Katsu Goto: The lynching Hawaiʻi would rather forget

Lynching in Hawaiʻi--it's true, and few people even know it happened. Itʻs part of the weighty legacy we carry from plantation days in the islands. Thanks for sitting in on this episode with a lot of angles.

1889 seems so long ago, but this recent visit with Patsy Iwasaki reminds me that the famines, migrations, and worker exploitation we see around the world today happened before. Here.

University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo professor Patsy Iwasaki has been studying Katsu Gotoʻs little known lynching for over 30 years. Weʻll head to Honokaʻa to meet her at the site of the crime.

Goto's murder was a hate crime, meant to frighten plantation workers. Those workers began to organize and had sons and daughters who remembered their upbringing on the plantations. Former legislator, labor lawyer Dwight Takamine paints an inside picture of how protections for workers in Hawaiʻi began to take shape after the Democratic revolution in 1954 and statehood in '59.

Struggling for equal rights is the way immigrants help shape the U.S. justice system. Asians have had a hand in that, from the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 through Japanese incarceration during WWII.

This history of discrimination, then validation in the courts may not continue, but it is our story.

As accompaniment and counterpoint to the stories above, the musical through line this week is an exploration of identity by hyphenated Americans living in Hawaiʻi. Nick Kurosawa and Ohtoro chart facets of the immigrant experience in their recording, Yonsei. They reflect on the alienation that persists for non-white Americans. Yonsei means fourth generation.

Music List

Nick Kurosawa + Ohtoro. Yonsei. Yonsei (Generation I & II)

https://zenburecords.bandcamp.com/album/yonsei

Nick Kurosawa + Ohtoro. Yonsei. Downhill (with Maxmo & Neal Chin)

https://zenburecords.bandcamp.com/album/yonsei

Nick Kurosawa + Ohtoro. Yonsei. So Called Theory with Illis It

https://zenburecords.bandcamp.com/album/yonsei

Nick Kurosawa + Ohtoro. Yonsei. Plantated

https://zenburecords.bandcamp.com/album/yonsei

Zachtoro. Paradiseʻs Revenge INSTRUMENTALS. Are You Not Amused?

https://zenburecords.bandcamp.com/album/paradises-revenge-instrumentals 

Ohtoro. Kumamoto LP. Farmer and Samurai with Cookie and Nicholas Kaleikini.

https://zenburecords.bandcamp.com/album/kumamoto-lp

Nick Kurosawa + Ohtoro. Yonsei. Tumult the Day

https://zenburecords.bandcamp.com/album/yonsei

Truth!

Very rare a truthful account of Hawaii’s true history- NOT just the tourists version. Mahalo!