The publisher's summary:
"In Korea in those days, newborn girls were not deemed important enough to be graced with formal names, but were instead given nicknames, which often reflected the parents' feelings on the birth of a daughter. 'I knew a girl names Anger, and another called Pity. As for me, my parents named me Regret.' Instead of the affluent young husband and chance at an education that she has been promised, she is quickly married off to a poor, embittered laborer who takes his frustrations out on his new wife. Renaming herself Jin, she makes her own way in this strange land, finding both opportunity and prejudice. With the help of three of her fellow picture brides Jin prospers along with her adopted city, now growing from a small territorial capital into the great multicultural city it is today. But paradise has its dark side, whether it's the daily struggle for survival in Honolulu's tenements, or a crime that will become the most infamous in the islands' history. With it's passionate knowledge of people and places in Hawaii far off the tourist track, Honolulu is most of all the spellbinding tale of four women in a new world, united by dreams, disappointment, sacrifices, and friendship."
Honolulu is more than a history of a city. It is the story of picture brides who emigrated from Korea to Hawaii. The husbands who bought them selected them from photographs and sent money for their transportation and other expenses. The brides did not meet their husbands until they disembarked the ship and saw them standing on the shore. Some were married right there on the beach after disembarkation as was our heroine Jin. The book is also the story of five other picture brides that Jin met on the ship. The lives of Jade Moon, Wise Pearl, Sunny, Beauty and Tamiko and two other women central to Jin's life, Evening Rose and Blossom are prominently featured. Sunny took one look at her soon-to-be husband and went back to board the ship to sail home. Blossom was engaged to marry Jin's youngest brother at the age of 5 and was left by her parents in Jin's family home until she was old enough to marry. Evening Rose was a prostitute who befriended Jin during a dark period in her marriage to Mr. Noh. There were other picture brides who came from China and Japan.
The history of the city of Honolulu is covered from the 1914 to 1957. This time period began with the abdication of Queen Liliuokalani to the post-WWII boom in population from the U. S. Mainland. When Jin arrived in the city, she did not recognize it as a city. The Korean city of Taegon, near Jin's ancestral home, was bigger and had more infrastructure. The beautiful Waikiki Beach wasn't created until the Ala Wei Canal was built, revealing the sandy shoreline. The homes of the immigrants and natives were nothing more than poorly built wooden structures. Only the wealthy white residents had opulent houses. Jin remarked upon her arrival that the home she grew up in was sturdier with lovely decor inside. Her Hawaiian homes were unstable and bare of decoration.
The lives of workers on the pineapple and sugar plantations are covered in great detail. The author did not sugarcoat his story to match today's idealism of the Islands. The work was backbreaking and everyone worked 12 hours per day in the fields under the hot sun. Not everyone could handle it and some people decided to leave even though they had no means of getting food once they left. The quality of the food that the workers received from their bosses was poor. Jin ate better food at home in Korea.
Prejudice among the white elites is also shown. A famous murder committed by the white family members of a rape victim against a native, Joseph Kahahawai, has a central place in the story. The white family, U. S. Navy officers and their mother, kidnapped and beat Joseph to death. The jury convicted them but the judge sentenced them to one hour in jail. It caused a huge uproar in the community and became the basis for the emergence of local culture in Hawaiian society. It stirred pent up anger over the local's oppression from wealthy whites. History books have been written about this case, known as the Massie case. The natives referred to the whites as haoles, (pronounces howlies) which they still do today. Given that Hawaiian Natives cannot afford housing in today's climate and have to leave their home state, not much has changed in their feelings toward haoles.
I thought it was interesting that Jin had better food and housing at home in her poor Korean village than in Honolulu. She expected something better which is why she agreed to become a picture bride. What she did gain from emigration, were legal rights concerning education and divorce. Freedom.
5 out of 5 stars.
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