Koji Ariyoshi
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Koji Ariyoshi (1914–1976) was a Nisei, Labor activist, and a Sergeant in the United States Army during the Second World War.
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[edit] Early life
Born on a coffee plantation in Hawaiʻi in 1914 to Japanese immigrant parents, Ariyoshi grew up helping his family make a living on a small eight acre farm. He attended Konawaena High School and then worked for six years to help his family pay off their debts. It was during this time that Ariyoshi became interested in Labor politics. After this six year period, he attended the University of Hawaiʻi, but became alienated by what he perceived was an institutional bias against labor unions and liberal thought. On scholarship, he transferred to the University of Georgia. In Georgia, confronted by sharecropping, Ariyoshi became determined to work to ease the plight of the working class. Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism (A.B.J.) from the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia in 1941, Ariyoshi traveled to San Francisco, where befriended Karl Yoneda, one of the founders of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese navy attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaiʻi, and soon after, Ariyoshi was placed in the Manzanar War Relocation Center, a Japanese-American internment camp.
[edit] The Second World War
At Manzanar, Ariyoshi met and married his wife, Taeko Ariyoshi, and sought an opportunity to help the war effort. The opportunity presented itself in the United States Army Military Intelligence Service, where Ariyoshi signed on as a language specialist. Through the course of his service, he was transferred out of Manzanar to India, Sri Lanka, and to Burma. It was while he was stationed in the British Colonies, that Ariyoshi witnessed what he believed to be the inequality of the colonial system. His final transfer of the war led him to China and exposed him to the Communist movement.
[edit] The Dixie Mission
Koji Ariyoshi spent the majority of his time stationed at the Dixie Mission in Yan'an, where he met and interacted with both Chinese and Japanese Communists, chief among them Mao Zedong and Nosaka Sanzo. His primary duty in Yan'an was to learn more about the Communist activities to train Japanese prisoners of war, translate Japanese source materials, and develop Allied propaganda targeting the Japanese. In China, Ariyoshi had first hand experience with the positive differences between the peasants under the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communists, and came away with an appreciation for what Communism, or at least, progressive Socialism could accomplish.
[edit] Post War Life
Ariyoshi returned to Hawaiʻi in 1948 and inspired by the progressive Japanese language paper, Hawaiʻi Hochi, started a labor-oriented newspaper, the Honolulu Record. As editor, Arioyshi lamblasted labor conditions for the working class, the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, and other social inequalities in the islands. His socialist stance achieved two things; first, it bolstered the growth of the local labor movement, as well as the Democratic Party in Hawaiʻi; second, at the height of the Second Red Scare and McCarthyism, he and six other Nisei were arrested under charges of attempting to overthrow the American government under the Smith Act. The case later became known as the Hawaiʻi Seven. Ariyoshi remained only one night in jail and after release, persisted in his writings to defense the stances of the Record. He was found guilty by the court, but on appeal found innocent of all charges against him.
In 1958, Ariyoshi was forced to shut down the newspaper for lack of funds and turned to as a florist, for which he earned the humorous nickname, "The Red Florist." In 1969, he was appointed a member of the Hawaiʻi Foundation for History and the Humanities, of which he later became president for three years. Under the improvement of Sino-American relations in the 1970s, Ariyoshi managed to visit China as a reporter for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and returned to establish the China-Hawaii People's Friendship Association for the purpose to motivate better relations between China and the United States. Near the end of his life, Ariyoshi undertook a teaching position at the University of Hawaiʻi in its Ethnic Studies program, where he fought for the collection and preservation of oral histories, as well passed on his life's knowledge to his students. Koji Ariyoshi died in 1976.
[edit] Koji Ariyoshi on Film
In May of 2005, Koji Ariyoshi was the feature of the Biography Hawaiʻi series that aired on PBS Hawaii. The documentary featured original footage of Ariyoshi during his time in Yenan and focused on his persecution during the 1950s. The episode broadcasted on May 5, 2005, at 8 pm.
[edit] Book
- Koji Ariyoshi, From Kona to Yenan: The Political Memoirs of Koji Ariyoshi, Beechert, Edward D., and Alice M. Beechert, eds, (Honolulu, HI: U of Hawaiʻi Press, 2000).
- Carolle J. Carter, Mission to Yenan: American Liaison with the Chinese Communists 1944-1947 (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1997).
