From Ghosts of Honolulu: A Japanese Spy, A Japanese American Spy Hunter, and the Untold Story of Pearl Harbor, by Mark Harmon and Leon Carroll, Jr. (Harper Select, 2023), Kindle p. 13:
It’s the second inning of the scoreless Americans of Japanese Ancestry championship game, played before a packed house. AJA games have been a staple of Hawaiian sports since 1909, and starting for a team is a high-profile position for the university student. Sunday games are major events in Honolulu; most draw about a thousand fans who pay a quarter each to watch. Since the stadium costs just one hundred dollars to rent, profits are guaranteed. There’s even more action to be found in the illegal (but tolerated) betting pools that spring up in and around the stadium.
Today’s game is more than a typical matchup. Wada plays for the Wahiawas, who haven’t won a championship in the twelve years of the league’s existence, and today they’re squaring off against their rivals, the Palamas.
The AJA League is a very public, popular expression of Nisei pride. There’s an outcry in 1936 when the Japanese American owner of the Asahis team appoints Neal “Rusty” Blaisdell as coach. “The Asahis have always been the only strictly one-race team,” writes Hawaii Hochi sports reporter Percy Koizumi. “The Asahis have a tradition to uphold. You might pass this up as a lot of hocus-pocus entertained by fossil-headed fans, but you’d be surprised to see how empty the stands will be if these fossil-heads decide to keep away.” (Blaisdell kept the job [and became mayor of Honolulu, 1955-69].)
Behind the Wahiawas-Palamas rivalry is intra-Nisei racial tension. After some hand-wringing, the AJA League leadership allowed mixed-race players, provided that they have the proper Japanese surnames of their fathers. Not every team holds to the same rules: the Palamas are a mixed-race team, while the Wahiawas are not.
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