Chap­ter 18 intro­duces the ear­ly life of Daniel, who, despite being born dead in 1924, was revived by a deter­mined mid­wife in a Hawai­ian slum. His moth­er, exhaust­ed but full of faith, named him after the bib­li­cal Daniel, known for his resilience in the face of great adver­si­ty. Daniel’s fam­i­ly had immi­grat­ed to Hawaii from Japan in 1899, dri­ven by a large debt incurred by his great-grand­fa­ther, Wasaburo. A fire had destroyed homes in their vil­lage, forc­ing Wasaburo’s son, Asa­kichi, to leave Japan and work on a sug­ar­cane plan­ta­tion in Hawaii to repay the debt. How­ev­er, the wages were low, and it proved dif­fi­cult for the fam­i­ly to pay off the debt, result­ing in years of strug­gle. This hard­ship shaped Daniel’s ear­ly under­stand­ing of per­se­ver­ance and the chal­lenges his fam­i­ly faced as they built a new life in a for­eign land.

Over time, Asa­kichi sought to gen­er­ate extra income by build­ing a bath­house, while his wife made tofu cakes to sup­port their fam­i­ly. Their son, Hyotaro, was raised in this envi­ron­ment, where the bur­den of debt was ever-present, yet he still pur­sued edu­ca­tion. Despite his hard work, the fam­i­ly remained in finan­cial dif­fi­cul­ty, with years of labor con­tribut­ing lit­tle to ease their strug­gles. Hyotaro mar­ried Kame, and togeth­er they wel­comed Daniel into their hum­ble home, where he would grow up with a strong sense of famil­ial duty, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and the lessons of hard­ship passed down from his ances­tors. These expe­ri­ences influ­enced Daniel’s char­ac­ter and deter­mi­na­tion, shap­ing him into a resilient indi­vid­ual who would lat­er face even greater chal­lenges.

Daniel’s child­hood was marked by pover­ty, and he often felt unat­trac­tive, but he shared his expe­ri­ences with class­mates, who, like him, strug­gled with pover­ty. This made him real­ize that he was not alone in his strug­gles. Hawai­ian schools were infor­mal­ly seg­re­gat­ed by lan­guage, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact­ed Daniel’s access to qual­i­ty edu­ca­tion. In response, his par­ents made the deci­sion to switch to speak­ing Eng­lish at home to help him bet­ter inte­grate into the edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem. This deci­sion was dri­ven by their desire to pro­vide Daniel with the best pos­si­ble oppor­tu­ni­ties, despite the bar­ri­ers they faced as an immi­grant fam­i­ly. Through their efforts, Daniel was able to nav­i­gate the edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, set­ting the stage for his lat­er suc­cess­es.

A piv­otal moment in Daniel’s life occurred when he suf­fered a severe arm injury, which required med­ical atten­tion. After a failed ini­tial treat­ment, Daniel was for­tu­nate to receive a suc­cess­ful surgery thanks to Dr. Craig, who for­gave the cost of the oper­a­tion in exchange for Daniel’s promise to be a dili­gent stu­dent. This act of kind­ness left a last­ing impres­sion on Daniel and inspired him to pur­sue a career in med­i­cine, par­tic­u­lar­ly surgery. His grat­i­tude for the doctor’s gen­eros­i­ty fueled his ambi­tion, and he aspired to become a sur­geon him­self. This event marked a turn­ing point in Daniel’s life, solid­i­fy­ing his desire to serve oth­ers and give back to the com­mu­ni­ty that had sup­port­ed him dur­ing his strug­gles.

As Daniel con­tin­ued his edu­ca­tion, he devel­oped inter­ests in his­to­ry, music, and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. These pas­sions allowed him to grow not only aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly but also social­ly, as he became involved in var­i­ous activ­i­ties aimed at improv­ing his com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, his life was dra­mat­i­cal­ly altered on Decem­ber 7, 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Har­bor. The attack shat­tered the peace of Hawaii and changed the course of Daniel’s life and the lives of many oth­ers in the Hawai­ian com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly those of Japan­ese descent. The after­math of the attack brought chaos to Hon­olu­lu, and Daniel imme­di­ate­ly rushed to help, using his first aid train­ing to assist the injured. This expe­ri­ence exposed him to the vio­lence and tragedy of war, but it also high­light­ed the resilience and strength of the Hawai­ian peo­ple in the face of adver­si­ty.

Amidst the tur­moil and the dis­crim­i­na­tion faced by Japan­ese Amer­i­cans, Daniel’s actions demon­strat­ed the courage and deter­mi­na­tion that he had inher­it­ed from his fam­i­ly. The fear and sus­pi­cion direct­ed at Japan­ese Amer­i­cans in the U.S. could have bro­ken the spir­it of many, but Daniel’s resolve only strength­ened in the face of these chal­lenges. His com­mit­ment to ser­vice, dri­ven by a sense of love and grat­i­tude, remained unwa­ver­ing, and he con­tin­ued to embody the val­ues of resilience and per­se­ver­ance. This chap­ter sets the stage for Daniel’s com­plex jour­ney, high­light­ing his sur­vival of both per­son­al and his­tor­i­cal strug­gles, and empha­sizes his life­long com­mit­ment to ser­vice in a world that often seemed bro­ken. His expe­ri­ences dur­ing the attack on Pearl Har­bor and his sub­se­quent actions reflect his deep under­stand­ing of the impor­tance of com­mu­ni­ty and self­less­ness, traits that would define his future endeav­ors.