The newspaper founded by a crusading Japanese immigrant who led a major sugar strike on Oahu and won a U.S. Supreme Court decision protecting private non-English-language schools in Hawaii and elsewhere in the nation is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
The Hawaii Hochi Ltd. was founded in December 1912 by drugstore owner and labor leader Fred Kinzaburo Makino. Scholars say Makino left a legacy as a person who fought for civil rights, equal pay for equal work and for religious rights.
"He’s a highly significant figure in Hawaii before World War II," said Jonathan Okamura, a University of Hawaii professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies. "He stood as an example of what was possible as a Japanese-American."
The state Senate recently issued a certificate congratulating the Hawaii Hochi for perpetuating the ideals of American citizenship, and historians have recognized Makino as a major figure in the history of Hawaii in the early 1900s.
"Makino believed in the power of the press," said Dennis Ogawa, a UH professor of American studies. "He put his money and his heart in making the Hochi a voice for the Japanese community in Hawaii."
Makino died in 1953 in Honolulu at age 76.
The Hawaii Hochi, along with its English-language counterpart, the Hawai‘i Herald, continues to publish but its readership has shrunk as many residents of Japanese ancestry no longer read or speak Japanese.
The Hawaii Hochi provided details from its historical archives:
The son of a British trader and Japanese mother, Makino was of mixed parentage in an era when such children were regarded as outcasts in Japan and in many parts of the United States. But Hawaii, including the Hawaiian monarchy, had a tradition of accepting mixed-race children.
Makino emigrated from Yokohama, Japan, in 1899 and was conversant in English and Japanese. His newspaper became successful serving as a major voice of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii.
He had a low tolerance for people being treated unfairly — a trait that propelled him into speaking on behalf of more than 7,000 Japanese sugar workers who went on strike seeking $1 a day in Hawaii in 1909.
Portuguese, Puerto Rican and other sugar workers were earning $1 a day for the same work, and the sugar planters paid other ethnic groups $1 a day to work as laborers and break the Japanese strike. As leaders of the Higher Wage Association, Makino and two others were jailed for several months for conspiring to interfere with the operation of sugar companies.
Historians say while the strike failed, sugar plantation owners later raised the 79-cents-a-day pay of Japanese sugar workers, though not immediately to $1 in many cases.
Makino used his newspaper to fight on behalf of about 400 Japanese-Americans to receive U.S. citizenship and veterans benefits after fighting for the United States in World War I.
He used his own money in the 1920s to block the Territory of Hawaii from imposing a fee of $1 per pupil annually on private foreign-language schools and putting their teachers through a screening process that required them to know American history and speak and write in English — conditions that would have effectively eliminated about 160 private Japanese-language schools. A segment of the Japanese community asked him to withdraw his lawsuit for fear of retaliation.
The U.S. Supreme Court found the Territory of Hawaii had violated the Constitution and infringed on equal protection guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment, according to Justia.com.
"That had national implications, because the Supreme Court decision affected language schools nationwide," The Hawai‘i Herald Editor Karleen Chinen said.
At the outset of World War II, Makino wrote editorials encouraging Japanese in Hawaii to enlist in the U.S. military.
Many Americans of Japanese ancestry who attended the language schools served in military intelligence for the U.S. Army during World War II — a group that "contributed greatly" to the defeat of the Japan Imperial Army, according to a Central Intelligence Agency website.
World War II veteran Ted T. Tsukiyama said the Japanese-language schools were responsible for preparing immigrant children like himself to be translators for the Army.
Tsukiyama said his generation, which grew up in the 1920s and 1930s, admired the Hochi’s editorial stances.
"Makino was a scrapper," Tsukiyama said. "The Hochi editorials were forthright and not afraid to take on the establishment."
