All I Asking for Is My Body

Tosh continues to box and win. In Honolulu, Tosh loses to Jose Guildo, the five-time flyweight champion. Father suggests he quit, but Tosh replies that he must train harder. 

Tosh’s fights with his parents intensify. He resents his father and grandfather’s debt and objects to sending his sisters to high school, as they will marry into other families. While Kiyo and his father try to avoid the fights, Tosh and his mother engage in regular confrontations. 

Tosh continues to train for the upcoming boxing season and he, along with other promising athletes, get support from the plantation. He receives a promotion and becomes a truck driver’s helper. He begins working with Minoru Tanaka, a number one son who worked for his family for 15 years before he got married. Tosh’s parents constantly praise Minoru for his filial duty, but Tosh has nothing but disdain for him. When he goads Minoru into hitting him, Tosh tells everyone about the hit and says he’ll make Minoru pay.

Kiyo and Tosh’s mother insists that her sons put off marriage for as long as possible so that they can continue to help the family pay off their debts, rather than incur the new expenses that a wife and children would bring. Kiyo is desperate to be with a girl. Through a hole in the communal baths, Kiyo sees one of his neighbors, Michie Kutsunai, naked. He figures that he can be with Michie and she won’t tell anyone. He arranges to meet her in her backyard, saying that he wants to borrow an English textbook. When she comes to meet him, he tries to grab her, but she screams and runs back into her house. The next time they pass each other on the way to the bathhouse, she calls him a “sex maniac.” He considers going to a brothel, but it is too expensive. 

Constantly troubled by the thought of working to pay off his parents’ debt indefinitely, Tosh goes to visit Mr. Takemoto who “was like the father of the whole Japanese Camp in Kahana” (65). Tosh wants to put an end date on his contributions to the family debt and asks Mr. Takemoto if six more years, putting him at 10 years total, would be enough to show his gratitude. Mr. Takemoto surprises Tosh with his understanding: “Since this is America and you have a different view of life, hmmm, I guess ten years is about all a parent can ask of a son for the payment of a debt of gratitude” (67). 

Kiyo starts training with Tosh, but instead of training intensely like his older brother, Kiyo relies on his left hook. He easily wins his first three bouts, but then loses to Ken Soga. Tosh is given an opportunity to get off of the plantation and turn pro as a boxer in Honolulu. Although he is tempted, Tosh turns down the offer so that he can continue to work off his family’s debt.

Kiyo learns from his loss to Ken Soga and starts training harder. The next time he is matched against Soga, he loses again, but he puts up a better fight. Both Tosh and Kiyo make it to the territorial finals in Honolulu. Kiyo wins his first two fights but loses his third. Tosh fights Jose Guildo in the semifinals, but the fight ends when Tosh gets a cut over his right eye. 

Tosh begins seeing Fujie Nakama, a Japanese girl. While his mother discourages Tosh from marrying Fujie, his father only hints at it. He praises other number one sons, like Minoru Tanaka, who had put off marriage to help his parents and younger siblings. Mentions of Minoru only anger Tosh, and he repeats his threats against Minoru. 

When the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor, it changes everything for the family and community. Kiyo and Tosh’s mother has trouble accepting that the Japanese were responsible for the attack, but Tosh takes control of the situation. He instructs his father to burn or bury their Japanese flag, hide Japanese books, and refrain from speaking in Japanese in the presence of non-Japanese people. 

Everyone in Kahana prepares for a possible Japanese invasion. Members of the Japanese community also have to protect themselves against non-Japanese community members who might blame them for the attack. They are instructed not to go into Filipino Camp and not to work by themselves in the cane fields. When the FBI arrest Mr. Hamaguchi, a part-time representative for the Japanese consulate, the boys figure Mr. Takemoto and their father are next. 

Kiyo goes to speak with Mr. Takemoto. He asks how the Japanese can “make such a big thing about honesty and trust and sincerity” (81) but then turn around and sneak attach Pearl Harbor without a declaration of war. Mr. Takemoto tries to explain that you can’t equate the actions of a nation with the actions of its people:

‘Japan isolated herself for 250 years between 1600 and 1860 when other nations were becoming nations and getting used to dealing with each other as nations. So, Japan grew up into a nation without that childhood period’ (83). 

However, both men find these explanations unsatisfactory.

Two weeks go by and neither Mr. Takemoto nor Kiyo’s father are arrested, as the Methodist Reverend Sherman vouched for his Japanese congregants. When a young FBI agent visits Kiyo’s father, the family worries that he is in trouble. The agent wants to know why Mr. Oyama had withdrawn $7,000 from the Bank of Hawaii shortly after the attack. Mr. Oyama explains that he had read that the bank accounts of Japanese organizations were going to be frozen, so he withdrew the money, donated $500 to the Red Cross, and distributed the rest among the more than 90 members of the Kahana Japanese Club. The FBI agent then questions Mr. Oyama on where his loyalties lie. He also asks whether Kiyo and Tosh are dual citizens, and Mr. Oyama is able to provide documentation that shows that his sons gave up their Japanese citizenship. Satisfied with his answers, the FBI agent leaves the house without arresting the father. 

That night, Tosh tells Kiyo their father was lucky no one stole the $7,000, or the family would be further in debt. He adds that he wished their father cared about his family as much as the Kahana Japanese Club’s money. With the turbulent political atmosphere, however, Tosh is less concerned about his family’s debt: “The anger and bitterness were gone. The debt had been pushed into the background the way a toothache is dwarfed by a brain hemorrhage” (86).

In the months that follow the attack, everyone lives under martial law, but the Japanese must live under even harsher restrictions. They cannot carry more than $200 on their person at a time, and no more than three of them can be in the same place at one time. In response, those of Japanese descent feel pressured to prove their loyalty to America.

Surprisingly, Tosh’s parents agree to let him marry Fujie, likely because Tosh would have done it without their approval anyway. Reverend Sherman goes to the army on the couple’s behalf and asks that they allow the wedding (with more than three Japanese attendees) to take place. Kiyo respects the Reverend for helping his family.

When Tosh moves out, Kiyo finds that he misses his brother’s complaints.  When Tosh complained to their parents, Kiyo was able to step back and stay out of the fight, but now that he’s gone, Kiyo finds that being the perfect filial son wears on him. Kiyo tries confronting his father about the debt, but he just ends up trying to reassure the older man by saying, “Our luck will change” (89). 

The issue of the debt recedes into the background, until one day, when Tosh comes careening up the road that leads to Citizens’ Quarters, looking for Kiyo. Fujie works at the hospital, and she told Tosh that both his mother and his unwed sister, Miwa, are pregnant. Fujie is two months along. Tosh is beyond angry at his father’s irresponsibility, at having seven children when he can’t afford three. 

Miwa marries the father of her baby, Hachiro Shiotsugu, a high school senior, and they have a small wedding, “even sadder than Tosh’s” (91). When Tosh comes close to Kahana, he takes the opportunity to berate his mother and father for sending their daughters to high school and for having another baby. He doesn’t visit his mother in the hospital after she delivers a son named Jyun. Kiyo guesses that Tosh is jealous, because their mother will love her baby more than Tosh’s baby. Their mother admits as much, saying of her new baby: “He’s my own child.” (39)

Kiyo is working as a truck driver’s helper, making $50 a month, and turning $45 over to his parents. He spends his evenings at Citizens’ Quarters watching his classmate win at pool and dice. Kiyo seriously considers marrying Sachiko, the 17-year-old daughter of Mr. Nosawa—one of Kiyo’s fellow laborers in the Filipino Gang. Kiyo has known Sachiko since she was 12, but now she’s “breathtaking.” Kiyo fantasizes about Sachiko at night: “We’d spend the rest of our lives in the rapture of each other’s arms and body. I would ask for nothing more than to imprison her within four walls and imprison myself with her in a lifetime of lovemaking” (95). 

In the light of day, Kiyo realizes that marriage to Sachiko would never work. Not only does he have the $6,000 debt hanging over his head, he cannot stomach living the rest of his life on the plantation. He thinks about his old teacher, Mr. Snook, who encouraged him to seek freedom. Kiyo explains what freedom is to him: 

Freedom was freedom from other people’s shit, and shit was shit no matter how lovingly it was dished, how high or low it came from. Shit was the glue which held a group together, and I was going to have no part of any shit or any group (96).

In January 1943, the Army recruits 1,500 volunteers of Japanese descent. The all-nisei regiment will fight in Europe. Kiyo’s mother does not want him to volunteer, as she’s depending on him to help with their debt. Kiyo volunteers anyway. When his mother asks what will happen to the debt, Kiyo answers that his death will garner them a $10,000 insurance payout, and if he lives, he’ll resume his work. If he’s crippled, they’ll have to live with his decisions. Kiyo gets $300 as a parting gift from the community. He gives half to his mother and takes the rest with him.

There is a group of about 2,500 men, and between them they have about $25,000. There are a few poker games, but far more crap games. Kiyo decides to try and research the game. After taking notes on different combinations, Kiyo settles on the following:

If I used 1 and 6 as the axis, there’d be no 2’s, 3’s or 12’s, or no craps on the first throw. This would be the combination on the initial roll. If I buried the 1/6 on the first die and 2/5 on the second, 7 would happen two ways 4-3 and 3-4, and 6 or 8 would happen three ways. Odds would be 3 to 2 in my favor of 5 to 6. This final combination made the odds for 10, 4, 9, 5, at 2 to 2, instead of the regular 2 to 1 for 4 and 10, and 3 to 2 for 9 and 5 (100). 

After figuring out how to improve his odds, Kiyo practices rolling the dice until he perfects it. The first day, he makes $300. That night, all he can think about is winning the full $6,000. 

The next day, Kiyo gets up to $1,600 before he loses it, but he believes in his system, and he starts back up after supper. By the time he gets back up to $200, he only needs five passes to make over $6,000. He makes it up to the last pass, but then the other gambler fronting the money insists on Kiyo using a cup. This eliminates Kiyo’s opportunity to up his odds by controlling the dice, but Kiyo goes for it, thinking that if his luck is really that bad, he deserves to lose. Kiyo makes the pass and wins the pot. That night, he feels bad about gaming the system. The next day, he sends a check to Tosh with the following note: “Won this in crap game. Pay up all the debt. I manufactured some of the luck, but I think the Oyama luck has finally turned around. Take care the body. See you after the war” (103).