Rutabaga's Reads 2020: Part 4

Thanks to the ophthalmologist in the department I work in, I will have more than one adult fiction compilation this year. I may even have three, including this post containing only two books! Both of these books were lent to me by the ophthalmologist who has been to Moloka’i multiple times. When I read the first story, he hadn’t heard of the sequel. But then his wife received the sequel, and he generously sent the story my way once she finished it. (I hope he okayed that with his wife first.)

Moloka’i (Sept. 28, 2003) by Alan Brennert.

*Until last year, this was a standalone novel. Now, the first in a duology.*

In the early 1890s, Rachel Aouli Kalama is an energetic child on Oahu, reveling in the love of her parents, wading through the occasional tiff with a sibling (usually her older sister, Sarah) and looking toward her father’s stories from his travels as a merchant seaman. She knows only contentment, even when a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, naturally anesthetic, as no pain is felt within the mark. At the age of seven, Rachel is taken from her family and sent on a boat to Moloka’i. She is admitted to the leprosy settlement. She is determined not to like it there, especially when she cannot live with her uncle in Kalawao. She is sent to Bishop House and the care of Franciscan nuns like Mother Marianne and Sister Catherine.

            Rachel grows up in Kalaupapa (after a one-year stint in Kalihi, on Oahu). Despite her youthful declaration that she won’t like it there, she makes friends of her fellow quarantined comrades and, eventually, Sister Catherine. Her uncle and his partner, Haleola, make regular visits, which is a boon to Rachel, but hardest in her early days when they must leave after each visit. Contact with her family is through letters and packages from her father, and letters from her mother, once regular, are eventually returned without a forwarding address. Her father visits her a couple times, including when she takes the name Utagawa, but she’s never contacted or visited by any of her three siblings. As Rachel grows, she sees and understands all too well what it is to say goodbye to loved ones again and again. The story chronicles her life from youth to mature adulthood in a place not often talked about in an island chain often pictured as a lush, vibrant, go-to destination.

            While a work of adult historical fiction, this story reads as nonfiction, the characters a miasma of feelings and personalities. They are vividly-imagined and infused with vitality, compassion and laughter without skimping on or glossing over the pain of separation from loved ones, the contempt others might display toward them or the devastation of the disease, especially in its advanced stages. In a place seen as somewhere people go to die, it is on Moloka’i that they aim to live. Anyone who knows me knows this isn’t my usual type of bookish fare, but I admit that I was riveted. It’s powerful in a way that only an epic story can be. No matter that the story starts over a century ago, it radiates resonance and highlights the human spirit in its dazzling brilliance and, at other times, its dark depths. “Moloka’i” is compelling, captivating, emotional and magnificent. It is hopeful and forlorn, joyful and elegiac. It is a work of art through words.

Daughter of Moloka’i (Feb. 19, 2019) by Alan Brennert.

*This is the sequel in a duology.*

She doesn’t know it right away, but she is Ruth Dai Utagawa Watanabe Harada. Not all at once, but gradually. Ruth Utagawa is the daughter of lepers and spends some years at Kapi’olani Home for Girls on Oahu after her first year living in quarantine in the isolated settlement of Kalaupapa. She is adopted by Taizo and Etsuko Watanabe, Japanese Issei (first-generation Japanese nationals, born in Japan), who already have three boys: Haruo (or Horace, 14 years), Satoshi (or Stanley, 12 years) and Ryuu (or Ralph, 7 years). And a cat named Mayonaka (“midnight” in Japanese); cats are said to bring good luck. She becomes Ruth Dai Watanabe. They eventually move from Oahu to Florin, California, near Sacramento. California’s a state prejudiced against anyone who isn’t Caucasian. Ruth comes of age during the Great Depression, marrying Frank Harada. She is now Ruth Harada. Living in a state that seems to have more bigots than not (though they did have great Caucasian friends, especially in Jim and Helen Russell), one of those bigots comes in the form of Florin’s sheriff, Joseph Dreesen. When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and FDR’s Executive Order #9066 is ordered, the Haradas (including their young children Donnie and Peggy) and the Watanabes (including Uncle Jiro and Aunt Nishi) are forced from their homes, their businesses not so much sold as stolen by greedy grifters like carrion birds. They gaman (“endure the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity”) through Tanforan Assembly Center and, later, Manzanar Relocation Center. Taizo is eventually sent to Tule Lake, much to the dismay of his family. When the Japanese are released in 1945, Ruth and her family must figure out how to start anew. Etsuko goes with them. Florin doesn’t settle with them, and they jump at an opportunity to move to San Jose, where Jim and Helen now live. Here they make their home and here is where Donnie and Peggy grow up. It’s here where Ruth will also meet Rachel Aouli Kalama Utagawa, the mother of her blood.

            It’s hard for a sequel to be as good as the first, and this one isn’t, but it is powerful and meaningful. It is a beacon for those who gaman, as well as a spotlight on the devastation people can bring on each other, even in a nation where the Pledge of Allegiance says “liberty and justice for all.” This is a work of realistic fiction, but again reads like nonfiction. It’s at turns hard to read and emotionally riotous, compelling and enriching. I both appreciated this novel and wanted to stop reading it because the big history of it could feel so maddening and overwhelming. It can be read as a standalone, but I’m glad I read “Moloka’i” first. Despite the upheaval of this novel, at its heart remains ‘ohana.