A Woman in the House

By Pat Saiki

For decades, Patricia Saiki worked tirelessly to bring positive change to Hawai'i and the nation, improving life for women, Japanese Americans, small business owners and others. In A Woman in the House, the former congresswoman shares her journey from student athlete to schoolteacher to political crusader and business advocate.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Watermark Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9781948011624

Pat Saiki

Born and raised in Hilo on the island of Hawai'i, Pat Saiki was one of three daughters of the second-generation Japanese Americans Kazuo and Shizue Fukuda. An educator by training, she spent fourteen years in classrooms in Hawai'i and on the US mainland. It was her experience in Hawai'i's public school system that led her to form the state's first teachers' union, an experience that was central to her quick rise in state politics, starting with her election to Hawai'i's first Constitutional Convention in 1968. She went on to serve in the state House and Senate, two terms in the US House of Representatives, and then in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

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Introduction

I got to know Pat Saiki well when she first ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986. I was a political reporter in those days. Those of us who were covering the race quickly figured out that Pat was one of the most accomplished campaigners we’d ever seen. She had an uncanny knack for asking a question then finding some connection with the astonished voter.

Pat cruised to victory, which was a shock to many in a state that until that election had never put a Republican in one of Hawaii’s two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

About a week after the election, I interviewed Pat for a postelection analysis story. After the interview, she asked if I’d join her Washington staff as press secretary, a wonderful, old-fashioned title still in use at that time. It didn’t take long to say yes. I admired Pat’s fighting spirit—she was unafraid of fighting the good fight—but she knew that governing was about more than political one-upmanship.

I also admired Pat’s core belief that she was elected to make government serve the people, not to serve as a litmus test for political purity. I saw that play out in Congress. As had been the case in the Hawaii state legislature, where Pat rang up a series of major legislative accomplishments by working with the majority Democrats and often letting them claim credit, Pat played a key role in passing legislation that righted an historic wrong.

A bill to apologize and offer reparations for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was stuck in the U.S. House of Representatives. There were enough Republican no votes to hold up passage of the bill. Pat eagerly took on the task of working her caucus, one member at a time, explaining why she backed the bill, and asking for their support. Despite being a lowly freshman, Pat spoke with unusual authority in the caucus. Not only was she obviously Japanese American, she was the first from her party to represent Hawaii in the House of Representatives. (Senator Hiram Fong, a Republican, was the first Asian American to serve in the U.S. Senate and had served in Congress since statehood.)

After years of inaction, Pat’s efforts turned enough Republican votes in the House to ensure passage of the reparations bill.

Pat’s stubborn determination probably explains much of her success. She’ll stick with it and won’t let the lolos (lolo is Hawaiian for feeble-minded) on the other side get away with an easy victory. If Pat is anything, it is determined.

But I think there’s another reason for Pat’s remarkable record of success in the public arena, and in life. She is her father’s daughter. Her memoir begins with a nod to her father, Kazuo Fukuda, a quiet, dignified man who instilled in his three daughters the importance of respect, sacrifice and—by teaching them to play competitive tennis—the drive and will to win.

Mr. Fukuda, as Pat’s staff called him with much affection, worked as a clerk at American Factors (Amfac), one of Hawaii’s Big Five corporations that dominated political, economic and social life in the Islands for generations. Decades later, his oldest daughter, Patricia, by then a prominent member of the Hawaii Legislature, was invited to serve as a director of Amfac. Before she accepted the historic honor (she was the first woman to be asked to serve on the board of a major Hawaii company) Pat asked her father for his advice and approval.

She didn’t have to do that, of course. But Pat knew instinctively that by asking her father, he would know he’d won his long, difficult battle to leave his children a more equitable world. Pat would also be able to say to him, Pops, we did it. And she kept on doing it, from the state legislature to the U.S. Congress to the Cabinet Room in the White House.

—Floyd K. Takeuchi

Pat Saiki’s father taught her to play tennis, and she was a competitive player.

PART I

The Early Years

1930–1968

Hopes and Expectations

I was born on May 28, 1930, in Hilo, a bustling business community on the northeastern side of the Big Island of Hawaii, the first of three daughters my parents, Kazuo and Shizue Fukuda, would have over the next eight years.¹ My father must surely have wished for a son, but every time he turned around, there was another girl. It didn’t matter. He was a happy man who had enormous pride in his daughters. He affectionately called each of us sonny boy, encouraged us to play competitive sports and voiced the same hopes and expectations for us that he would for any son. I like to call him the original feminist.

My mother and father were second-generation Japanese Americans whose parents were recruited from Japan in the late 1890s to work the cane fields for Hilo Sugar Company. My father’s family came from Kumamoto, on the Japanese island of Kyushu; my mother’s from Hiroshima, the Honshu island city whose residents would suffer unprecedented devastation and loss when the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb during World War II.

Like tens of thousands of other early immigrants, my grandparents, Matsuzo and Yusu Fukuda, were brought in to plant, cultivate and harvest sugarcane at a time when worldwide demand for Hawaiian sugar far exceeded the island’s supply of laborers.² As tenant farmers, my paternal grandparents worked their own plot of land and paid their rent by giving a portion of each year’s harvest to the Hilo Sugar Company. The system kept overhead costs low for the company, which also recruited paid laborers from the local community, along with immigrants from Portugal, China and South Pacific islands. At the height of its production, the sugar mill processed 1,400 tons of sugar daily.³

Most of the Japanese cane field workers lived in an area known as Japanese Camp. They stuck together and helped each other. When someone needed to build a home, neighbors pitched in to offer their skills as carpenters, electricians, plumbers and painters. Others leveled ground for foundations or prepared food for workers.⁴ Families celebrated together—every marriage, birth, graduation or anniversary—and took care of each other.

Younger men in the community would turn out to chop wood for elderly men and widows. And when none of Hawaii’s banks would lend money to these aliens, they created a fund to help each other in case of emergencies or financial need. This loosely organized kumiai (community group, or union) allowed them to pool money in a fund they called tanomoshi. The kumiai would evaluate a family’s needs and issue loans at nearly no interest. Because everyone was invested in the process, the kumiai kept the community together in mutual trust and confidence.

My grandparents worked hard and believed in education as the path to greater opportunity and freedom. My Fukuda grandparents sent their eldest son to college on the mainland U.S., where he earned a degree as a certified public accountant. The expectation was that he would return to Hilo, where the entire family would benefit from his higher status and earning potential as a college- educated professional.

It was not to be. Within a few years of returning home, he died of a fast-growing cancer. My father was second in line, but with no more funding available he had no opportunity to pursue higher education. He went to work as a clerk in the Hilo office of Amfac, a land-development company founded in Hawaii in 1849 as a retail and sugar business. It was his first job, and the one he would have his entire career.

My mother worked as a sales clerk at the Ah Mai⁵ dry goods store in Hilo. She was also a talented seamstress, with many loyal clients. A steady stream of people came through our home for fittings in the small bedroom she used as her shop. My mother was particularly gifted at designing original fashions and drafting her own patterns. She sold custom dresses for $14, a small fortune in those days.

The sense of obligation and respect my parents had for their own parents was obvious and made a clear impression. It is an old Japanese tradition to observe rituals of respect toward one’s elders. One of the rituals my father emphasized was making regular visits to see his parents. Every Saturday afternoon, he led the climb up Ponohawai Hill to their home. The path took us through cane fields, where we’d often see our uncle, my father’s youngest brother, out working the family plot.

My grandparents lived in a raised home, built on stilts to protect it from flooding during frequent rains. My sisters and I loved poking around in the area under their home, creating a play space from this area used mostly for storage.

Meals were cooked inside, over an open fire. I’ve never tasted better rice than what my grandparents cooked in their big kettles. The toilet was outside, as was the furo, a Japanese-style, stand-alone wooden tub. Bathing in the furo required a preliminary scrubdown with soap and water and a thorough rinse. Clean water for the furo was heated over a fire.

My grandparents were steeped in Japanese tradition. I remember my grandmother’s disapproval when she saw me wearing shorts, which she didn’t consider suitably feminine. She frowned when I scrambled up trees to pick mountain apples and mangoes, but always enjoyed eating the fruits I harvested.

One of my most enjoyable childhood activities was also one of the most dangerous. In the early years, sugarcane was harvested by hand. Spear-sharp cuttings were lashed together into bundles and placed into flumes of rushing water to travel long distances to the mill.⁶ The children of Hilo couldn’t resist the temptation of catching a thrilling ride as those bundles made their way down the flumes.

Lunas—luna is the Hawaiian word for supervisor—were assigned to monitor the process and make sure the bundled cane stayed within the flumes. The lunas, mostly Portuguese immigrants, patrolled the fields on horseback. They sternly pulled children away from the flumes, partly to protect their safety, partly to protect the company from liability in case of an accident. But the lunas couldn’t be everywhere at once, and when they were absent, adventurous kids would climb up to ride those lethal bundles.

I was fortunate; I never fell off a bundle while riding the flumes. But I shudder to think of the risks we took to have fun. A fall could mean a catastrophic and possibly deadly spearing by the swiftly moving, sharp-ended bundles of freshly cut cane.

A Tradition of Respect for Education

Both of my parents worked hard, saving as much of their income as they could to prepare for the higher education opportunities they wanted all of their children to have. My father walked to work every day to avoid the expense of a car. My mother, despite her steady work as a seamstress, somehow made time to sew the clothing needed by three rapidly growing daughters.

My parents, in the tradition of their own parents, valued learning above all else. We girls grew up imbued with a sense of respect for knowledge and those who teach. Some of the manifestations of that attitude may seem a bit extreme given today’s standards, but they left a profound impression. One example: You never, ever sat on a pile of books to raise yourself higher on a chair. Books were considered sacred; to use them for anything but reading was disrespecting the wise minds of the people who wrote them.

Hilo pre-statehood offered two types of schools at the elementary level. A child’s placement in either was considered very important. We took tests to determine whether we would pursue our education in a traditional public school or enter what was called a standard school. Standard schools offered more advanced coursework, similar to what today’s accelerated, or gifted programs might provide. We all took the tests. Only those who qualified were accepted into Hilo Standard School. In retrospect, it was a terribly discriminatory process. Fortunately, this practice—heavily weighted in favor of children who spoke in proper rather than pidgin English—did not last long.

I was just a child, so I didn’t really think about it one way or another. I took the tests, did my best and followed along with whatever my parents and teachers encouraged me to do. I easily passed the exams and enrolled in Hilo Standard School. I never felt that I was special, but I remember people speaking of me as though I were predetermined to succeed: After all, she qualified for Hilo Standard School. But as I matured, my mind echoed with reminders of that early discrimination, and I wondered how this system affected the morale and self-esteem of my Hilo Union peers. We all met up again in seventh grade at Hilo Intermediate, which funneled us all into Hilo High School.

I liked school and worked hard to earn good grades. I never felt any pressure to be at the top of my class but always felt I belonged in the top two or three. I particularly enjoyed Latin classes with Mr. Putman, a crusty old guy who nevertheless endeared himself to me and provided me with a meaningful foundation in the language.

I embraced opportunities for leadership, always feeling that I had a knack for organization. I successfully ran for class officer and particularly enjoyed my role as president of the high school tennis club.

My father was an athletic soul whose favorite sport was tennis. As soon as I could hold a racquet, he was teaching me how to stroke, volley and serve. His skills were well known and respected in our community; everyone wanted him as their coach. Eventually, he took a position coaching the Hilo High School tennis club, an independent program not sponsored by the school. He was also the volunteer tennis coach at St. Joseph School in Hilo. My father loved coaching and the respect and status it conveyed. My role as tennis club president gave us wonderful opportunities to share our passion for the sport. He traveled with the team when we competed with Honokaa, Laupahoehoe and other high schools on the island.

Thanks in great part to his effective coaching, I became quite adept at the sport and competed territory-wide.⁷

I cherished one-on-one time with my father. Sometimes, when I walked home from school, I’d stop at his office and he’d take me across the street to the drug store for ice cream sodas and conversation. My father constantly reminded me that girls could be successful in sports—and in any career we might choose. His voice remains clear and strong in my memory: "You can be anything you want to be and do anything you choose to pursue. Being a girl should not hinder you in any way. That is, of course,