Japanese in Hawaii

The Japanese in Hawaii (simply Japanese Hawaiians or "Local Japanese", rarely Kepanī) are the second largest ethnic group in Hawaii. At their height in 1920, they constituted 43% of Hawaii's population. They now number about 16.7% of the islands' population, according to the 2000 U.S. census. The U.S. Census categorizes mixed-race individuals separately, so the proportion of people with some Japanese ancestry is likely much larger.

The earliest known Japanese people in the Kingdom of Hawaii were the survivors of the ill-fated ship Inawaka-maru, who arrived on May 5, 1806. They had been adrift aboard their disabled ship for more than 70 days.

The Inawaka-maru, a small cargo ship built in 1798 in Osaka, was owned by Mansuke Motoya. The Inawaka-maru started its final voyage from Hiroshima to Edo (modern Tokyo) on November 7, 1805. The ship had been chartered by the Kikkawa clan to deliver mats, horse feed, and two passengers, Kikkawa officials. Her crew consisted of Captain Niinaya Ginzo, Master Ichiko Sadagoro, Sailors Hirahara Zenmatsu, Akazaki Matsujiro, Yumori Kasoji, and Wasazo, a total of eight aboard. The Inawaka-maru had to turn back, and restarted her journey on November 27. She arrived in Edo on December 21, started back to her home port stopping in Kanagawa, Uraga, and Shimoda, and left on her final leg – from Shimoda across the Enshū Sea – on January 6, 1806.

The Inawaka-maru was caught by a snowstorm that turned to rain and winds battered the ship eastward into the Pacific Ocean. On January 7, the crew cut down the mast because of the strong winds. Four days later, two rocky islands were sighted but no attempt was made toward them. These would be the last land before the Hawaiian Islands. On January 20, the water stores were empty, but the men collected rainwater to survive. On February 28, the rice provisions ran out. A few weeks later on March 15, a flying fish landed in the ship and the men fished to sustain themselves. On March 20, the Tabour, an American ship Captained by Cornelius Sole, rescued the men of the Inawaka-maru. He found them begging for food by gesturing to their stomachs, mouths and bowing, found the galley empty, and understood their ordeal. He had the possessions of the survivors brought aboard his ship and salvaged parts and items aboard Inawaka-maru. Captain Sole had the survivors fed, over a span of five days, small portions to a progression to three normal meals a day, the remedy for starvation. On May 5, 1806, the Tabour docked in Oahu, Hawaii. Captain Sole left the eight Japanese in the care of King Kamehameha I. Captain Sole also left the anchor of the Inawaka-maru, 40 axes, and other items as payment for the Kingdom's hospitality.

The King delegated the responsibility for the Japanese to Kalanimoku who had 50 men construct a house on May 6 for the Japanese. It took four days to build, and a cook and two guards assigned to the house, which attracted crowds to these men of a different ethnicity. On August 17, the Japanese left Hawaii aboard the Perseverance to Macau on October 17. From there they took a Chinese ship to Jakarta on December 25. In Jakarta, they fell ill and five died there or on the voyage to Nagasaki where they arrived on June 17, 1807, where another died. At the time of the Sakoku it was illegal to leave Japan and the remaining two survivors were jailed and interrogated. One committed suicide and the remaining survivor Hirahara Zenmatsu [ja] eventually made it home November 29, 1807, but was summoned by Asano Narikata, The Daimyō of Hiroshima, to recount his odyssey of an experience titled Iban Hyoryu Kikokuroku Zenmatsu (夷蛮漂流歸國録善松). Hirahara Zenmatsu died six months later.

In 1866, Eugene Miller Van Reed, a Dutch American, went to Japan as a representative of the Hawaiian Kingdom. He failed to establish a formal Hawaii-Japan relationship, but continued to stay there as a merchant and obtained a permission of Japanese emigration from the Edo Shogunate. As he started recruiting, the new Meiji Government that came into power in 1867, the first year of the Meiji period, nullified all the Edo Shogunate's treaties. (One of the reasons of the new government's rejection is said to be the rumor that Van Reed was engaged in slave trade. For example, Korekiyo Takahashi, whose study in the U.S. was arranged by Van Reed, ended up being sold by the host family as a slave, but managed to get back to Japan and eventually became the 20th Prime Minister.) However, Van Reed proceeded without the new government's permission to send 153 Japanese to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations. They sailed from Yokohama to Honolulu from May 17 to June 19, 1868, on the Scioto. This first official group of Japanese immigrants were called the Gannenmono (Japanese: 元年者), meaning the "people of the first year (of the Meiji period)", and the 150th anniversary of their arrival was celebrated in Hawaii in 2018.

There were 142 men and six women in this initial group, and so many of them married Hawaiians after they arrived in Hawaii. They worked on sugar plantations on Oahu, Maui, Kauai, and Lanai. Two or three months after arriving, many complained of contract violations since the working conditions and pay did not match with what they were promised. At least four of the six women and 50 men returned to Japan in 1870. Seven had died before their contracts ended. Among the Gannenmono were several people who would become legends among the Japanese Americans in Hawaii: Tomitarō Makino from Miyagi, the leader of the group; the youngest Ichigorō Ishimura, 13 years old; Sentarō Ishii, a samurai from Okayama, who was 102 years old when he died in Maui; Tokujirō "Toko" Satō from Tokyo, who lived in Waipio Valley with his Hawaiian wife, Clara; and Tarō Andō, who would become Japan's first consul general to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Between 1869 and 1885, Japan barred emigration to Hawaii in fear that Japanese laborers would be degrading to the reputation of the Japanese race. In 1881, King David Kalākaua visited Japan to strengthen relations between the two nations. Kalākaua offered not to request extraterritoriality of Japan, an act that departed from the norm of western nations. On March 10, Kalakaua met Meiji to propose a marriage between Princess Victoria Kaiulani and Prince Higashifushimi Yorihito. A few days later, the proposal was denied, but the ban on immigration was eventually lifted in 1885. The first Japanese immigrants after the lifting of the ban arrived in Hawaii on February 8, 1885, as contract laborers for the sugarcane and pineapple plantations. Many more Japanese immigrants came to Hawaii in the following years. Most of these migrants came from southern Japan (Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto, etc.) due to crop failures in the region.