240 pp. January 2010
paper, ISBN 978-0-8248-3448-7, $20.00
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Keywords: |
Asian American studies
Pacific
Hawaii
literature |
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Lucky Come Hawaii: A Novel of December 7, 1941
by Jon Shirota
Manoa 21:2
“The treatment of the Japanese-American community during World War II is a well-known national disgrace. Yet the characters in Jon Shirota’s Lucky Come Hawaii break both the initial, enabling, stereotype of an entire community of insidious fifth-columnists and the subsequent stereotype of an entire community of faultlessly patriotic and noble victims. Instead, he shows us a more complex reality in his portrait of Okinawan-Americans on Hawaii during and after Pearl Harbor. We see racism, and injustices, but also elders rooting for a Japanese invasion and victory. Meanwhile, their American-raised offspring are eager to prove their loyalty to the new country, in spite of the exploitation and persecution of their people—or simply, in a very American way, in trying to ignore history and get on with their lives and loves. Shirota gifts us with an insider’s view of people struggling to define their identities in the crucible of the coming war, men and women sometimes flawed and sometimes virtuous —which is to simply say, human beings—who experienced world-changing events through the particular prism of their own emigrant history. In doing so, Shirota enriches and broadens our sense of the American experience and the many strands of which its tapestry is woven.” —Wayne Karlin, author of Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam.
In the opening chapter of this classic novel set in Hawai‘i, news of the attack on Pearl Harbor has just reached rural Maui. Miscommunication, confusion, and rumors of war aggravate the already tense relations among the diverse immigrant communities, Native Hawaiians, and the American military. As told through the perspective of a poor Okinawan family, Lucky Come Hawaii vividly captures the emotions and trauma at this momentous turning point in Island history, which will change the fate of individuals, ways of life, and the land itself forever.
First published in 1965 to national acclaim but long out of print, Lucky Come Hawaii is a tale of love, intrigue, humor, and Island families torn apart and reunited by the events of December 7th. The novel also anticipates the changes overtaking Hawai‘i, from Territory to Statehood, from small towns to a militarized Pacific metropolis. Lucky Come Hawaii should be required reading for anyone who cares deeply about the untold stories of the Islands’ multi-ethnic communities and the struggle of individuals to find a place and sense of identity in their American home.
Jon Shirota was born in Peahi, Maui, of parents who had emigrated from Okinawa. He was fourteen years old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. After high school he enlisted in the U.S. Army and, upon his discharge, decided to write. Accepted by the writer’s colony where James Jones produced From Here to Eternity, he eventually finished Lucky Come Hawaii and saw it published in New York. In addition to two other novels, Shirota has written award-winning plays, with grants from the John F. Kennedy Center and other foundations, which have been produced in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and elsewhere. He lives with his wife, Barbara, in California.
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