Interviews

1. Going back to Hawaii

2. 1920 labor strike

3. Picture brides and karifufu

4. Racial make-up of plantation camps

5. Clothes of plantation workers

6. Surviving after father's death

7. Washing for Filipino bachelors

8. Kids working hard

9. Bombing of Pearl Harbor

10. Helping soldiers

11. Brother leaves for war, survival

12. Okinawan discrimination

13. First day of school

14. Doing chores

15. Eating cold rice

Barbara Kawakami

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

Racial make-up of plantation camps

We lived in segregated camps. We lived in Japanese camp. And there was an Okinawan camp near the church area. And there was a small area especially for Korean. They call it Korean camp up on the hill. There were only about seven families.

And then, on the other side of town, there was the August (?) school. Near that school was Spanish camp, Puerto Rican camp and Filipino camp. And every morning on the way to school, we could see... you know, the Filipino people loved to participate in fighting chickens. On weekends, it was a big gathering. So from a young period, we were exposed to watching the cock fights.

There was in the corner, back of us, there were a group of bachelors, about a dozen Filipino bachelors. In those days, Filipino men came without their wives. They weren’t allowed a bring a woman in, so only bachelors. I found out later that because they work for the railroad gang, they were put specifically in the Japanese camp. They were only ones living in the Japanese camp. And so, that was really unusual. So every time there was something wrong with the railroad track, they could immediately report to work.

plantation camps plantations segregation

Date: February 19, 2004

Location: Hawai'i, US

Interviewer: Lisa Itagaki, Krissy Kim

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum.

Interviewee Bio

Barbara Kawakami was born in 1921 in Okkogamura, Kumamoto, Japan, in a feudal farmhouse that had been her family’s home for more than 350 years. She was raised on the Oahu Sugar Plantation in Oahu, Hawai’i, and worked as a dressmaker and homemaker before earning her high school diploma, Bachelor of Science in Textile & Clothing, and Master of Arts in Asian Studies—after the age of 50.

In her senior year, she began to research the clothing that immigrants wore on the plantation for a term paper. Finding there was relatively little academic research in this area, Barbara embarked on a project to document and collect original plantation clothing as well as the stories behind the ingenuity of the makers. Over the course of fifteen years, Barbara recorded more than 250 interviews with aging Issei women and men and their Nisei children. She captured their lives, the struggles of immigration, and conditions working and living on the plantation. Importantly, she documented the stories behind the ingenuity of these Issei women as they slowly adapted their traditions to suit the needs of plantation life. Her knowledge of the Japanese language, having grown up on the plantation, and her extensive background as a noted dressmaker, helped many Issei women feel comfortable about sharing the untold stories of their lives as picture brides. From her extensive research, she published the first book on the topic, Japanese Immigrant Clothing in Hawai‘i 1885-1941 (University of Hawai‘i Press, 1993).

A noted storyteller, author, and historian, Barbara continues to travel to Japan as well as throughout the United States to give lectures regarding plantation life and clothing. She is widely recognized as the foremost authority on Japanese immigrant clothing and has served as a consultant to Hawaii Public Television, Waipahu Cultural Garden Park, Bishop Museum, the Japanese American National Museum, and to the movie production of Picture Bride. (February 19, 2004)