Ancestral Graves, Kahuku by Garrett Kaoru Hongo
"Ancestral Graves, Kahuku" by Garrett Kaoru Hongo is a poignant poem reflecting on the complexities of Japanese American identity and history in Hawaii. The narrative unfolds as the speaker and a companion drive to a neglected Japanese American cemetery, revealing a landscape marked by decay and abandonment. Through vivid imagery, Hongo evokes a sense of loss—both of physical spaces and cultural practices, such as the traditional offerings to the deceased that have ceased over time. The poem also highlights a tragic past, including the devastating impact of a tsunami in 1946 that washed away many graves, an event that underscores the vulnerability of these ancestral resting places.
As the visitors explore the cemetery, they confront the painful legacy of racial and social tensions, particularly through the story of the speaker's grand-aunt, Yaeko. Her violent murder, linked to themes of discrimination and misogyny within the plantation society, serves as a chilling climax that connects personal tragedy with broader historical injustices. The poem concludes with a somber reflection on the responsibilities of honoring one's ancestors, leaving the visitors—along with readers—haunted by the neglect of the past and the ongoing impacts of historical violence. Overall, Hongo’s work invites contemplation on memory, neglect, and the enduring scars of a community shaped by both cultural heritage and colonial legacies.
On this Page
Ancestral Graves, Kahuku by Garrett Kaoru Hongo
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1988 (collected in The River of Heaven, 1988)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“Ancestral Graves, Kahuku” is a deeply personal poem of Garrett Hongo that emphasizes tragic aspects of his original Japanese American community in Hawaii. The poem begins as the persona drives to the cemetery of his ancestors on Hawaii. He is accompanied by an unidentified guest, who may be the wife of the author who joined Hongo on his first return to Hawaii when he was in his thirties, or a close friend, or a poetic stand-in for the reader. The path toward the cemetery leads to images of decay, such as a rusting sugar mill, a derelict gas station, a ghost town, and an abandoned golf course. Nature is reclaiming human artifacts including, in a hint at the violence revealed at the poem’s end, houses once guarded with shotguns.
Once the two people enter the graveside past three wrecked cars, Hongo describes the remnants of this Japanese American Buddhist cemetery. The persona guides his guest as he was guided once as a boy by his aunt. Now, the graves are no longer tended to; there are no more offerings of food and incense to the dead, as is Buddhist custom. Nature itself has contributed to the disturbance of the dead. In 1946, a tsunami destroyed more than half of the graves, washing their content out onto the beach. As Hongo told an audience in Los Angeles in 1992, indigenous Hawaiians knew not to bury their dead by the sea. Yet the white owners of the land allocated only this most useless, infertile area right by the sea to their Japanese American employees in which to bury their dead. The poem’s revelation of the continued ownership of the sacred land by white people contributes to its theme of concern with racial hostility.
Finally, the two visitors reach the grave of Yaeko, grand-aunt of the persona. In an impassioned voice, he reveals how her own father, his great-grandfather, murdered her with the handle of his hoe for sleeping with a Scottish man in the open fields. This shocking murder at the climax of the poem reveals the deep racial and misogynist resentments born out of a discriminatory plantation society. The persona leaves open whether Yaeko loved the Scot or was raped by him, focusing on the shock of her violent murder.
The visitors leave, shamed by the desolate status of the cemetery. It is a visible reminder of their failure to honor their ancestors as prescribed in Buddhism. There is no forgiveness for this failure, just as there is no forgiveness for the murder of Yaeko. As the two visitors depart, they are moved by the violence of the past and saddened by the neglect of the present, where only the once violent sea soothingly speaks to the dead.
Bibliography
Gunew, Sneja. “Gendered Reading Tactics: Public Intellectuals and Community in Diaspora.” Resources for Feminist Research 29, nos. 3/4 (Fall/Winter, 2001): 57-73.
Hongo, Garrett. “A Vicious Kind of Tenderness: An Interview with Garrett Hongo.” Interview by Alice Evans. Poets and Writers 20, no. 5 (September/October, 1992): 36-46.
Ikeda, Stewart David. “The Open Boat: Poems from Asian America.” Ploughshares 20, no. 1 (Spring, 1994): 202-205.
Jarman, Mark. Review of Volcano: A Memoir of Hawai’i, by Garrett Hongo. The Southern Review 32, no. 2 (Spring, 1996): 337-344.
Monaghan, Peter. “How a Small, Nondescript Writing Program Achieved Distinction.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 44, no. 33 (April 24, 1998): A13-A15.
Muratori, Fred. Review of The River of Heaven, by Garrett Hongo. Library Journal 113 (May 1, 1988): 81-82.
Pettingell, Phoebe. “The River of Heaven.” The New Leader 71, no. 10 (June 13, 1988): 16.
Schultz, Robert. “Passionate Virtuosity.” Hudson Review 42 (Spring, 1992): 149-157.
Slowik, Mary. “Beyond Lot’s Wife: The Immigration Poems of Marilyn Chin, Garrett Hongo, Li-Young Lee, and David Mura.” MELUS 25, nos. 3/4 (Fall/Winter, 2000): 221-242.
Yu, Larry. “Under Western Eyes: Personal Essays from Asian America.” Amerasia Journal 22, no. 3 (Winter, 1996): 169-172.