The Search for Signs of Hawaiian Life

COURTESY BEN NISHIMOTO
Locke, Calif., is just the sort of place that would fascinate a history professor. Locke is a tiny rural town built and settled by Chinese immigrants in the Sacramento River Delta. Warren Nishimoto, director of the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, stopped there last month and came across Locke Chinese Medicine, which offers the customary acupuncture and Asian herbs but welcomes patients with a "No Ka Oi" sign. The shop was closed when Nishimoto visited, so he got no explanation for the sign that means "best" in Hawaiian.

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