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

Kawakami,Barbara

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

Washing for Filipino bachelors

She (my mother) got up early in the morning to do her laundry for the Filipino bachelors. And there were no washing machines in those days, so everything had to be pounded and all the red dirt she had to scrub with a red soap, they call it red soap. And then after scrubbing and pounding, she would take it outdoors and boil in a big, huge can over an open fire. And that was heavy work, you know, in her pregnant condition. And so, she got up 4:30 and did her laundry and then late at night, she would do her ironing. And we had...she had only a charcoal iron to do her ironing. And so, she had to first heat the charcoal on a hibachi, and she had to feed the charcoal iron, if at the plantation village, she had to feed the charcoal iron—I mean, the charcoal into that cast iron. It was very heavy.

And we had only one electricity dangling from the ceiling. So, with that one light in the ceiling, I did my homework late at night. I was the last one to go to bed and I kept my mother company because she used to do ironing on the floor, with the ironing board. And so, under the single light, I would do my homework for English school and Japanese school.

cleaning families laundry plantations

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)