It may sound paradoxical when I say that I am consciously participating in the struggle of our generation to wipe away a great part of the conditions that have shaped my thinking.
The path I travelled, not of my own choosing, was full of inequities. The poverty of coffee farm tenancy in Kona, or the depression that affected our lives, raised many probing questions in my mind, just as it must have in the minds of others.
At first the questions were simple and, very personal: Why must we suffer? Why can't everyone live like the bosses?
Then the questions took a more meaningful form: Must we have recurrent depressions? And why? Were there always depressions? Why can't there be permanent prosperity? Is this possible?
In like manner, when I began to work for wages, I asked myself: Why does my employer pay so little? Should I ask for more? Would it be fair to do so?
As I grew to be a worker, I raised such questions as these on many occasions: Why must we work for almost nothing? How can we get equitable wages? Will I be fired if I ask for more? Will others join me in making the demand?
These were natural reactions to the conditions in society as I found them. There came a time when I began to look for the correction of inequities. I can see nothing wrong in this.
For my thoughts I am now indicted on the charge of teaching and advocating the overthrow of the government by force and violence. My recent arrest and indictment came as a great surprise to me.
My contention has always been, through the study of history, that only a terribly weak, corrupt, oppressive and incompetent government, lacking the confidence of popular support for its programs, fears active minds, ideas, and the questions raised by the populace.
We Are a Sick Nation Today, Plagued by Fear
If a government is doing what is right and just to humanity, there is no reason to frighten people into silence, thus stopping the free flow of ideas.
We are a sick nation today, with a stagnation of the minds. In this land of democratic traditions, people are afraid to talk, as the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are shoved aside by the Taft-Hartley Law, the McCarran "subversive" control law and the Smith Act.
Those who continue to speak out are arrested and placed behind bars. But ideas cannot be locked away in such a simple manner, for the very conditions in our society give birth to them in the minds of men.
My thinking became molded over a period of years, and a greater part of this took place here in Hawaii. I was no intellectual, but a working stiff, moving in the strata of the working class that occasionally knew hunger and deprivation. I acquired a deep feeling for people, regardless of color, and particularly for the downtrodden, as I learned as time went on, that my salvation rested, not in dog-eat-dog competition, but in a common struggle to better our lot.
People Are All Alike;
No One Is Better Than the Other
Fortunately, I was not poisoned by prejudice and discrimination in my formative years.
Very early in life I learned that people are all alike. I had an awe for the white man, but mother dispelled this from me. Even in the matter of gods she had a ready answer.
During the spring months in Kona, Sunday was a holiday for us. I began going to Sunday school and brought home cards with pictures of Jesus, Moses and Mary.
One day I asked mother: "Is Jesus Christ our Lord?"
"No; did you learn that at Sunday school?" she asked in half-surprise.
"Yes."
Mother explained to me that Jesus Christ is a white man's God. That our God was Amaterasu-Omikami, the Sun Goddess who descended on Japan and started the Imperial dynasty and the Japanese people.
"Christ is a white man. Look at his skin and hair," she said, pointing to the pictures.
"Can I still go to Sunday school?" I asked.
"Surely you may," she answered with a tolerance and understanding I came to know so well. "It keeps you out of mischief."
Kim-san Shows His Protest Against Japanese Colonialism
Because mother had a deep feeling for others, we never had difficulty with labor shortage during the coffee harvesting season. Espe Esperidion, a young Filipino, who lived with his immigrant mother three miles from our home, commuted to our farm or lived with us. Yu Ten, a Korean immigrant, lived with us for many years.
All our laborers stayed on until the harvesting had been completed. But one evening in the midst of the peak season, I saw Kim, our Korean laborer, rolling his quilt and straw mat into a neat bundle. I ran to tell mother, whose face immediately took on a disturbed expression. She rushed to father and both of them hurried to Kim.
"What happened, Kim-san?" mother asked.
Kim looked father square in the face with fire in his eyes and said: "Papa-san, you said the Koreans are no good." He accused father of saying that the Koreans were getting worse and worse each day and something must be done with them.
Father denied saying that. Kim charged he had heard that awhile ago by the pulping machine. He strongly resented being looked down upon, as he said, because Korea was ruled by Japan.
"Youngsters Don't Tell Lies"
Mother tried to calm Kim but to no avail. All this time father stood there in deep thought. Then his eyes lighted up and I recall him saying something like this: "I know now. Kim-san, you heard wrong. I was yelling at Koichi through the noise that the galvanized iron covering of the pulper was broken and getting worse every day. It nicks the coffee in hulling the pulp."
Since we were not tenants of the Hinds' Captain Cook Coffee Co., Ltd., we were allowed to pulp our own coffee.
Kim was unconvinced. "Let's ask your boy Koichi. Youngsters don't tell lies."
And the two went to Koichi and Kim shouted questions at him. Father went to shut off the gasoline engine which turned the pulper, so that all could hear better.
Koichi took Kim to the defective pulper and showed him the damaged coffee beans.
The Oppressed Are Never Free and Happy
Kim looked at father apologetically and said: "Papa-san, I was wrong." As he said this, the tenseness in the charged atmosphere disappeared. Kim had a warmth in his eyes for us that I had never seen before.
"Never mind. Forget everything. Come, let's drink a cup of rice wine," father said.
I sat nearby and listened to their conversation for a long time as the two talked seriously. They argued some, about Korea, but there were smiles and laughter, too. Mother clipped small bottles of rice wine in the singing kettle over the kitchen fire and the two talked on and on.
Supper was delayed two hours that night, and after we had finished eating, Kim went with father and Koichi to finish the pulping by the light of kerosene lanterns.
That night I asked mother why Kim had misunderstood father. Mother explained to me that there are many Koreans like Kim, who believe Japan conquered Korea. They are bitter against all Japanese and want independence. But Japan has not conquered Korea; Japan protects Korea, she said.
From a box she took out a book and showed me pictures of the Japanese nobility. Then pointing to a couple she said: "This is a Japanese princess married to a Korean prince. Japan and Korea are like one nation. If Japan does not look after Korea, the white man will gulp her up."
Years later I found that Japan was a subjugator of Korea and I became actively interested in their independence struggle. As she closed the book that night, mother said that Yu Ten and Kim are like members of our family.
"You must never forget that we are no better than any other people," she said.
Filipinos Evicted In 1924 Strike Come To Kona
This conception was drilled into me time and time again. When I asked her about the eta, Japanese outcasts, whose social position in Japan stuck with them even in Kona and caused them to suffer ostracism, I was told that they were as good or better than we were. But no one with feeling could escape noticing that these families were discriminated against in the Japanese community. In time I felt keenly the injustice of it all, particularly because a son of an eta family was my bosom friend, and a star pitcher on our baseball team.
All these things made me think. In my own youthful way, I sometimes condemned the prejudices that brought untold and unnecessary sufferings—but only after I learned about the injustices. In retrospect, I recall that at numerous tunes I was contaminated by the poison of prejudice.
It all seems ridiculous today, but during the 1924 Filipino sugar strike, anti-Filipino propaganda was rampant in Kona. Evicted from the plantations, the strikers came to Kona by truckloads.
I learned of the term "Spanish fly" then, and the mere mention of it actually paralyzed some of the AJA girls. Most of the Filipinos were bachelors and it was rumored that they carried Spanish fly, a love potion, on their handkerchiefs. If a woman smelled its scent, she would become the carrier's love captive, it was said.
The Community Nearly Went Crazy
Young girls of junior and senior high school age walked on the opposite side of the road when they saw a Filipino approaching. They practically tip-toed, watching his hand to see if he pulled out his handkerchief, and ran as soon as they passed the Filipino.
When I went to Georgia to study later, I observed the same kind of attack against Negroes. There, a Negro man approaching a white woman on a sidewalk was expected to cross to the opposite sidewalk. This was only a step advanced from the insanity of the Spanish fly bugaboo.
It was just like my mother to ask Esperidion what Spanish fly was. She must have been concerned because of my elder sister. For a time the talk of Spanish fly and all the imagination that went along with it caused near-hysteria in our community.
The Japanese Laborers Were Bachelors, Too
Esperidion told mother that in his opinion, the Filipinos themselves did not know what Spanish fly was. Mother asked him to engage a few Filipinos to work for us. They all boarded with us and later, about six of them lived with us. We felt bad, because Filipinos were subjected to such treatment and mother tried to make them feel that our home was theirs.
Mother used to tell us that long ago the Japanese laborers were mostly bachelors, too, since the sugar planters brought over single men. Men fought over the few women, and stole wives, she said. There was no difference between Filipino and Japanese. But such Incidents were possible in unnatural conditions among men who were forced by conditions of poverty at home in the Orient to sell their bodies for labor on Hawaii's sugar plantations.
All these experiences have influenced me to participate in the fight for equality for all people, as written in the Constitution of our nation. That is why I am opposed to discrimination against Negroes, of the "lily-white" residential areas like Kahala, of unequal opportunities and double standards of pay for white and non-white, and naturalization restrictions for Orientals.
The government which has indicted me for thinking, has actually kicked civil rights in the teeth. But we recall that Truman campaigned vigorously on the civil rights issue in 1948. Truman spoke of peace and prosperity to win the votes of the American people, but today our whole economy is dependent on war production. Faced by depression, the administration resorted to rearmament two years ago. It is an unpopular program, necessitating the silencing of criticism.
In times like these, it is dangerous to speak out. But to be silenced means to go back on all one's teachings from childhood. It means going against the dictates of one's own conscience.