Fighting, Fishing, and Farming
By Gavin Witt, Resident Dramaturg
Fighting
Though the central sequence of Snow Falling on Cedars—the trial of Kabuo Miyamoto for murder—takes place in 1954, much of the story hinges on events during and related to the Second World War. The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military sets in motion a complex chain of events. It prompts the forced relocation of islanders of Japanese ancestry; Hatsue and her family find themselves at the desolate Manzanar Relocation Center (see following spread). Kabuo joins the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, a force of Nisei volunteers who fought in some of the fiercest and bloodiest combat of the war, largely in Europe—becoming the most decorated American unit, while also suffering the highest casualty rate. And Ishmael ends up storming ashore with US forces at Tarawa, one of numerous brutal landings during the island-hopping campaign to reclaim the Pacific.
|
Dec 7, 1941
|
Japanese forces attack Pearl Harbor.
|
|
Dec, 1941–Feb, 1942
|
Japanese victories in the Pacific, including Guam, Hong Kong, Manila, and Singapore.
|
|
Feb 19, 1942
|
President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, by which all those of Japanese ancestry, including American citizens, are ultimately relocated into internment camps across the US.
|
|
Mar–Apr, 1942
|
“Evacuation” orders posted, giving one week to prepare.
|
|
Jun, 1942
|
Battle of Midway; crushing US air and naval victory that ends any real threat of invasion of the west coast by Japan (one of the primary arguments for the internment).
|
|
Jun–Oct, 1942
|
“Evacuees” resettled at official relocation centers.
|
|
Aug–Feb, 1942
|
Guadalcanal campaign marks the transition of Allied forces in the Pacific from defensive to offensive operations.
|
|
Nov 20–23, 1943
|
Marines invade and seize Tarawa Atoll.
|
|
Feb, 1943
|
Government approves military service by Nisei; formation of 442nd RCT and other units.
|
|
Oct, 1944
|
Battle of Leyte Gulf, largest naval engagement in history, ends.
|
|
Oct 15–19, 1944
|
442nd RCT liberates town of Bruyères, France from German occupation.
|
|
Oct 26–30, 1944
|
442nd RCT rescues the “Lost Battalion” at a cost of almost 800 killed or wounded; among the injured is future Senator Daniel Patrick Inouye.
|
|
April, 1945
|
442nd RCT and attached units help liberate Dachau concentration camp complex.
|
|
Dec, 1944
|
US Supreme Court finds, in ex parte Endo, that the internment violates citizens’ rights of habeas corpus, effectively making the camps
unconstitutional; they begin to shut down.
|
|
Aug 6 & 9, 1945
|
Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima, Nagasaki.
|
|
Aug 15, 1945
|
Japan announces its surrender, ending World War II.
|
|
Sept, 1945
|
Most remaining internees leave camps.
|
Fishing & Farming
The lonely, isolated, snow-swept island of San Piedro conjured up in Snow Falling on Cedars sprang from the imagination of David Guterson, author of the original novel. However, it owes much to real-life counterparts among the various islands of the Puget Sound, off the coast of Washington State between Seattle and Vancouver. Himself from this area, Guterson drew on his own memories and experiences, as well as the islands’ rich and complex history, in fashioning his tale.
Insular in spirit as well as fact, accessible to the mainland only by sea, scattered across surprisingly rugged mountains and fertile valleys, the communities of the Puget Sound archipelagos, such as those of San Piedro Island, have a few defining traits.
Fishermen ply the bountiful waters of the sound from the harbors and inlets of the island; chiefly, solitary salmon fishermen who use gillnets to gather their catch. Casting in the hours before and after dawn, they haul in some of the choicest fish a-swim, which go directly to the canneries back on the island. Though white settlers—pioneers from back East and immigrants of all kinds—have plied this trade since 1850 or so, they have increasingly been joined by waves of new arrivals from Japan and their American-born offspring.
These canneries offer another and sometimes steadier avenue of employment, especially during the lean years of the Depression—and for the steady trickle of Japanese and Japanese Americans who continue to swell the population, looking for work and opportunity.
Back on shore, amidst the island’s fertile and rain-swept valleys, farms of berries and hops provide a solid living for those who would rather till the soil than sail at the tiller. Fruit of all sorts grows well here, but the glory of the island farms are their strawberries. To plant and tend, and then to pick, the white farmers rely on families of Japanese ancestry: first-generation Issei, second-generation Nisei, and third-generation Sensei. Most of them are seasonal pickers, basically sharecroppers or tenant farmers, banned by law and custom from owning land outright. But things are changing, and this can lead to new opportunities—and new conflicts.