Hawaii: The End of the Rainbow
Kazuo Miyamoto's novel follows a Japanese immigrant family through the sugar plantations of territorial Hawaii, from the hopeful arrival to the generational collisions between issei parents and nisei children. The title promises resolution; the book delivers a more honest ending, one in which success and loss are braided too tightly to separate into a simple moral.Published by Tuttle, the novel is part regional history and part family chronicle, less interested in tropical scenery than in the contracts—labor, marriage, loyalty—that bind people to an island they did not choose. It is a useful corrective to the tourist version of Hawaii, and a reminder that paradise narratives usually leave someone out of the frame, often the people who built the place. For readers who want their islands served without the postcard.
