was very useful for the uprising of the Asians to get equal wages with the European workers. Since they had the language other than the home language they did not only view themselves as a Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or Filipino, but also as a migrant worker trying to be equal with everyone around them. One other thing that shocked me about this chapter was that even in a society where women were welcomed to have jobs, they were still forced to do all housework and were not allowed to go to sleep before the husband. I was shocked when I heard that women did equal amounts of fieldwork on top of the housework such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. I was also feel bad that the plantation owners did not even refer to the laborers by name, but instead a number. This would be very hurtful to me if I were only looked at as a number and not an individual. This is similar to the social security number or the Bowling Green ID number, although they are used for different reasons.