One of the powerful ways in which the novel
engages the effects of the violence on Japanese im-
migrant lives is through the portrayal of Sachie’s
difficult negotiations with self-hatred. Even as
Sachie hates the racial markers that differentiate
her as Japanese and wishes that she had been born
into a white family, she also recognizes that rac-
ism is what guarantees white privilege. Continu-
ally faced with these dilemmas and contradictions,
Sachie tries to avoid entering adulthood and in-
stead preoccupies herself with fairy tales that she
believes more clearly discriminate between good
and bad. Sachie’s escape into the stories of her
youth can be understood as a criticism of the so-
cial and economic structures of Hawaii that deny
her fulfillment and equality in the real world. It
can also be read as a commentary on how the nar-
rative of the melting pot, which is supposed to
guarantee immigrant inclusion, is in itself a fairy
tale. As such, the novel poignantly develops the
shaping of psychological and emotional terrains
as well as material lives by racism and economic
violence and how injustice based on racism re-
mains a traumatic experience to the immigrant
for a long period.
This novel is both a historical record as well as an
aesthetic illustration of the lives and experiences of
first- and second-generation Japanese immigrants.
Sachie is emblematic of Saiki’s works as a whole in
its attention to Japanese immigrant history, Saiki’s
interest in the role of Hawaii in mediating the rela-
tionship between Japan and the United States, and
her attempt to portray the struggles for survival by
Japanese immigrants who try to make a home in
a country that wants their labor but not their cul-
ture. In this work as in her future writings, Saiki
uses the short-story form to weave together the
overlapping, multiple, and multifaceted narratives
that constitute the complex lives of early Japanese
immigrants to the United States.
Her later published works, Ganbare! An Example
of Japanese Spirit (1981), Japanese Women in Ha-
waii: The First 100 Years (1985), and Early Japanese
Immigrants in Hawaii (1993), use different modes
to narrate the themes introduced in Sachie. Gan-
bare, which means to heroically persevere, narrates
the internment of 1,500 Japanese immigrant and
Japanese-American Hawaiians on the mainland
during World War II. Her most historical narra-
tive, Ganbare brings together the personal narra-
tives of internees as well as historical documents,
and focuses on how Japanese Americans were
forced to see themselves as subjects of American
racism when they were incarcerated by the coun-
try of their birth. While Ganbare is ostensibly a
collection of short narratives, Saiki’s privileging of
chronology and multiple tellings of the aftermaths
of the Pearl Harbor attack interrupt and often dis-
turb the coherence and fluidity evident in her fic-
tional works. Ganbare, however, remains a seminal
work in Japanese-American studies because it is
one of the few texts available in English about the
internment of Japanese-American Hawaiians.
Japanese Women in Hawaii, on the other hand,
portrays the particular contributions made by
Japanese immigrant women to Hawaiian culture
and economy. In Early Japanese Immigrants in Ha-
waii, Saiki again returns to the short-story form;
this time, however, she strings together the stories
of multiple families and individuals who attempt
to make a home for themselves and their progeny.
Painted with a sense of intimacy and immediacy,
all of these later works celebrate the courage and
sacrifice of the early immigrants who left a rich
legacy for future generations.
Although Saiki’s works have not found a great
deal of critical acclaim, her works have received
positive attention for her nuanced and complex
portrayal of the roles of Japanese immigrants in
Hawaii, and she is noted as a key figure in the mul-
tiethnic literary movement of Hawaii. Her works
can often be found on school curricula, particu-
larly on those designed to enhance secondary-
school students’ understanding of multiethnicity,
immigration, and gender.Bibliography
Hiura, Arnold T., Stephen H. Sumida, and Martha
Webb, eds. Talk Story: Big Island Anthology. Hono-
lulu: Talk Story and Bamboo Ridge Press, 1979.
Sumida, Stephen H. “Sense of Place, History, and the
concept of the ‘Local’ in Hawaii’s Asian/Pacific
Literatures.” In Reading the Literatures of Asian
America, edited by Shirley Geok-lin and Amy258 Saiki, Patsy Sumie