Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865-1945

By Gary Y. Okihiro

Challenging thre prevailing view of Hawaii as a mythical "racial paradise," Gary Okihiro presents this history of a systematic anti-Japanese movement in the islands from the time migrant workers were brought to the sugar cane fields until the end of World War II. He demonstrates that the racial discrimination against Japanese Americans that occurred on the West Coast during World War II closely paralleled the less familiar oppression of Hawaii's Japanese, which evolved from the production needs of the sugar planters to the military's concern over the "menace of alien domination."

Through an imaginative intermingling of previously classified documents, interviews, and the writings of both field laborers and their oppressors, Okihiro depicts these immigrants as historical actors who engaged in individual and organized acts of resistance. Okihiro's comprehensive data shows that the Hawaiian elite consciously developed strategies that limited Japanese social and economic opportunities.

Gary Y. Okihiro, associate professor of history at Cornell University, has published four other books, including Japanese Legacy: Farming and Community Life in California's Santa Clara Valley (co-authored with Timothy J. Lukes).

Soft cover. 330 pages. Approximately 6 inches by 9 inches.