Chris McKinney’s novel The Tattoo provides a glimpse into a part of Hawaiian culture virtually unknown to tourists. The first two chapters begin with the prison inmate Kenji “Ken” Hideyoshi as he recounts his story to fellow inmate Cal “California Joe” Brodsky a mute but skilled tattoo artist. Ken, a local boy of Japanese descent, grew up in the Windward side of the island, Kahaluu, which according to Ken is easy to find: “When the brilliant blue and green patterns of the waters of Kaneohe Bay suddenly turn s**t-brown, it’s like a sign reading, ‘Welcome to Kahaluu’” (p. 43). In this environment, filled with theft, gangs, violence, and drugs Ken, left by his deceased mother and distant father, must make sense of his life.
Throughout the first two chapters of this fascinating book. There are numerous concepts that can be applied to this novel. In this post I focus on a four of them: assimilation, cultural transmission, ethnocentrism, and scapegoating.
ASSIMILATION: Ken has gone through a good deal of assimilation even though it is only two chapters into the book. Ken’s family is of Japanese ancestry and Ken is brought up in a Japanese-American culture. However, he begins to assimilate into local Hawaiian culture after he starts a fight with, his soon to be best friend, Koa Pauna. After the two become friends Ken quickly begins to change. He starts to act and do things like a typical local boy and he also starts using pidgin English more frequently. This leads to a clash with his father who says: “I no like you talking like one f***ing moke. Drop da pidgin” (p.32). Although Ken’s father himself uses pidgin, he feels that Ken should be speak more like his mother who was a school teacher and spoke flawless English.
CULTURAL TRANSMISSION: Ken's father's action of instructing Ken to be more like his mother can be expressed in terms of cultural transmission – where one generation passes on its values and beliefs to the next generation. We see Ken’s grandfather similarly try to transmit Japanese culture to Ken. On page 28, we see Ken’s grandfather tell Ken to hold the family sword and say, “One day dis goin’ be yours” (p.28). However Ken’s grandfather and father may have a tough time fighting against Ken’s inevitable assimilation into Hawaiian culture.
PERSONAL VIEW: I feel that similar to Ken, I have personally experienced assimilation into local Hawaiian culture. Like Ken, I am of Japanese ancestry. My ancestors came to Hawaii Japan almost five generations ago and my family has assimilated well into local culture. My father and mother were born and raised in Hawaii. They grew up doing all the typical things local children do: fishing, surfing, speaking pidgin. But even though my family was raised in the local culture we still hold on to parts of Japanese culture. As a result, I like to think of myself as being in both the local and Japanese cultures. I would be interested to know if Ken feels the same way.
ETHNOCENTRISM: Another concept seen in the first two chapters of this book is ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s ethnic group and culture is better than all other ethnic groups. Ken and Koa’s feelings toward the "haoles.” To Ken, being assimilated into Hawaiian culture, haoles are seen as an annoyance and a good chance to steal from or pick fights with. However Koa on the other hand has an exceptionally strong hatred for haoles as Ken remarked: “Koa, it was kind of strange, how cool he was until it came to haoles….He hated all of them” (p.70). To Koa haoles are seen as invaders in his land and are a target to vent his anger towards. This type of anger venting that Koa does is also a term discussed in class called scapegoating.
SCAPEGOATING: Scapegoating is another form of prejudice that groups of people carrying an ethnocentric view may revert to creating a scapegoat for their problems while keeping their pride in tact. In the text, scapegoating is described as blaming others for things that may not be their fault. An example of this is when the two boys spot the tourist on Sunset Beach. Koa blames the haoles for ruining his families land in Kahaluu. Koa said, “F***dat. Eh, Hawaiians got mo’ f***ed by da haoles.” After, the boys steal the haole tourists’ shoes and Ken reflects that, “Koa’s personal war against the haoles would escalate in high school” (p.54).
PERSONAL VIEW: I don't think I developed any ethnocentrism or scapegoating views while growing up as a child. I always thought the greatest thing about living in Hawaii is that there is such a mesh of different cultures and there wouldn’t be any way for everyone to get along unless everyone assimilated into each others' culture (to a small degree). So I was a little surprised to read about Ken and Koa's local hatred for Caucasians.
Overall, Chapters One and Two of the Tattoo are definitely a fascinating read. I was not too fond of it at first, but it does reveal a different side of Hawaii that I am used to. I am looking forward to reading what happens after Ken moves out from Kahaluu and into town...
References:
McKinney, Chris. The Tattoo. Honolulu: Mutual, 1999. Print.
Parrillo, Vincent N. Understanding Race and Ethnic Relations. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2008. Print.
McKinney, Chris. The Tattoo. Honolulu: Mutual, 1999. Print.
Parrillo, Vincent N. Understanding Race and Ethnic Relations. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2008. Print.
