Kanyaku-imin: The Migration of Convention Contract Laborers to Hawaii

During ten years from 1885 to 1894, over 29,000 Japanese contract laborers went to the Kingdom of Hawaii to work on sugar plantations under the terms of the agreement executed between the Japanese and Hawaiian governments. They are the Japanese commonly known as "Kanyaku-imin (Convention Contract Laborers)." It is said that those Japanese who went abroad for the purpose of overseas dekasegi aspired to make money. When the first group of Kanyaku-imin left Japan in January 1885, however, most Japanese were still ignorant of what existed outside of their own island country. No one could tell the departing Japanese with confidence what lied ahead. It was, therefore, extremely difficult and courageous a decision for a Japanese to make to leave his native village, saying goodbye to families and friends. At the beginning, it was planned to recruit the needed number of laborers widely throughout Japan. However, some officials both in Hawaii and in Japan discovered that those farmers who were gathered in the four prefectures of Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Kumamoto and Fukuoka best fitted to plantation works. And, after 1886, Kanyaku-imin were mainly recruited in these four prefectures. Of those 29,000 Kanyaku-imin who were sent to Hawaii between 1885 and 1894, 96.1% were from those four prefectures: that is: 38.1% from Hiroshima, 35.9% from Yamaguchi, 14.6% from Kumamoto, and 7.5 from Fukuoka prefectures. Although there are no accurate statistics, it is estimated that more than 60% of 29,000 Japanese laborers did return to Japan after ending their overseas dekasegi in Hawaii within ten years after arriving in the islands, and the remaining about 40% were obliged to stay in Hawaii for some reasons.