Hawaii families discover connections to ancestors who toiled on plantations long ago

Gwendellyn Sanchez of Kohala on Hawaii island has many stories she wants to share with her five children and 19 grandchildren about their Japanese heritage.

Sanchez, 61, is a fourth-generation descendant of Tokujiro Sasaki Sato, who was one of about 150 Japanese immigrants who sailed from Japan to Hawaii in 1868 to work on sugar plantations.

What she knows is that he was a samurai who learned Hawaiian, married a woman named Kalala Kamekona, settled in Waipio and had 10 children. Sato was a pioneer in many ways: a skilled carpenter who built his own home, a taro farmer and one of the first Japanese to become a Mormon.

“I’m grateful to him because if it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t all be here. He had the courage to take the risk and come here,” said Sanchez, speaking for his nearly 1,000 descendants living in Hawaii today.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the very first Japanese contract laborers in Hawaii. They are known as Gannenmono, or “first year people,” because they left their native country at the start of the Meiji Era in Japan.

The celebration has led Sanchez, who is also Hawaiian, Irish and Chinese, to explore her Japanese roots. Her stories and family tree will be part of an exhibit at Bishop Museum, June 5 to Feb. 24, titled “Gannenmono: A Legacy of Eight Generations in Hawai‘i.”

Sanchez continues to learn new details about Sato, including the recent revelation that his surname may have actually been Sasaki. In Hawaii, he was also known as Toku and Toko.

A talk-story gathering of Gannenmono descendants at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i in February brought about 70 of Sato’s descendants together, including three Kamehameha Schools students — Sunny Kane, Kekauleleonaeole Kawai‘ae‘a and Kalyn Pimental — who discovered they are cousins.

“The 150th anniversary of the Gannenmono is important because No. 1, it really allows us to honor these very brave immigrants who traveled to Hawaii, who left their homes, who really paved the way,” said Carole Hayashino, executive director of the JCCH. “They were trailblazers in so many ways and they paved the way for future immigrants from Japan and certainly for the generations that followed.”

Likewise, she said it’s a nod to King Kamehameha IV for establishing a friendship between the Kingdom of Hawaii and Japan in 1860 and “teaching all of us the meaning of aloha.”

Gannenmono Journey: Key Dates by Honolulu Star-Advertiser on Scribd

On May 17, 1868, the Gannenmono, about 150 in all, including a handful of wives and children, boarded the ship Scioto at Yokohama to sail to Honolulu, arriving June 19. The mix of merchants, artisans and samurai were contracted to work Hawaii’s sugar plantation for three years.

About a third of the original group returned to Japan, another third eventually moved on the U.S. mainland, and the remaining number, about 50, stayed in Hawaii.

Sentaro Ishii, who died on Maui in 1936 at age 103 (some accounts list his age as 101 or 102), was one of the Gannenmono who stayed and left a legacy here.

While growing up, Haunani Joaquin of Hilo, a fifth-generation descendant, heard stories about him from her mother, retired Maui school teacher Ku‘uipo Kanaka‘ole, Ishii’s great-granddaughter.

Joaquin, 50, said her mother told her that he first came to Hawaii as a stowaway on a whaling ship. Ishii apparently made his way back to Japan and returned to the islands with the Gannenmono, serving as an English interpreter aboard the ship.

He worked for some time at the Ulupalakua and Haiku sugar plantations on Maui before meeting his wife, Kahele, at a sweet potato farm in Kipahulu near Hana. They had two sons and two daughters.

Ishii was a distinguished man, Joaquin said, a samurai who enjoyed sake and learned to speak fluent Hawaiian. In an old photo, he wears a suit and has a long, white beard. On trips to Maui, she and her mother visit Ishii’s grave in Kipahulu.

Joaquin, who has four children and two grandchildren, is researching her Japanese origins, along with her Irish, Swedish, Cherokee and Native Hawaiian heritage. Joaquin’s late father was noted Native Hawaiian leader and educator Parley Kanaka‘ole of Hana, who was the son of Edith Kanaka‘ole, a revered cultural practitioner, educator and kumu hula.

“We’re Hawaiian and we study things Hawaiian,” said Joaquin, board secretary for the Edith Kanaka‘ole Foundation. “We are also Japanese. I think it’s part of my history and my children’s history to know who this man was, who came from Japan and settled here.”

During a trip to Japan in March, Joaquin said she was overcome with emotion and thoughts of Ishii during a temple ceremony presided over by a Shinto priest.

Sanchez dreams of going to Japan to learn more about her Gannenmono ancestor, Sato. In her research, she learned that he worked on a Maui plantation before meeting Samuel Parker, which led to working at Parker Ranch in Waimea on Hawaii island.

Eventually, he would settle in Waipio, where she believes he met his wife, Kalala, who was Native Hawaiian, Irish and Chinese. She has heard stories that Sato gifted Parker with his samurai sword as a token of friendship, and that he served as a court interpreter because he spoke English, Hawaiian and Japanese.

The twist in Sanchez’s family history is that her grandfather, Fukui Yamamoto, was adopted out by Sato as a young child to a man by that surname who raised him. Her grandfather did not discover his connection to Sato and his biological family until later in life, when he met his older brother, John Toko.

“With all of this, and the preparation for the exhibit and other festivities, our whole hope is that we would be able to find his family in Japan and his beginning there,” Sanchez said.

Hawaii island residents Ka‘ea Lyons, a Hawaiian language instructor and kumu hula, and her sister, Kahelelani, also are descendants of Sato. They began researching their genealogies three years ago when they started Halau Ka‘eaikahelelani in Kona.

The two have been traveling to Japan to teach, a journey Lyons said is bringing them full circle to their roots.

While they grew up knowing they were descendants of Sato, this year’s commemoration of the Gannenmono arrival has brought more information to light. They have composed and choreographed a hula of Sato’s journey from Japan to Hawaii and will offer an opening oli, or chant, and hula at the June 7 symposium.

Lyons said she is inspired because Sato, who came from Japan, learned the Hawaiian language and served as an interpreter, and now, 150 years later, she is teaching hula in Japan.

“We wouldn’t be doing what we do if it wasn’t for him,” she said. “This is allowing us to re-establish those relationships … . It’s really reconnecting us with each other as family again.”