It is an honor to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Okinawan immigration to Hawai‘i with the inspiring story of Thomas Taro Higa, a 100th Infantry Battalion WWII Veteran of Okinawan descent (generations808.com/125th-anniversary-of-okinawans-in-hawaii).
Thomas was born in 1916 in Kahalu‘u, Hawai‘i, but was sent to Okinawa as a young child, where he gained a strong command of the Uchinaguchi, Japanese and English languages. While in Okinawa, his teacher inspired him to approach life like the gajumaru tree (Okinawa’s banyan tree) that endured the hardships of punishing typhoons and droughts, yet continued to grow bigger and stronger every year, happily giving shade and protection to the people.
Thomas returned to Hawai‘i in his teens and was drafted into the US Army to protect shorelines from enemy invasion while in his mid-20s. About six months after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, due to the hysteria of “looking like” the enemy, the Americans of Japanese ancestry (AJA) were segregated into a new unit called the 100th Infantry Battalion. They trained and fought hard to fight tyranny and prove their loyalty to America. In Italy and France, their combat performance and achievement changed America’s opinion and war correspondents started calling them the “Purple Heart Battalion.”
Thomas was wounded twice early in the battles in Italy. He returned to the US, where he used his language skills to share news from the European warfront with soldiers’ parents living in incarceration camps. Later, he saved countless lives by convincing Okinawans that Americans would treat them fairly so they felt it was safe to come out of the caves to surrender.
Like the gajumaru tree, Thomas and the AJA men of the 100th endured discrimination and suffered physically and mentally, yet became stronger. The 100th with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team would become the most decorated in US military history for size and length of service. Upon returning to Hawai‘i, Thomas became a leader in the post-war relief efforts to send food, clothing and breeding pigs to rebuild Okinawa.
Thank you, Thomas Taro Higa, a Hawai‘i-born veteran, who helped liberate Europe while spreading the seeds of aloha.
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