Takaki pissed me off a little in the beginnging of this second chapter, but I'm not sure if that was just me after hours of reading black women feminist voices on a quest for inclusion. But he makes a couple comments about American history and our society being built on the backs of others, yet he makes no mention of slavery, or the use of black labor, and although I know this is the histoy of Asian-American, it bothered me.
It was interesting to note the role of women in building the Chinese communiities in both California and Hawaii. What was troubling though was that even things like family life are directly linked to the economy. Hawaii needed the Chinese as a stable labor force, to live on plantations and maintain a life that required a wife and kids. On the other hand, in California, Chinese men were wanted for only a short time supply of mobile migrant workers, and women that did come over provided the same type of short term services, quite the opposite of the family needed for the plantation lifestyle. Money decides everything.
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