All I Asking for Is My Body

“‘Not dangerous, Makot been take me go.’”

In this quotation, Murayama gives the reader a glimpse at the interesting language spoken by Japanese Americans in Hawaii. In Franklin S. Odo’s afterward, he states: “Murayama gives us an almost tangible feel for the language—pidgin English or, more correctly, Hawaiian English Creole—then in use among the nisei on a Maui sugar plantation” (105).

“I went to the Filipino Camp and I was scared. It was a spooky place, not like Japanese camp. The Filipinos were all men and there were no women or children and the same-looking houses were all bare, no curtains in the windows or potted plants on the porches. The only way you could tell them apart was by their numbers.”

This quote shows that even though there were people from many cultures working and studying together in Hawaii at this time, they did not necessarily have access to each other. In his afterword of the novel, Odo writes that “Murayama explodes another myth, that of the melting pot, by describing how separate were the lives of the various ethnic communities in spite of the physical and social environments” (108).

“Father was out at sea and was not due back till tomorrow night. When Takako came back from her one-hour language school class, I sent her to Aoki Store to get Tosh. ‘How you feeling?’ Tosh said. ‘I’m all right now, I just overworked myself.’ ‘You shouldn’t worry about the debt. Just take care of your body.’ When outside Tosh said, ‘How come you never been call me earlier?’ ‘I would’ve if she was real bad.’ ‘You goin’ stay with her?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Good. When’s Papa coming home?’ ‘Tomorrow.’ ‘You know, he oughta quit fishing. There’s no more fish left in the sea. All it does is we go deeper in the hole and Mama over-worries and overworks. And damn wahine, she too superstitious. She thinks she goin’ die, she believe in it. She talk to you about it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Yeah, she no can get it out of her head.’ ‘Why?’ ‘They all like that. Bulaheads are crazy.’”

Even though this passage is only 14 pages into the story, it shows how well the author establishes the voices of Kiyo and Tosh. Without any tags to explain who is saying which line, it is possible for the reader to follow the conversation and always be clear about which brother is speaking. In this short paragraph, it also shows how the boys intuitively code switch. Inside the store, they speak “proper” Japanese, but once outside, they switch to Hawaiian English Creole.

“Sugar cane covered the entire slope, and the plantation spotted camps like Kahana in the light green fields to farm the fields around them. Kahana sat on the northern slope and it caught a lot of wind and rain. Things grew wild in Kahana, whereas there wasn’t enough water in Pepelau even for a home garden.”

Odo explains that “Murayama intended to reach the broadest possible audience with this book” (105). At a conference, Murayama explained that the way he did this was to “use phonetic spelling only on a few words which didn’t occur too often, use the syntax and rhythms of pidgin in the dialogue, and use standard English in the narration except for a few pidgin expressions” (105). The above passage shows how Murayama employed standard English for description, as he did for Kiyo’s internal thoughts, as well.

“When we got to Obaban’s house in the middle of Japanese Camp, she was already dead and everybody was mad at everybody else. Anshan wanted her cremated so that he could take her ashes with him, Mr. Kitano wanted her buried at the Kahana graveyard in the cane field. Father stepped in and told Anshan why didn’t he agree with his stepfather for now and afterwards, meaning after Mr. Kitano died, he could dig up Obaban’s bones and cremate them.”

This passage displays another aspect of Mr. Oyama’s personality. Mr. Oyama is good at mediation because he tries to avoid conflict. Instead of choosing sides on the merits, he finds a way for each person to be able to save face.

“It was a company town with identical company houses and outhouses, and it was set up like a pyramid. At the tip was Mr. Nelson, then the Portuguese, Spanish, and nisei lunas in their nicer-looking homes, then the identical wooden frame houses of Japanese camp, then the more run-down Filipino Camp.”

This description perfectly encapsulates the “pecking order” that Mr. Snook brings up to his students. The houses are stationed around the sewage system, and the lower status you are in the company, the more exposed you are to the sewage system. The lunas supervise the others, so their houses are nicer, and closer to the overseer, Mr. Nelson. The Filipino workers are less valued than the Japanese workers, so they are in the worst section of the housing development.

“The house we moved into, No. 173, was the last house on ‘Pig Pen Avenue’ and next to the pigpens and the ditch, and when the wind stopped blowing or when the warm Kona wind blew from the south, our house smelled like both an outhouse and a pigpen.”

The Oyamas are starting over in Kahana, and as they are the newest additions to the plantation, they get the worst, smelliest home in the Japanese section of the camp. The move from Pepelau to Kahana is a step back. Mr. Oyama had spent years working in the cane fields, and now after years away with nothing to show for it, he and his family are back.

“‘Boo,’ he’d mumble, ‘why are you people so passive? Why do you just sit there and believe everything I say? Why don’t you call me a liar? Boo. Wake up.’”

While Mr. Snook prizes his own values over those of his students, he is the first person that Kiyo encounters that encourages him to question authority. It is something that Kiyo carries with him quietly, until he is ready to exert his own independence as an adult.

“‘[Y]ou can’t use honesty for any bad purpose.’”

This passage, spoken by Mr. Snook, reveals more of his character. As a revolutionary, he sees the world in black and white and does not leave a lot of room for nuance.

“‘Weee-ha!’ Three-Quarter Dalmatio several furrows away shrieks and chants in falsetto, ‘Ichiricchi ali bam, salagitto a sala bu bam, am aba yet talan tan tan….’”

The above description shows that Murayama is comfortable using language to set a mood, without translating the language for the audience. Through a combination of transliteration, and transcribing the sounds that Three-Quarter Dalmatio makes as he works, the author presents a high-energy scene, full of joy and physical exertion.

“‘Thass what I mean. The whole system is upside down. You pay and pay and pay and you never pay enough. And they treat me like I was the bad guy. They want me to be a nice guy so they can bury me alive. I no can see that. The more you shut up, the better they look.’”

It is Tosh’s words that make him unfilial to his parents. He does everything his parents expect of him, but he does it while voicing his opposition. Tosh knows that his parents want him to be quiet so that they will not have to feel bad about his sacrifices. They do not want him to burden them with the knowledge of the sacrifices he is making, just like they did not burden Mr. Oyama’s father-in-law with the sacrifices that they made for him.

“He climbed onto the window sill and held open the screen with one hand and pissed into the yard. We all pissed in the spacious back yard at night instead of going to the outhouse, but nobody pissed out the windows as Tosh always did. At least he lifted the screen window.”

The fact that Tosh is the only one who urinates out the window shows that he feels that his parents owe him something. He takes liberties because of all the demands his parents place on him.

“‘Shit, all I asking for is my body. I doan wanna die on the plantation like these other dumb dodos.’”

In this passage, Murayama makes a connection between filial duty and enslavement. Even though Tosh can walk away at any time, as Kiyo does later in the story, Tosh feels bound by his parents’ expectations. Education was probably his best chance of getting off the plantation, but he was pressured to quit school and get a job. Not being able to control his fate is the same as not being able to control his body. His parents are keeping him tied to a place where he does not want to be.

“Tosh taught me the experiment of the raw egg in the glass of water. The next day I was the only one with an experiment, ‘The egg floats,’ I repeated Tosh’s exact words, ‘because salt contains buoyancy or uplifting force.’ ‘You been do it?’ Tosh asked me. ‘Yeah, she been praise me to the sky and called everybody else a dumb dodo.’ ‘See what I been tell you? You lucky you follow after me, she know you my brother, she figure you must be smart like me.’”

This passage shows the loss of potential when it comes to Tosh. He was a good student with a lot of ambition and intellectual curiosity. Having to quit school derailed his future and put him on a very different path. This puts his resentment of having to quit school to help support his younger siblings in perspective. Even though he means it in a different sense here, Kiyo is very lucky that he followed Tosh. Tosh absorbs a lot of hardship as the number one son, and that gives Kiyo the opportunity to have a future that is not available to Tosh.

“But all the fight was over nothing. I’d be fighting in three years. After a couple of years of amateur, I’d turn pro and make $6,000 in a year. A couple of years later I’d be world featherweight champion, then light and welter, and I’d be making $60,000 a year.”

Even though Kiyo’s boxing career does not go as far as he envisions, and he never turns professional, this shows that from early on, he has no intention of working off the debt on the plantation. While he feels the weight of the debt keenly, he does not feel as tied to the plantation as Tosh does.

“At home the fights were getting more bitter. ‘How much of the debt have we paid up?’ Tosh would demand. ‘I’ve been working for three years already and nothing’s paid up. We’re just sending good-for-nothing girls to school. How come you bear nothing but good-for-nothing girls!’”

As harsh as Tosh’s words are, he is also a victim of circumstance. Because he was born the first son, his father denies him an education in favor of his younger, and in his estimation at least, less worthy siblings.

“Father avoided Tosh, and whenever Tosh said, ‘Grandfather is a thief’ he pretended not to hear. I felt sorry for the old man. He got the message already, and all Tosh was doing was rubbing it in and getting himself more angry and frustrated.”

Tosh seems indifferent to the fact that his father needs to retain respect for his father in order to justify the sacrifices that he made for him. Tosh seems to think that as long as his father justifies his grandfather’s actions, Tosh will be held to the same expectations. Another aspect of this passage is that the power dynamics between Tosh and his father have changed. For his entire childhood, Mr. Oyama controlled Tosh by hitting him, but now that Tosh is grown, and a talented boxer, he has to tolerate Tosh’s criticisms. Violence was the only tool in his toolbox, and now that is no longer an option.

“I sat on the swing under the avocado tree and tried to keep from shaking. I couldn’t imagine what I was grabbing for. I wanted to grab her and kiss her and I’d grabbed her biceps. I didn’t even think. She wasn’t pretty and her old man guarded her like a jailer. I thought she’d jump at the chance.”

Kiyo tries to trick Michie Kutsunai to be with him. He pretends he wants to borrow an English textbook and tries to grab her. The fact that he is surprised that she does not “jump at the chance” to be with him shows how little guidance he has gotten from his family on how to treat girls. His mother’s advice has been about avoidance—do not get married, do not get a girl pregnant—and she never counseled him on how to relate to girls and women.

“I’d asked Mr. Takemoto once, ‘The haole papers keep saying the Japanese can’t be assimilated because they don’t intermarry. Shouldn’t the Japanese intermarry more?’”

Kiyo is not afraid to question authority. Aside from his own innate character, this is a holdover of what he has learned from Tosh and Mr. Snook. Kiyo is open to different sources of information, which proves fatal to his parents’ ability to keep him with the family.

“I kept going to Citizens’ Quarters every night and Sunday just to sit there with ‘Crisco’ and the others. We didn’t talk much about what was bothering us, there was no point, we were all in the same boat. The Quarters were the farthest we could run away to. The War was going to last forever and martial law froze us to our jobs forever. Everything was exploding in the rest of the world while we were like some prehistoric monster frozen in ice.”

Kiyo’s feeling of being stuck now extend beyond his familial duties. Everyone he knows is in the same situation, and there is nothing that they can do except wait for circumstances to change. Ironically, it is during this period of feeling stuck that Kiyo watches the craps games that will ultimately lead to his family’s freedom from debt.

“Everything was over-organized. There were sports to keep you busy and happy in your spare time. Even the churches seemed part of the scheme to keep you contented. Mr. Nelson knew each of us by name, knew each family, and asked each time anxiously about the family. He acted like a father, and he looked after you and cared for you provided you didn’t disobey. Union talk was disobedience and treason, and if you were caught talking it or organizing, you were fired and your family and your belongings dumped on the ‘government’ road.”

In this passage, Kiyo realizes that Mr. Nelson runs the plantation like a benevolent dictatorship. Mr. Nelson seems to do everything with the benefit of the workers in mind, but he demands loyalty. Disobedience is immediately cut out and deposited on the “government” road. The plantation is like its own country, and disruption of the system or challenges to its leader will not be tolerated.

“‘But you’re our only son now. We’re poor and poor families have to be more careful. Acting as an individual is a luxury only the rich can afford.’”

Mrs. Oyama objects to Kiyo volunteering for the army because it would be selfish of him to act on his individual desires rather than on the needs of his family. She equates individualism with wealth and says that as a poor family that is not a “luxury” afforded to them. Perhaps if Tosh had been able to continue his studies and pursue his individual dreams, he may have been in a better position to help his family. Kiyo is only able to pull his family out of debt by leaving them and forging his own future. While Mrs. Oyama insists that individualism is a luxury that only the wealthy can afford, it seems that by insisting that her sons turn down potentially lucrative opportunities, she is prolonging the family’s financial troubles. 

“I’d been chicken today, I had to force myself to believe in those odds all the way.”

Kiyo will only make it in the world if he unlearns the message he has been getting from his parents his whole life, that he is unlucky and has no control over his situation. Designing his own system to win at craps, and then believing in it is his rejection of his mother’s idea that he does not control his fate. Winning at craps does not just by him his freedom, it also teaches him that he can make things happen.