Sachie: A Daughter of Hawaii

Sachie: Daughter of Hawaii details life in ethnically diverse Hilo as seen through the eyes of a twelve year old girl coming of age in 1942. Sachie faces competing forces vying for her cultural allegiance. To become her own person, she must forge her own unique, blended identity as and "American Japanese," and honor both her Japanese culture and the American values she learns in school and with friends. In the end, Sachie realizes both Japanese and American traditions are sources of strength and pride and "takes the best from each." The narrative also offers rich insight into the lives of Hawaii’s immigrant groups during World War II and details their efforts to establish themselves in the islands.

Reflective of Hawaii’s vibrant postwar literary scene, Patsy Sumie Saiki’s writings express and examine the experience of being "local." Like the narratives of many of her contemporaries, her fiction often recreates a childhood idyll, preserving the memory of things as they once were. An acute observer of island people and their customs, her fiction and non-fiction portray everyday life in fresh and honest ways.