UNDER THE MOON

Books on Japanese Immigration to Hawaii

It is 1899 in the Meiji era, a time of great social and economic changes in Japan. Ueme, the daughter of a prominent Japanese family, longs for childhood days when months were counted in hours and the ends were unseen. Now monumental change awaits her—change she never asked for or wanted.

Forced to emigrate four thousand miles away to Hawaii from her home in the Kumamoto Prefecture after her mother dies, Ueme is displaced from her heritage and propelled into an arranged marriage far below her status without any resources to help her. Now an indentured laborer in a foreign land, she must face severe prejudice and anguish as she struggles to survive, overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and find her way. As she and the other Nihonji women begin to boldly transform their lives and not follow detrimental traditions, Ueme bravely walks into what she can only hope is a brighter future.

In this poignant historical tale set in the turbulent Meiji era in Japan and the sugarcane fields of Hawaii, a young Japanese immigrant must find a way to rise above a destructive marriage and life as an indentured laborer in a foreign land.

I really enjoyed this book. Written with vivid description, it takes the reader to Japan and Hawaii at the end of the 19th Century. The main  character is a young woman whose life is determined by forces beyond her control. However, because of her strength, faith, and  determination, she is able not simply to survive but to thrive.

-R.M.

WHY THIS BOOK, WHY THIS STORY?

This story is written in honor of my two daughters who are half-Japanese and half-Caucasian. While they were growing up, there were few Asian stories and very little written about Japanese immigration to Hawaii. This novel describes a little section of the very rich cultural life and the changing times of the people from that period. Set in two different countries, Japan and Hawaii, the story begins in Japan—Nippon, the Japanese name—at the end of the 1800s during the Meiji era. This was a tumultuous time in Japan’s history, when the country went from an agrarian feudal system to an industrial economy that rivaled any in the West in less than fifty years. It was at this time, because of economic upheavals, weather-related droughts, and new unbalanced tax levies, that so many Japanese emigrated to Hawaii and the West Coast.

The main character is of two different classes in Japan to show the convolution of the class system during the Meiji period and to create a semblance of life at that time. At the beginning of the Meiji era, class structure was very rigid. Merchants were the lowest class, just above the untouchables, because they dealt with money, which was considered lowly by the Confucian values on which Japanese society was based. Above the merchant was the farmer class; farmers were more valuable because they provided food, an essential item. Above the farmers came the samurai, the soldier/philosopher class, who were supported monetarily by the local lords. At the top were the members of the court and the royal family.

Due to extreme competition with western powers, Japan changed its economic and cultural structures to align more with those of the West. At this time, the lowly merchant class rose to the top because of their economic power, while many samurais were floating in a sort of no-man’s-land, with no longer any formal place in society or means of income. Some samurai were part of the newly created government, but many were not. Those samurai families who looked ahead made alliances with the merchant class, such as we see in Ueme’s fictional family.

A note about the use of the word modern in the story. Please remember that every person thinks that their time is “modern.” But what we consider modern today is much more advanced than what was modern for a Meiji woman.