Honolulu had grown considerably since Ruth’s first visit here in 1954, but the traffic was still a breeze compared to driving into San Francisco at rush hour. She drove her rental car east on Nimitz Highway to H-1, getting off at Middle Street. She pulled over, studied her AAA map, then continued on Middle Street, passing through quiet residential neighborhoods as she turned left onto Rose Street and then right onto Meyers Street.
Meyers Street ascended a steep hill and ended in a loop; on the outside of that loop was a ring of modest single-family homes and, on the inside, an “island” of more homes and a few apartment houses. All were lushly landscaped with green hedges, fan palms, banana plants, and purple bougainvillea.
Ruth parked along the curb. On the mauka side of the street were actual mountains, the leeward slopes of the Ko'olau Range. The Kalihi Valley was a wedge of green above a circle of mostly concrete and asphalt. She walked the circumference of the loop, searching for some vestiges of an orphanage, but saw nothing but residences. She stopped beside a parking lot and looked out at the city sprawling west to Diamond Head.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
She turned to see a Hawaiian man looking curiously at her.
“Aloha.” She smiled and extended a hand as she approached him. “My name is Ruth Harada. When I was a little girl, I lived in an orphanage that used to be here—the Kapi'olani Home for Girls. Have you heard of it?”
“Oh yeah,” the man said, shaking her hand, “but didn’t it close down a long time ago?”
“Yes, in 1938; all the girls were placed in foster homes. I haven’t been here since I was five years old. I’m just looking to see if there’s anything left of it. The address was 1650 Meyers Street. Do you know where that is?”
The man glanced up the street. “I think that’s up around the bend. C’mon.” As they followed the curve of the road, he added, “This whole subdivision was built around 1950. Underneath is all coral stone.” They came to one of the apartment buildings on the inner “island.” “Okay, that’s 1644 … 1646 right next to it … it’s probably on the other side of this building.”
When they found it, 1650 was just a number on one of the apartments. Ruth searched for anything that might seem familiar, but …
“Doesn’t look like there’s anything left of it,” the man said. “Sorry.”
“Well, mahalo for helping,” Ruth said, disappointed.
“No worries.” The man returned to his house as Ruth stood dejectedly on the street. This had been a total waste of time. She headed for her car.
Somewhere a dog barked.
Instinctively, Ruth turned around.
A small black-and-white dog—looked like some kind of terrier mix—stood in the center of the road, barking.
“Hey, little guy,” Ruth said. “You live around here?”
She saw no collar on him, but then Ruth was routinely irked by the number of people who didn’t tag their dogs.
As she approached the terrier, his barking became more insistent. But as soon as Ruth came within a few feet, the dog suddenly turned tail and ran.
Ruth’s heart started racing, she didn’t know why.
Nor did she know why she felt the need to run after him—but she did.
“Hey! Stop!” she called. But the terrier just kept galloping down Meyers Street.
Ruth knew she could never catch him, but nevertheless she continued to run. She had no idea why she felt such a sense of urgency, but at this moment catching this dog seemed like the most important thing in the world.
“C’mon, boy! Stop!” She was getting short of breath. “Stop! Stop, buddy! C’mon!”
The distance between them opened up as the dog raced downhill even faster.
“C’mon, boy! Stop! Stop! Only, stop! Only!”
The name came out of her in a scream that shocked her so much she lost her footing—and fell.
She sprawled, face forward, breaking her fall with her hands. The scrape of the asphalt as it skinned her hands made her cry out.
tumbling down the hill, rocks and pebbles raking her skin
She lay in the road, her hands bleeding, but all she could think of was
his light brown fur painted black by the night, the amber circles in his eyes flashing briefly as he turned his head. Ruth listened helplessly to his cries, feeling a grief and sorrow and anger unlike anything she had ever known
Anger. Buried deep. This deep.
Ruth rested her hand on the dog’s front legs and closed her eyes, enjoying the softness of his fur, their shared contentment. She wanted to stay like this, warm and loved, forever.
It hadn’t been forever. But miraculously, she had him back now—how their chests had touched, the warmth of his body, his heart beating against her, feeling as though their heartbeats were one and the same.
She held that moment in her arms and swore never to let it go again.
“Only,” she said softly, like a long-forgotten prayer. “Only…”
She pushed herself up into a sitting position. She heard someone running toward her, but her attention was fixed on the little black-and-white terrier. He had stopped running, had even come a little closer, and was gazing at her with a dog-smile and what seemed an almost human comprehension.
“Are you all right?”
Ruth turned her head to see a young Chinese American woman standing above her. “Do you need help getting up?”
Ruth turned back to the dog, who was running away again, downhill.
The woman helped Ruth get to her feet. Ruth thanked her.
She looked at Ruth’s bruised, bleeding palms, said, “Let me get some Bactine and Band-Aids for those cuts,” and hurried back to her house.
Ruth looked down the street. The dog was nowhere to be seen. But that was all right. She smiled because she knew, now, who it was.
The practical, Japanese part of her said it was just a stray dog, or a lost pet. But her Hawaiian half chose to believe it had been her 'aumakua, Rachel, taking a familiar form to point Ruth where she needed to go—toward the past, and a friend, she had lost.
She tore off a chunk of sandwich and offered it on the palm of her hand. His tongue ladled it up and into his mouth, and Ruth giggled at the pleasant tickle of it on her skin.
She remembers the pain of losing him, but she smiles at the happiness he brought her, cherishing the joy she felt at his side. She even begins to recall the love in the eyes of a woman wearing a nun’s white cowl.
She feels a peace that has eluded her all her life. She is Japanese, she is Hawaiian; she is hapa, and she is whole.
Author’s Note
The Japanese American exclusion and internment—from the declaration of Executive Order No. 9066 on February 19, 1942, to the closure of the last of the main camps on March 20, 1946—spanned barely more than four years. And yet it looms large in America’s collective conscience as it does in the memories of those who lived through it and the future generations who were impacted by it. But unlike other cases of injustice—slavery, or our nation’s mistreatment of Native Americans—this occurred not centuries in the past but in 1942, by which time we should have known better. President Franklin Roosevelt should have known better. But the same man who gave hope to millions during the Depression and guided the nation through a harrowing world war also enacted one of the greatest civil rights violations in U.S. history—ordering American citizens into concentration camps for no reason other than the color of their skin and the shape of their eyes.
Sadly, it seems, we are never as enlightened, as inoculated from fear and racism, as we might wish we were.