Television news clips of Japanese Emperor Hirohito's arrival at Honolulu International Airport last week probably left many viewers across the U.S. wondering momentarily whether they had heard the anchor man right. Was it Hawaii, the final leg of the Emperor's U.S. tour—or was the royal couple back in Tokyo? After all, practically all of the smiling and handshaking officials greeting Hirohito and Empress Nagako seemed to be Japanese. And so they were: Americans of Japanese ancestry. Few mainlanders realize the extent to which AJ.A.s, as they are known in Hawaii, have flourished in the islands and now dominate their politics.
Last fall A.J.A.s took over two principal bastions of Caucasian (haole in Hawaiian) power and status. George Ariyoshi was elected the state's Governor, and Fujio ("Fudge") Matsuda was appointed president of the University of Hawaii. Both men are nisei, or second-generation Americans; Ariyoshi's father had been a sumo wrestler in Japan. Today only two non-A.J.A.s hold major elective offices in Hawaii: U.S. Senator Hiram Fong, who is of Chinese ancestry, and Frank Fasi, mayor of Honolulu, an Italian American. A rundown of other important Hawaiian politicians reads like an A.J.A. Who's Who: U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye of Watergate committee fame, Representatives Spark Matsunaga and Patsy Mink, State Senate President John Ushijima, State House Speaker James Wakatsuki. A.J.A.s hold 55% of the seats in the state legislature and six of the eleven places on the University of Hawaii's board of regents.
Not bad for a community that numbers only 238,000 people—28% of the state's population as against 39% for haoles.
Japanese began arriving in Hawaii in the 1880s, when white plantation owners started importing them as farmhands. Even in the 1920s, Royal Mead, a spokesman for sugar planters, told a congressional committee: "The white people, the Americans in Hawaii, are going to dominate and will continue to dominate—there's no question about it." But the Caucasian elite did not figure on the dedication of members of the issei (immigrant) generation to the social mobility of their offspring. Though often illiterate, they hammered home the value of education. "When I was still a kid," recalls Governor Ariyoshi, "I told my father I wanted to be a lawyer. He said, 'Go to it. You can have the shirt off my back.' " Working hard, living frugally, the A.J.A.s speedily swapped plantation toil for small farms, mom-and-pop shops and city jobs. By the early '30s, almost half had Hawaiian bank accounts and almost 200 were dentists and doctors.
Heavily Decorated. Then came Pearl Harbor. A.J.A.s in public life withdrew rather than incur the wrath of the haoles. In huge numbers, the younger nisei volunteered for military service. They were rebuffed at first. But in 1942, thanks in part to the intercession of the late Governor John Burns, then a police officer serving as liaison between the FBI and the A.J.A.s, 7,500 were inducted and shipped to Europe. Half of them were killed or wounded; their units were heavily decorated. The proud survivors returned home and went to college on the G.I. Bill. A new professional class was born.