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Plantation Boy
No other writer has attempted such a broad view of the nisei experience in Hawai‘i as Milton Murayama.
In Plantation Boy, the third novel in a planned tetralogy that includes the highly popular All I Asking for Is My Body and Five Years on a Rock, eldest son Toshio narrates the continuing story of the Oyama family.
Outspoken, proud, determined, Tosh is the voice of the rebel that authority seeks to silence; he is the proverbial "protruding nail" that Japanese tradition seeks to flatten. His fight is against not only his family’s poverty and the environment that keeps them oppressed, but also his own plantation-boy mentality.
His struggles are set against the cataclysmic events of World War II―the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the internment of Japanese Americans, the heroism of the 100th and 442nd in Europe, the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Asia―and the social and political upheavals in Hawai‘i.
Here is a powerful work about Japanese in Hawai‘i that shows us more than stereotypes. By illuminating Tosh’s life, Murayama evokes a family and a community and, brilliantly, a critical vision of culture, of language, and of history itself.
In Plantation Boy, the third novel in a planned tetralogy that includes the highly popular All I Asking for Is My Body and Five Years on a Rock, eldest son Toshio narrates the continuing story of the Oyama family.
Outspoken, proud, determined, Tosh is the voice of the rebel that authority seeks to silence; he is the proverbial "protruding nail" that Japanese tradition seeks to flatten. His fight is against not only his family’s poverty and the environment that keeps them oppressed, but also his own plantation-boy mentality.
His struggles are set against the cataclysmic events of World War II―the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the internment of Japanese Americans, the heroism of the 100th and 442nd in Europe, the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Asia―and the social and political upheavals in Hawai‘i.
Here is a powerful work about Japanese in Hawai‘i that shows us more than stereotypes. By illuminating Tosh’s life, Murayama evokes a family and a community and, brilliantly, a critical vision of culture, of language, and of history itself.
- GenresAsian AmericanFiction
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 2, 2009
The third in the Oyama family saga and the best so far, I have yet to read the fourth and final installment. We get the eldest son Tosh's view of the world from the beginning of the war, to becoming a husband and father, to getting an off plantation and off island job, to finally breaking free from the plantation's cultural shackles as he strikes out into his own business ventures as a legitimate, certified architect in the mid-sixties.
Tosh is a boxer. Tosh is a man. Tosh is an American. His narrative is to the point, blow by blow reports of what is occupying his mind at the present moment. Amid the accounts of territory then state scale political dramas (unions, communists, the rise of the Democratic Party in Hawaii), relentless studying during blackouts, career planning, competitive jostling with other plantation workers, and his thoughts on the latest work projects he has going on, we do get a few glimpses of his family life and inner workings. By book's end, we really don't know anything about his wife Fujie/Carol other than how she calms him down and how smart she is. "Damn these wahines. No matter how much you yell at them, they go right ahead and do what they want." We don't know her hobbies, favorite music, mannerisms, pet peeves, or anything else 50's husbands stereotypically neglected. Likewise, the only time we "see" the children is when there is a problem that demands repair, like one daughter's club foot he constantly massages to fix and another daughter's conflict with a teacher which he must also fix. As he would fix a broken pipe or blown gasket.
Nevertheless, in italicized lines written as though notes to himself, we do get brief, enticing glimpses into Tosh's inner thoughts revealing a far more complex individual that may appear on the surface as above. He carries the burden of being on the homefront when his brother and friends fight the Axis in the front and bigotry from behind. "It's not that bad I tell myself. Think of the guys dying in Europe and the Pacific." He sees the "Big 5" plantations' hands in every island affair determined to maintain white dominance on every level of life. These two aspects and his deep and surprisingly complex resentment of his parents sustain his drive finally to attain his architect's certification despite his employer's open attempts to thwart that accomplishment. No high school degree. No college degree. Twelve years behind the 100th/442 veterans with GI Bill funded mainland diplomas.
What strikes me most though is that this book is real. It's called a novel. But it's real. This fact hit me like that sudden and brief hush that falls over a bustling restaurant when a tray of plates and glasses shatters on the floor. "Then Kosei Nakamura, the Honokawai boy Happy talked about, is killed in early June and gets the Bronze Star. He's the first KIA among the 442nd volunteers from West Maui. Several weeks later the papers list 2 Wailuku boys killed on the same day, June 2, 1944, near Lanuvio, Italy." My great-uncle was one of those two Wailuku boys.
Tosh is a boxer. Tosh is a man. Tosh is an American. His narrative is to the point, blow by blow reports of what is occupying his mind at the present moment. Amid the accounts of territory then state scale political dramas (unions, communists, the rise of the Democratic Party in Hawaii), relentless studying during blackouts, career planning, competitive jostling with other plantation workers, and his thoughts on the latest work projects he has going on, we do get a few glimpses of his family life and inner workings. By book's end, we really don't know anything about his wife Fujie/Carol other than how she calms him down and how smart she is. "Damn these wahines. No matter how much you yell at them, they go right ahead and do what they want." We don't know her hobbies, favorite music, mannerisms, pet peeves, or anything else 50's husbands stereotypically neglected. Likewise, the only time we "see" the children is when there is a problem that demands repair, like one daughter's club foot he constantly massages to fix and another daughter's conflict with a teacher which he must also fix. As he would fix a broken pipe or blown gasket.
Nevertheless, in italicized lines written as though notes to himself, we do get brief, enticing glimpses into Tosh's inner thoughts revealing a far more complex individual that may appear on the surface as above. He carries the burden of being on the homefront when his brother and friends fight the Axis in the front and bigotry from behind. "It's not that bad I tell myself. Think of the guys dying in Europe and the Pacific." He sees the "Big 5" plantations' hands in every island affair determined to maintain white dominance on every level of life. These two aspects and his deep and surprisingly complex resentment of his parents sustain his drive finally to attain his architect's certification despite his employer's open attempts to thwart that accomplishment. No high school degree. No college degree. Twelve years behind the 100th/442 veterans with GI Bill funded mainland diplomas.
What strikes me most though is that this book is real. It's called a novel. But it's real. This fact hit me like that sudden and brief hush that falls over a bustling restaurant when a tray of plates and glasses shatters on the floor. "Then Kosei Nakamura, the Honokawai boy Happy talked about, is killed in early June and gets the Bronze Star. He's the first KIA among the 442nd volunteers from West Maui. Several weeks later the papers list 2 Wailuku boys killed on the same day, June 2, 1944, near Lanuvio, Italy." My great-uncle was one of those two Wailuku boys.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 31, 2009
Tosh, the number one son of the Oyama family, is the hard-head, short tempered plantation boy-- who terrorized Kiyo in the first book and butts heads with his mother Sawa in the second of this series. Here we get into Tosh's head-- and to my surprise, his storytelling was the most compelling.
Murayama creates complete voices-- full psyches and internal worlds-- so subtly that you don't notice how cleverly he's done it. The narrators are so natural that the novels seem like simple autobiographies. I realized with a jolt half-way through that the whole book is in the present tense. That gives the storytelling an immediacy and compelling urgency, even when the content is as detached as laundry lists: who is getting married, who has died.
Tosh is all reports-- all political headlines, boxing scores, transcribed letters and major life events like a bulleted list. He gives no thought to the interior lives of the people around him, barely mentioning his wife or kids, parents, brothers or sisters, never introspective or reflective. He lives completely in the moment, from fight to fight.
He's all fight. His fights include the mistreatment of Japanese on the plantation, the debt and stupidity (as he sees it) of his issei parents, the chasm between the nisei world and the isseis, as well as between the niseis and everyone else. He struggles to gain a skill and get off of the plantation, to build a house, to build a job, to fix his daughter's club foot-- one battle after another.
I feel like this book has given me an entirely new perspective on Hawaii, and the real long-reaching effects of the plantations, the unions, and the long history of racial discord. Haole-only banks, anti Japanese protests, race based communist accusations (one senator from the south objecting to Hawaii's statehood with, "Can you imagine sitting next to a Senator Yamamoto?"), and the long shadow of the fuedal plantation system pitting old time wealthy white families against everybody else.
It's easy for me as a newcomer haole to feel surprised and hurt by the level of mistrust and dislike that I encounter here just based on my race. But reading this-- no wonder people are angry!
The most moving moment was when Matt, who is reading this at the same time as I am, suddenly found his great uncle's death in Italy mentioned. It dawned on us-- all these other deaths, all these other struggles-- they're all real, too. Tosh may be fictional...but only in the specifics.
Murayama creates complete voices-- full psyches and internal worlds-- so subtly that you don't notice how cleverly he's done it. The narrators are so natural that the novels seem like simple autobiographies. I realized with a jolt half-way through that the whole book is in the present tense. That gives the storytelling an immediacy and compelling urgency, even when the content is as detached as laundry lists: who is getting married, who has died.
Tosh is all reports-- all political headlines, boxing scores, transcribed letters and major life events like a bulleted list. He gives no thought to the interior lives of the people around him, barely mentioning his wife or kids, parents, brothers or sisters, never introspective or reflective. He lives completely in the moment, from fight to fight.
He's all fight. His fights include the mistreatment of Japanese on the plantation, the debt and stupidity (as he sees it) of his issei parents, the chasm between the nisei world and the isseis, as well as between the niseis and everyone else. He struggles to gain a skill and get off of the plantation, to build a house, to build a job, to fix his daughter's club foot-- one battle after another.
I feel like this book has given me an entirely new perspective on Hawaii, and the real long-reaching effects of the plantations, the unions, and the long history of racial discord. Haole-only banks, anti Japanese protests, race based communist accusations (one senator from the south objecting to Hawaii's statehood with, "Can you imagine sitting next to a Senator Yamamoto?"), and the long shadow of the fuedal plantation system pitting old time wealthy white families against everybody else.
It's easy for me as a newcomer haole to feel surprised and hurt by the level of mistrust and dislike that I encounter here just based on my race. But reading this-- no wonder people are angry!
The most moving moment was when Matt, who is reading this at the same time as I am, suddenly found his great uncle's death in Italy mentioned. It dawned on us-- all these other deaths, all these other struggles-- they're all real, too. Tosh may be fictional...but only in the specifics.
July 4, 2019
Great compilation of Nisei experience in Hawaii. The Oyama family dynamics played out on mainland Kotonks on farms and mining families.
December 1, 2020
These books, in a different class from great literature, are great stories. The perspective of a Hawaiian born author, is infused into his characters. The history of the plantation, particularly the Japanese, or nisei, workers is eye-opening and fascinating. A lot of pidgin is used, which is fun, and adds a different touch, as is Japanese language in small bits.
Definitely a read for anyone who’s interested in the social history of Hawaii, from colony to modernisation.
Definitely a read for anyone who’s interested in the social history of Hawaii, from colony to modernisation.
February 12, 2016
A continuation of the Oyama family story in Hawaii. Read All I Asking For is My Body, then Five Years on a Rock. A story of the Nisei experience in Hawaii's Maui plantations prior to and after World War II. Excellent.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews