Daughter of Molokai

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This is a novel of heartbreak, joy, grief, love and forgiveness that should be read by everyone in these turbulent times. Daughter of Moloka'i is the sequel to Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. You do not have to have read the first one to understand the story line.(Daughter of Moloka'i will be released on February 19 by St. Martin's Press.)

Ruth Utagawa was one day old she was taken from her leper parents and separated from them for one year. After the year when she showed no signs of the disease, she was taken by a nun Kapi'iolani House for Girls on Oahu to be raised by other nuns. Adoptions were hard to come by because many people knew the girls were children of lepers from Moloka'i. In Ruth's case, it was doubly difficult because she was half Japanese and half Hawaiian.

As Ruth grew she wondered why her mother gave her up, but no one explained the circumstances of her separation. When she was five a lovely Japanese couple living in Hawaii with three American born sons adopted her despite the circumstances of her birth. Taizo and Etsuko Watanabe are delighted to have a daughter and they raise her to follow Japanese customs with as much love as they give their sons.

When Taizo's brother encourages the family to move to California and farm with him, they reluctantly leave Hawaii. Facing much anti-Japanese sentiment in California, their farm is successful and they are able to make a decent living for the two families, always with the underlying resentment of the white Californians.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, times are difficult for everyone and the brothers decide to sell 90% of their farm to the local anti-Japanese sheriff. They finally agree to sell the entire farm, but lease back land to farm for their own families.

After Ruth graduates from high school, she finds her job prospects are limited, but with a stroke of luck she meets Frank Harada and marries him shortly thereafter. He opens a diner in Florin and the business succeeds, then World War II ruins their lives.

When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States government rounded up all Japanese - American citizens and all others of Japanese descent and marched them off the internment camps. The families were only able to take a small number of possessions and their lands and property were sold out from under them.

For years Ruth and her family were prisoners in the internment camps and treated like they were inferior. Their accommodations at the first camp were former horse stables. There was barbed wire and armed guards surrounding the isolated camps.

The treatment of Japanese-American by the U.S. government is a blot on our history. No one of German or Italian descent (also enemies in WWII) were interned, only the Japanese. Although Daughter of Moloka'i comes full circle with Ruth meeting her birth mother, the mortifying treatment of the Japanese in American can never be erased and this kind of discrimination must never be allowed to happen again.