Karleen C. Chinen
Commentary

Welcome to Part 1 of The Hawai‘i Herald’s 35th anniversary edition!

When managing editor Gwen Battad Ishikawa and I began tossing around ideas about how we would celebrate this milestone anniversary in print, I knew it would involve going into the Herald’s archives of over 800 issues so that our subscribers and readers could see the depth and breadth of the stories the Herald has covered in its 35 years of publishing “Hawai‘i’s Japanese American Journal.” Gwen suggested that we also do short profiles on what had become of the former Hawai‘i Herald staff writers and editors whose gift for sharing interesting, informative and inspiring stories had brought us this far. So began our quest to contact as many writers and editors as we could locate, find out what had become of their lives and ask them to choose a story that they had written while at the Herald that had moved them, or inspired them, or that they had really enjoyed writing because of the subject.

Hello. Had we lost our marbles?! What were we thinking when we settled on that brilliant idea — that we had a staff of 12, instead of just two?! But i mua! . . . gambare! . . . we charged forward and between our regular issues, sent out emails and made phone calls, hunting down the former Herald staffers. What’s that cliché . . . Be careful what you wish for. We received responses from 22 writers and editors. Twenty-two! There was no way we could fit all 22 stories into one issue . . . which is why we split this 35th anniversary edition into two parts — 11 stories in Part 1, and 11 stories in Part 2, which will be published on July 1.

Former Hawaii Hochi president Paul Yempuku displays a framed version of a City Bank ad congratulating (top to bottom) Hawaii Hochi founder Fred Kinzaburo Makino, Shizuoka Shimbun presidents Konosuke Oishi and his son Masumitsu and Hawaii Hochi president Paul Yempuku on the company’s 75th anniversary.

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Karleen C. Chinen
Commentary

I don’t spend too much time worrying about how many more years of publishing life lie ahead for the Herald. Frankly speaking, it’s not a decision that I have much control over. Besides, there’s enough to do, getting us from one issue to the next, just two weeks away in most cases, while also lining up stories and freelance writers for future issue.

But once in a while, I’ll get a big jolt that will shake me up for a while. Such was the case a few months ago regarding the dire situation facing the Los Angeles-based Rafu Shimpo, the longest-running Japanese American newspaper in the United States with 113 years of history behind it. Our Ja-panese language sister-publication Hawai‘i Hochi, established in 1912, is a close second with 104 years this December. Of the more than a dozen Japanese-language newspapers that were once published, only the Hawaii Hochi and the Rafu Shimpo continue to publish as almost-daily newspapers today.

In her April 5 column, the Rafu’s English editor, Gwen Muranaka, revealed that the newspaper has nine months — basically by year’s end — to turn its finances around, or the newspaper will be forced to close. What might save the Rafu is if it can sign up at 10,000 subscribers for its online edition. (I plan to do that after this 35th edition goes to press.)

It’s not uncommon in these digital days for newspapers to switch to a digital-only format, or worse, to completely cease publishing. If it’s rough for a mainstream English-language newspaper to stay alive, it’s many times harder for small ethnic community publications like the Rafu Shimpo and The Hawai‘i Herald. The demographics don’t work in our favor, although I think the Herald’s all-English format gives it a slight edge.

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Glenn Wakai
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

I entered this world as Mitsuru Shimabukuro. My mom, originally from Okinawa, gave birth to me in Tökyö when she was 16 years old. As a child herself, she was in no position to care for me. Reluctantly, she left me in the care of an orphanage, hoping to reclaim me later. That never happened, and I was sent to Hawai‘i, where I was adopted by Calvin and Ruth Wakai, who allowed me to rewrite my destiny and live the American Dream.

My life’s journey has been filled with anguish, mystery, hope and happiness. I was 5 years old when my parents told me that I was adopted, so I grew up knowing I was adopted. Still, it was my deepest secret. During my hanabata days, I viewed it as a “disability” and thought I would be bullied. But it was easy to hide because I looked like my adoptive parents. They treated me like their own child and I viewed them as my God-given parents.

They were both Nisei. My father, Calvin, from Kapa’a, spent 35 years with Bank of Hawai‘i. My mother, Ruth, from Hilo, was a flight attendant for Pan American World Airways. One of her roles was to care for unaccompanied orphans from Japan and Korea on their way to America. Once they landed in Honolulu, her job was done. However, instead of leaving them at the airport for their connecting flight to the Mainland, my mom would take them home — bathe them, feed them and tuck them into bed. The next morning, she would take them back to the airport and send them off to begin their new lives in America. Today, that would be considered kidnapping. Back then, however, it was the right thing to do.

My parents could not have their own biological children, so it’s not surprising that they would adopt. They had planned on having just one child and adopted my older sister Sachi. But Sachi begged to have a little brother, and that’s how I ended up in Hawai‘i.

I was always curious about my past, but felt it was disrespectful to bring up the subject at home. I just went on with my life. I had a wonderful childhood growing up in Moanalua Valley. My mom and dad were strict, but always supportive of my unorthodox aspirations.

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Yoko Boughton and son Glenn at the Makapuu lookout in October 2014 during their first reunion since his birth 46 years earlier.

Enjoying a beer in Okinawa last November. From left: David and Michael (Glenn’s half-brother) Boughton, Glenn and Miki Wakai and Yoko Boughton.

In October 2015, Glenn Wakai and his mother had the opportunity to meet with Japan’s Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, in Tökyö.

Lorraine Oda
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

A sansei from Pearl City is sharing some of Hawai‘i’s favorite dishes in the faraway land where he now makes his home. Ryan Shibuya, whose restaurant, Hoku, located in the Punavuori/Eira District of Helsinki, Finland, is attracting curious diners who are finding that there’s a lot to like in such Hawai‘i favorites as Loco Moco and Bi Bim Bap and traditional Japanese fare like Tataki and Gyoza.

Shibuya has been serving up aloha in Finland for the past four years, much to the delight of Finnish locals and visitors alike. Many of the tourists are from Japan and China, and they love the unique flavors of Hoku’s Asian-European fusion cuisine.

Chef Ryan Shibuya in the comfortable surroundings of his restaurant.

Shibuya was back in the Islands a few months ago to purchase made-in-Hawai‘i decor and kitchenware for the second — and bigger — Hoku restaurant he plans to open in Helsinki by year’s end. His family joined him to reconnect with relatives and friends on O‘ahu.

How is it that Shibuya ended up in Finland, of all places? The answer is love.

After graduating from Pearl City High School in 1986, Shibuya enrolled at Hawai‘i Pacific University in Honolulu, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis in computer science. He also worked part-time at Finance Enterprises, working on developing marketing databases for banking customers.

While attending night classes at HPU, Shibuya met a Finnish student named Satu. Concerned for her safety catching the bus at night, he offered to drive her home. Their friendship turned into love, and in 1992, the couple married. Over the years, they had three sons, two of whom were born in Hawai‘i. Ryan and Satu gave them Finnish first names and Japanese middle names.

After graduating from HPU, Shibuya had accepted a full-time job at Finance Enterprises, using technology for marketing. He eventually moved on to City Bank, where he was appointed an assistant vice president, and then worked as a marketing manager for Hawaii State Federal Credit Union.

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Hoku’s soba topped with shrimp. (Photos courtesy of the Shibuya family)

Hoku’s Beef Tataki.

Oxtail Adobo by Hoku.

Hoku’s Bi Bim Bap creation.

Karleen C. Chinen

Thirty. “Thirty” is a number that comes up often in conversations about Barbara F. Kawakami’s long-awaited book, “Picture Bride Stories.” That is how long the methodical Kawakami has been working on this treasure of a book. Published by University of Hawai‘i Press in late July, “Picture Bride Stories” brings to life the hardscrabble lives of the 21,000 young women (plus 1,000 from Korea) who left their small village homes in Japan and Okinawa and ventured across the Pacific Ocean to become the wives of men they knew only through a photograph.

It is the kind of book that college students hope their professors will assign them to read — it’s informative, relevant, inspiring, heartwarming . . . meaningful. Kawakami, who turned 95 in August, was moved to see the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i’s Manoa Grand Ballroom packed with people who yearned to hear the stories of the picture brides at the book’s July launch.

Ironically, Kawakami never set out to capture their stories. In 1979, during her senior year at the University of Hawai‘i at Mänoa, she began interviewing Issei women for a fashion design and merchandising class project on Japanese immigrant clothing in Hawai‘i. Having spent the first half of her life growing up on an O‘ahu sugar plantation and working as a seamstress, it was a subject she was comfortable researching. She was confident that her interview subjects would readily share information about their clothing in tape-recorded interviews. Because of her plantation background, she was familiar with the various prefectural dialects the women spoke, as well as the pidgin they had picked up over the years.

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Picture bride Ushi Tamashiro was only 39 years old when her husband Jintaro died, leaving her to singlehandedly raise their seven children. (Photo from “Picture Bride Stories”)

“Picture Bride Stories” author Barbara Kawakami with her supportive children — daughter Fay Toyama and sons Steve (left) and Gary.

Melissa Tanji
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald 

Calvin Shibuya with a tray of freshly made stick donuts. The stick donut is the bakery’s top seller these days. It is sold individually from the glass case along with guava malasadas and plain malasadas. The stick donuts are also sold in bigger volumes in plastic bags. (Photos by Melissa Tanji)

T. Komoda Store & Bakery in the Upcountry Maui town of Makawao is celebrating the kind of milestone family-run mom-and-pop businesses

Ikuo Komoda was the only family member to receive professional baking training on the Mainland. In this photo, he decorates a cake. (Photos courtesy the Komoda family)

rarely achieve: its centennial. Yes, 100 years in business. And the Komoda family is still churning out its signature cream puffs and stick donuts the old-fashioned way — by hand, and with a whole lot a heart.

Located on Baldwin Avenue, just a stone’s throw away from the Baldwin/Makawao Avenue intersection, T. Komoda Store & Bakery continues to produce homemade-style pastries that sell out hours before the store closes. The store’s issei founders, Takezo and Shigeri Komoda, established the business as a general store in 1916, selling everything from horseshoes to fabric. Against the odds, Komoda Store has weathered Maui’s ever-evolving economy and demographics, holding its own against stiff competition from such heavily marketed corporate giants as Krispy Kreme, big-box and chain grocery stores and fancy bake shops on the Valley Isle, proving it can compete. In 2009, Komoda Store & Bakery received the Small Business Administration’s Maui County family-owned business award.

Ikuo Komoda watches closely as dough is mixed in the only mechanized part of the operation.

Today, Betty Shibuya, a granddaughter of the founders, and her husband Calvin run the business. Betty, who handles the retail operation, said her ancestors would be surprised to know that the business they started a century ago is still alive — and thriving.

“It doesn’t seem like a hundred years,” she said, laughing.

“I never thought about the bakery reaching 100 years old until maybe six years ago,” added Calvin Shibuya, Komoda’s baker and general manager.

“I started back in 1990 — I was the late comer. I was going to go to baking school. (But) I was told, ‘No, don’t waste your time going to baking school.’”

Calvin had retired from the U.S. Air Force and was contemplating a second career as a commercial airline pilot, until he caught the eye of the Komoda family.

He said he learned how to bake on the job. Ikuo Komoda, Betty’s late uncle and the store’s primary baker at the time, was his main teacher. It was

Ikuo who developed the recipe for the cream puffs and the popular pastries, most of which Komoda’s did not offer until he returned to Maui from baking school on the Mainland in 1950. Ikuo was the only one in the family that received professional training. He developed the bakery’s signature pastry recipes after returning home.

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Bakery worker Wendy Okamura (at cash register) waits on a customer while Betty Shibuya (in background) reaches for pastries in the case.

Some turnovers remain in the glass case some three hours after the store’s opening at 7 a.m.

Komoda Store & Bakery is located on Baldwin Avenue in Makawao. The line of customers waiting to buy rolls, cakes and pies often flows outside the store and down the street.

Roy Kimura
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

Director Tadashi Nakamura: “. . . the opportunity to work with the Hawaiian community . . . was not only a great film, but an opportunity for me to just develop my own sensitivity, my own knowledge, of the land and the people of a place that I choose to come to all the time.” (Photo by Evan Loney)

“Mele Murals” is a documentary directed, produced and edited by Tadashi “Tad” Nakamura (director also of “Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings”). The film was co-produced by ‘Öiwi TV and Pacific Islanders in Communications, in association with the Center for Asian American Media. ‘Öiwi co-founder Keoni Lee served as executive producer. The straightforward synopsis of the film is that it chronicles the journey of two graffiti artists from Honolulu who travel to a Hawaiian-focused public charter school on Hawai‘i island to teach its students how to express themselves by creating murals. Their collaborative effort is called Mele Murals, from which the film gets its name. Simple story, right?

Veteran graffiti artist Estria Miyashiro says the art was once “the ultimate of ego.” However, working on the Mele Murals with the students of Kanu o Ka ‘Äina public charter school turned into a life-changing experience for both himself and fellow artist John “Prime” Hina. (Photo by Evan Loney)

But if you know anything about “Mele Murals” director Tad Nakamura, you know that the yonsei director doesn’t tell simple stories.

And in “Mele Murals,” they choose to use their experience in creating art and passion for their Hawaiian culture to teach students how to express themselves through graffiti. The effect of the process and the completed works of art on the students is as compelling an argument for supporting arts education as any I’ve ever seen.

“Mele Murals” can also be regarded as a tip-of-the-iceberg introduction to an appreciation of Hawaiian culture. While the students’ education at the Waimea charter school, Kanu o Ka ‘Äina, is replete with Hawaiian language, dance and music, Estria and Prime, with guidance from native Hawaiian practitioner Aunty Pua Case, culturally expand the students’ minds and hearts even more during the creation of the murals. A visit to the summit of Mauna Kea with Aunty Pua helps to provide a better understanding of Poli‘ahu, a Hawaiian goddess of snow — a main character in one of the murals. Estria and Prime don’t just let the students paint without purpose. Rather, they guide the students through a process of choosing Hawaiian songs (thus the word Mele in the title, which means “song” in Hawaiian language) on which to base their murals, to visualize the meanings of the song’s lyrics and to open their creative minds to outside, sometimes mystical influences.

“To me, the opportunity to work with the Hawaiian community . . . was not only a great film, but an opportunity for me to just develop my own sensitivity, my own knowledge, of the land and the people of a place that I choose to come to all the time. I’ve always felt a connection, and I felt I needed to do due diligence to understand this place that I come to a lot deeper,” Nakamura explained.

He credits ‘Öiwi TV with teaching him about the native Hawaiian community and providing entrée to the small town of Waimea and people who live there.

Little Kana‘i Tolentino “listens” to a wall. Miyashiro and Hina guided the students of Kanu o Ka ‘Äina public charter school through a process of choosing Hawaiian songs on which to base their murals. (Photo by Evan Loney)

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Director Steven Okazaki: “. . . [H]is (Mifune’s) appeal was never limited by ethnic boundaries: I have Latino friends who were just as excited as I was when they heard I was making this movie.” (Photo courtesy Steven Okazaki)

Filmmaker Steven Okazaki’s New Film Highlights the Life and Work of the Masterful
Toshiro Mifune

Alan Suemori
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

In 1950, Toshiro Mifune exploded upon the world stage, delivering an epic performance in Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa’s seminal work, “Rashomon,” which was complex, nuanced and unforgettable. Cinema fans had never seen a hero quite like Mifune: savage, comical and completely original — it was as if he had emerged from the very earth itself to embed himself into the cultural consciousness. Mifune and Kurosawa would make 16 films together in 18 years and influence moviemakers and film lovers around the world forever.

“Growing up, I was very conscious of the negative Asian stereotypes that abounded in American culture,” says Academy award-winning film director Steven Okazaki, whose latest work, “Mifune: The Last Samurai,” will screen at the Hawaii International Film Festival. “Mifune was the first nonwhite action star. This was way before Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and Shaft. He was cool, and he didn’t take any crap,” said Okazaki in a phone interview from his Bay Area home base. “One day we were playing cowboys and Indians and the next day all we wanted to be were samurai.”

Mifune in “Seven Samurai.”

Okazaki, whose 40-year film career has included groundbreaking movies about the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the HIV and heroin epidemics of the 1980s and ’90s, has crafted a loving but unblinking tribute to Mifune that is also an homage to the Japanese cinematic world that gave birth to him. Narrated by actor Keanu Reeves and featuring insights from Hollywood directors Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese, “Mifune: The Last Samurai” incorporates personal interviews with the actor’s family, friends and co-workers, along with long-lost chanbara (sword fighting genre) film clips to tell the improbable story of the greatest Japanese film star of the 20th century.

Toshiro Mifune influenced the work of such Hollywood actors as Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman and Bruce Willis.

“As a child, I loved samurai movies, and Mifune was always an important figure to the Japanese American community,” says Okazaki. “But his appeal was never limited by ethnic boundaries: I have Latino friends who were just as excited as I was when they heard I was making this movie.”

Born in 1920 in Tsingtao, China, and raised in Dalian, Mifune did not enter Japan until he was drafted into the Japanese imperial army in World War II. The 21-year-old Mifune would serve as a low-ranking military instructor until the end of the war, when he was given a half-yen, a single blanket and discharged into the twilight of postwar Japan.

Hungry for work, Mifune applied for a job as an assistant cameraman at Toho Studios. At the time, Toho was churning out dozens of movies per year and was desperate for actors. Mifune was quickly cast in bit parts until he was spotted by Akira Kurosawa, who immediately recognized his talent.

In postwar Japan, Mifune applied for a cameraman position at Toho Studios, but was instead hired as an actor playing bit roles.

“Kurosawa was heavily influenced by the westerns of John Ford and he was looking for an actor who could understand his vision and capture what he wanted to say on film,” Okazaki explained. Mifune would turn out to be the perfect partner who could mirror Kurosawa’s drive, energy and attention to detail. At a time when Japanese films were done cheaply and quickly, Kurosawa and Mifune were perfectionists.

To read the rest of this article, please subscribe to The Herald!

Toshiro Mifune (right) and director Akira Kurosawa shared a common vision when it came to filmmaking. They made 16 films together within a span of 18 years. (Photos courtesy HIFF)

“We are a Model of What America Can Become,” Former UH President Fujio Matsuda Tells Young Vision Crafters

Dr. Fujio Matsuda
Published with Permission

Editor’s note: What does the future hold for Hawai‘i? Is it a future that we will stumble into que sera sera — whatever will be will be — style, or will it be one based on a broad, well thought through vision for our island state? That is the weighty question now being considered by a task force made up of members of HAPA — the Hawaii Asia Pacific Association — and the Kamehameha Schools. Representing HAPA in the crafting of this vision are the young executives of its various member-organizations, their counterparts from the Kamehameha Schools and leaders in the native Hawaiian community. The result of their sharing of experiences, perspectives, and hopes and dreams for Hawai‘i’s future will be presented in a book and a documentary film to be shared with the general public early next summer.

But the work will not end there. The young vision team will continue to work together on a public service project and also meet with other leadership groups in Hawai‘i to map out strategies for implementing the vision over the next three generations.

The following is a shortened version of Matsuda’s talk to the young leaders, which followed Dator’s presentation. Our thanks to Dr. Matsuda for allowing us to share the text of his presentation with our readers. To read Dr. Matsuda’s full speech, please subscribe to The Herald!

“It is a perspective that I acquired through osmosis — a full immersion process that transformed me from a Japanese immigrant background to a Japanese Hawaiian. It started early in my life through contact with native Hawaiians and immigrant kids from other countries.

I was fortunate to have been born and raised in Kaka‘ako, a society of immigrants from many Pacific, Asian and American (European) ethnic and cultural traditions. Kaka‘ako is a small community located adjacent to and east of the civic center and harbor of Honolulu, the government and commercial center of the state of Hawai‘i. The original American immigrants (haole) were New England missionaries. The second-generation kids of immigrants spoke their native tongues at home and Pidgin English at the playgrounds and in school. Pidgin English was recently declared to be a legitimate language. We were all bilingual at an early age! English was a “foreign language” we had to learn at Pohukaina Elementary School.

We played, went to school, grew up together and dated when we became teenagers, completely color-blind. I had as many Chinese girl friends as I did Japanese girl friends at a time when China and Japan were bitter enemies. The common denominator in our friendship was Hawai‘i, our adopted land.

What I did not understand at that time was that this could only happen in Hawai‘i, with its warm, welcoming people and culture. I was thinking only of immigrant families and how we got along. It’s like looking at the ingredients of a delicious pot of stew and forgetting the pot and the stove and the people who provided them so we could make the stew. [ … ]

Dr. Fujio Matsuda (right table, center) listens with interest as a multiethnic people at least two generations younger than himself share their views on Hawai‘i’s future.

America is a democracy where diverse races and cultures try to live peacefully together. But we see our democracy unraveling into self-destructive factions fighting for political and economic control. We don’t have time to discuss this today, but in thinking about our future, that is an initial condition that we must start from and have to deal with.

I like to think of the future in terms of generations. In Hawai‘i, the racial and cultural mix in individuals change with each succeeding generation. [ … ]

We are a color-blind society that has transcended traditional racial and cultural barriers, by no means perfect. We tend to be much more tolerant and accepting than other communities that have not achieved the racial blending to the degree we have. That this happened in Hawai‘i is no accident, I believe. The Hawaiian values of aloha and ‘ohana provided the environment within which this melding took place.” – Dr. Fujio Matsuda

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Japanese Americans Were Forced to Fight Two Battles in World War II

Karleen C. Chinen

On this 75th anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, many people are seeking out the newspapers of December 1941 for the valuable point-in-time perspective they present.

The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin weren’t the only newspapers publishing on O‘ahu in 1941. There were two Japanese language newspapers — The Hawaii Hochi (publisher of today’s Hawai‘i Herald) and the Nippu Jiji. The Hawaii Hochi was a Monday through Saturday paper, so its first edition after the Pearl Harbor attack was published on Monday, Dec. 8, 1941. At least three of the six-pages were devoted to the Dec. 7 attack. The edition contained only one page of news in Japanese; everything else was published in English, much of it from the United Press Association (forerunner of the United Press International wire service). [ … ]

Hawaii Hochi editor Fred Kinzaburo Makino also penned an editorial titled: “This is Our War.” In it, he wrote: “Regardless of citizenship or race, every inhabitant of Hawaii must regard himself as loyal to the country that is his home and must so conduct himself that no suspicion or odium will fall upon him or the section of the community of which he is a part.”

The Pearl Harbor 75th anniversary commemoration will also honor the veterans who served in the four Japanese American military units in World War II — the 100th Infantry Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, Military Intelligence Service and the 1399th Engineer Construction Battalion — at a banquet on Monday, Dec. 5, at the Hawai‘i Convention Center. The theme for the banquet is: “Fighting Two Wars: Japanese American Veterans Tribute.”

The organizers could not have selected a more fitting theme for this opportunity to honor the men who proved, with their lives, their loyalty to America as an official Pearl Harbor commemoration event. For most of the men in the 100th Infantry Battalion, that service to their country had begun even before the first bombs fell on O‘ahu. [ … ]

Varsity Victory Volunteers veterans (from left) Yoshiaki Fujitani, Ted Tsukiyama, Akira Otani and Takashi Kajihara in February 2015 with UH ROTC cadets at a ceremony honoring the VVV in the Queen Lili‘uokalani Center for Student Services at UH-Mänoa.

Time and time again, the Nisei — even those not yet in the Army — demonstrated their loyalty to America.

On the morning of Dec. 7, Akira Otani was helping his father prepare for the grand opening of their family’s new fish market in Chinatown. As he bustled about, he saw the flames and smoke over Pearl Harbor and the red hinomaru flag of Japan painted on the attacking planes flying overhead. In a February 2012 interview with the Herald, Otani said he remembered “swearing the dickens” at the planes.

He was 21-year-old senior at the time, majoring in business at the University of Hawai‘i. Otani dropped everything and reported to the territorial armory, located at the present site of the State Capitol, to volunteer his services. He’d had two years of ROTC training at UH and wanted to help.

After doing all he could for the day, Otani headed home that evening. He arrived just as his Issei father, Matsujiro Otani, was being led away at gunpoint by two FBI agents. His father was dressed in his evening yukata (cotton kimono).

His mother Kane ran after them, pleading with the agents to let her go with her husband. The agents turned and pointed their guns at her. Otani said his mother ran back into the house, quickly gathered up some clothes, a coat and shoes for her husband and rushed back out. When the agents stopped her from handing him the clothes, she threw them into the car before it sped away.

“I saw my father taken at gunpoint and, in spite of that, the next day I volunteered for this (Hawai‘i Territorial Guard), said Otani, who is president of United Fishing Agency, the company founded by his father. “Some people call me stupid. I felt my country had been attacked and never mind who the enemy was — I go.”

Matsujiro Otani’s only crime was being Japanese — and a successful businessman who dealt with fishermen. He hadn’t committed any crime.

Akira Otani did not see his father again until he used an Army furlough to visit him at the Santa Fe Internment Camp in New Mexico, the first of three Mainland camps in which his father was imprisoned over a period of four years.

To read Author, Karleen Chinen’s, “Personal Connection”, please read the full article by subscribing to The Herald!

There was a job for everyone making Flying Saucers at Lihue Hongwanji in June 2016. Workers in the front row grill the Flying Saucers. In the second row, workers can be seen buttering the slices of bread. (Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island)

Gerald Hirata
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

In the last few years, there have been published reports of Flying Saucer sightings on Kaua‘i. But the community here doesn’t seem to be at all concerned. In fact, they can’t seem to get enough of them.

In 2014, Dennis Fujimoto, a photographer/writer for The Garden Island newspaper, mentioned it briefly in the Kaua‘i daily. And, just last year, an ad in The Hawai‘i Herald announcing the 2015 Soto Zen Temple’s Obon Festival noted that the Hanapëpë temple is “the original home of the Flying Saucer.” There is a long and curious story about the origins of this unique and yummy food item.

Flying Saucers are checked to see whether they’ve finished cooking. (Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island)

What’s a Flying Saucer, you ask upon learning that I am not referring to the unidentified flying object variety.

Generally speaking, it is the most popular food item served at bon dance festivals here on Kaua‘i. People who attend bon dances on O‘ahu, Maui or the Big Island concede that it is “a Kaua‘i thing.” I would have to agree. The only Flying Saucers I’ve heard of and have consumed have been on the Garden Isle.

Kaua‘i’s Flying Saucers can be described as a Sloppy Joe — but not from a can! — sandwich that is grilled into the shape of a flying saucer with a pie iron. The Sloppy Joe mixture of ground beef, onions, ketchup, shoyu, sugar and black pepper is poured over a slice of buttered white bread with a slice of American cheese and topped with another piece of buttered white bread. The outer crust of the bread is removed and the encased sandwich is then grilled on both sides over a low flame.

The Flying Saucers cooking line at the Kauai Soto Zen Temple bon dance this past July. (Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island)

If you attend a bon dance festival on Kaua‘i, look for the food booth with the longest line. More likely than not, it’s the one selling Flying Saucers. Plan on a long wait in line and keep your fingers crossed that the Flying Saucers don’t sell out before you reach the front of the line. If you’re lucky enough to get one, your perseverance will be rewarded when you take that first bite. It will be a heavenly, out-of-this-world experience!

In all honesty, I was the source Dennis Fujimoto quoted in his article. I was also the person who submitted the ad to the Herald last year. Why? Because I am intrigued by this Flying Saucer phenomenon. Since retiring and returning to Kaua‘i, I have been frequenting bon dance festivals and checking out the food booths for the last seven years or so.

I got hooked on the Flying Saucer — not just the delicious sandwich, but also its mysterious history.

Discover the rest of the mystery and even a FLYING SAUCER recipe by subscribing to The Herald!

Flying Saucers ready for packing at Lihue Hongwanji. (Dennis Fujimoto/The Garden Island

Gail Honda
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

ProjectFocusHawaii co-founders Laurie Callies (third from left) and Lisa Uesugi (far right) with Fujifilm Hawaii supporters (from left) Kalani Kam, Teri Cristobal, Freddy Debebar and company vice president George Otsuka. (Photos by Gail Honda)

Hundreds of Wahiawä residents gathered under the stars at the Wahiawä Hongwanji Mission on a cool, crisp Dec. 10 evening for a reception celebrating the debut of a photography exhibit highlighting the former pineapple plantation town’s rich history and its beloved küpuna (elders) and students. The exhibit, titled “Crossing Bridges,” featured stories and photographs of 24 Wahiawä küpuna who were interviewed and photographed by students from Island Pacific Academy, Wahiawä Middle School, Leilehua High School and a college student with Wahiawä roots. The event was hosted by ProjectFocus Hawaii and the Wahiawä Community Based Development Organization.

Event attendees enjoy the photo banners in the Wahiawa Hongwanji social hall.

“Wahiawä has such a rich and bountiful history,” said ProjectFocus Hawaii co-founder and executive director Laura Callies. “We wanted to bring küpuna and students together so that this younger generation of the Wahiawä community could sit down with their elders and listen to their stories of growing up. The title, ‘Crossing Bridges,’ is very apt, as the only way to enter or exit Wahiawä is by one of two bridges. The title also connotes building bridges between the küpuna and students, separated by at least two generations.”

ProjectFocus Hawaii president and co-founder Lisa Uesugi is from Wahiawä, as is her husband Darin Uesugi, who is president of the Wahiawä Community Based Development Organization. WCBDO and PFH partnered in making the intergenerational vision a reality. Darin Uesugi said the project supports the WCBDO’s mission.

Jim and Suzy Peterson of Petersons’ Upland Farm with their photo banner.

“WCBDO is an economic development group which works on projects that improve Wahiawä,” he said. “We want to remember Wahiawä’s rich history, of plantation days and the heyday of the military. We build upon the work of the Wahiawä Historical Society and pass that on to younger generations. We also use that history to boost economic development.”

Displayed in the Hongwanji social hall were 48 beautiful banners, one for each of the 24 küpuna interviewed and one for each of the 24 student interviewers/photographers. Each banner featured a black-and-white photograph of the küpuna or student, their personal story of growing up in Wahiawä and what they love about being from Wahiawä. The photographs of the küpuna were taken by the student with whom they were paired, while the photographs of the students were taken by either Callies or Lisa Uesugi. They used film, not digital, cameras, believing film renders a higher quality image.

Küpuna Edwina Wong with interviewer Makana Gabrielle Baker.

As the students interviewed the elders, they discovered some connections through the kupunä’s personal stories. For example, 76-year-old Edwina Wong, who was born and raised in Wahiawä, told Makana Gabrielle Baker, a Wahiawä Middle School student, that May Day was a very important day when she was growing up. As a result, Wong initiated a May Day program at ‘Iliahi Elementary School in Wahiawä, where she was the librarian until she retired in 1995. It is a tradition that continues to this day, with the entire school dancing hula to the song “Pua ‘Iliahi.” Baker, who spent her elementary school years at ‘Iliahi, cherishes her May Day experiences, which she only recently learned that Wong had established. At the reception, they laughed and hugged each other as they shared fond remembrances of this ‘Iliahi tradition.

Interviewer Sofia Reyes with küpuna Josephine Honda.

Kupuna Richard Sato and interviewer Sachiko Maruyama.

It is these kinds of stories that the nonprofit PFH hopes to engender through its work. PFH was founded in 2005 as a means of giving children and the senior population a healing voice through the medium of photography. Callies and Uesugi are both professional photographers who strive to enhance self-esteem, self-awareness and self-reflection through an annual summer internship program. All of their work is pro bono. Over 12 weeks, and sometimes for even six to eight months, they train students, many of whom are at-risk, in the use of medium format Holga film cameras.

“Photography can provide a safety net between children and the other side,” said Callies. “The children can capture what they’re feeling about their subject without having to say a word. We often ask them to photograph a person who has been important to them and to write why that person has been important. Through this work, families have been brought together and all kinds of great things have happened.”

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Alan Suemori
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

Appropriately named Thousand Island Lake.

Stretching out along the spine of the Sierra Nevadas, the John Muir Trail unwinds like a languorous serpent sunning itself on a lazy afternoon. Those who have completed its entire length have navigated a narrow, winding dreamscape that roller coasters over 14,000-foot mountain peaks only to tumble into 5,000-foot prehistoric canyons. In certain parts of the trail, the very path itself disappears and hikers must resort to landmarks, compasses and dead reckoning to regain their bearings. Stitched together between 1864 and 1938 by multiple generations of surveyors, naturalists and conservationists, the 211-mile trail is a finely woven tapestry of glacier-fed streams, alpine vistas, glittering waterfalls, crystalline lakes and primeval forests. As the trail ascends to the higher elevations, hikers must deal with altitude sickness and lunar-like terrain that is littered underfoot with broken, loose shale rock and shifting gravel. In addition, trekkers must adapt to temperatures that can range from the 70s to near freezing in one day. Separated from hunters and human development, however, the trail has also become a rare sanctuary for a wide assortment of wildlife that now thrive because of their protected habitat.

Nevada Falls, located four miles into the John Muir Trail.

“Hiking the John Muir Trail was my dream since I was a young man in my 20s,” says 67-year-old Keiri Kanbayashi. “I had hiked a small part of the trail when I lived in Berkeley, but I always promised myself that I would hike the entire trail at some point in my life.”

Born in Hayama, Japan, a little coastal village 30 miles south of Tökyö, Kanbayashi spent his childhood on the seashore —swimming, fishing and diving in the Inland Sea. In order to eat, Kanbayashi and his brothers often turned to the ocean to survive, supplementing the family table with the bounty of fish, crabs and lobsters that lay outside their door. “Japan was still suffering from food shortages even until the early ’50s because of the war, so we had no choice but to go to the ocean for food.”

At the age of 22, Kanbayashi left Japan and headed for California, where he hitchhiked across America, slept under highway bypasses at night and lived the wanderer’s life before finally ending up managing a Japanese-owned produce market in Oakland for eight years.

When a good friend invited him to come to Hawai’i to open a small produce store in Kaimukï, Kanbayashi leapt at the chance. The market that Kanbayashi operated on Wai‘alae Avenue is still remembered fondly by old-timers for its quality produce, reasonable prices, easy credit and nontraditional approach to running a business.

“We had a huge bulletin board that was filled with IOUs and promissory notes from our customers. We knew most of our regulars were living on fixed incomes and we had to be flexible and take care of them.” The market quickly became a fixture in the life of Kaimukï town for locals to drop in and talk story as they shopped. Kanbayashi would even reserve part of his day to deliver groceries to many of his customers who were housebound. The conversations that arose from those visits were precious and heart-rendering.

“The best part of my day was delivering the groceries to my customers, because I got to talk to them and really get to know them. They were all remarkable people. All my friends told me this was no way to run a business, but they didn’t understand how much joy it brought me.”

When the market died a natural death after 10 years and the arrival of the big box stores, Kanbayashi’s bilingual skills landed him a job as a reporter at the Japanese-language newspaper, Hawaii Hochi, where he eventually became the editor in chief for six years. When he retired from the newspaper, he began looking for his next challenge, but instead fell into an unexpected rut. “To tell you the truth, I was bored. I’m semiretired, and I do a job that requires just a few hours a day in the morning. My life is lukewarm, and I found myself getting more inactive. I was walking four miles a day, but I had no goal other than to live a few more good years, which is no fun. And then I saw a movie that reminded me of the promise I had made to myself as a young man.”

The film, titled “Mile . . . Mile and a Half,” was a documentary crafted together by sound photographers, videographers and mixed media artists who had trekked from Happy Valley Isle in Yosemite Valley to Mt. Whitney, over 200 miles away, in 25 days. “After I saw this video, I thought this would be impossible for me at my age. These people were in their 30s. At that age, you can do anything because of your mental and physical strength,” says Kanbayashi. “I went to bed wishing I could do it, but accepting that it was impractical. But then I saw a video of high school kids who did it without training. They kept saying that they got stronger as they went on. They did it in 19 days and I started thinking that if I took my time, maybe I could do it, too.”[…]

Devils Postpile National Monument is a wonder to the eye.

The hardest part of the trail, however, came in the final two days as Kanbayashi crossed over Forester Pass, the final gateway before reaching the base of 14,000-foot-high Mt. Whitney.

“It had been raining and thundering all day and you had to hunker down because lightning is attracted to the hiking poles, but I couldn’t wait because the temperature was dropping and it started snowing. As I approached Whitney, the snow stopped, but then it began to hail, so I hid under a tree.”

By then, Kanbayashi’s hands were so cold he couldn’t grasp his hiking poles, so he just dragged them along behind him as he walked. By the time Kanbayashi reached his campsite at Guitar Lake, he was cold, wet and miserable. Luckily, waiting for him, was the trio of young hikers who had befriended him earlier on the journey. “Nathan, Nick and Maegan came out of their tents and helped me make camp although they were just as tired as I was.” The foursome ended up eating dinner together in silence, all of them exhausted and lost in their own thoughts.

That night, it rained continuously and the temperature started to drop. Kanbayashi slept no more than four hours. At 2 a.m., he rose with the others and began to break camp in preparation for the final leg of the trail: the 3,000-foot ascent to the top of Mt. Whitney.

“My fingers were so cracked I couldn’t operate the zipper on my tent, so Maegan and Nick came over and helped me break camp and stuff my belongings into my bag.” By 3:20 that morning, the group began their climb under a becalmed night sky, but soon became separated along the long trail.

“I had told them not to wait for me, but I could see them far ahead because Nathan would stop and shine a light to let me know where they were. I still have the memory of the small lights from the hikers’ headlamps slowly moving up the mountain wall in the total darkness. They looked like fireflies.” […]

“The best part of the trail may have been the people I met along the way. There is a feeling of camaraderie and community up there that is hard to describe. Everything is about paying it forward and helping the next guy rather than just looking out for yourself.”

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Among the people Kanbayashi got to know on the trail was Nathan Kelley from Alabama. Kanbayashi shot this photo of Nathan on the trail at Golden Staircase.

Kanbayashi outside the Muir Hut. A hiker Kanbayashi met on the trail insisted on taking his photo after Kanbayashi had taken his picture in front of the hut.

“Monster Rock” got its name because of the shape of these huge boulders and its scary “teeth” rocks. It is a popular spot for picture-taking, with some hikers climbing in and pretending the monster is consuming them.

Fellow hiker Nathan Kelley shot this photo of Kanbayashi at Wanda Lake, which is named for John Muir’s eldest daughter. (Photo by Nathan Kelley, www.nathan
kelleyphoto.com/John -Muir-Trail-2016)

The John Muir Ranch marks the halfway point of the trail.

“It’s all about paying it forward,” said Keiri Kanbayashi, citing these orange bins as an example. Hikers place their excess food and supplies in the bins for other hikers to help themselves to and use. Kanbayashi found Oreo cookies and M&M’s candies, which gave him a needed boost of energy. As he continued on the hike, he would give a first aid kit to a woman suffering from blisters and another kit to two brothers who needed to mend an inflatable mattress.

A Missed Opportunity Inspires A Commitment to Help Others Touch Their  Ancestral Homeland

Ken Saiki
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

I called my daughter at work and told her the good news: My father had heard that we were headed to Japan on a two-week trip and offered to take us to his furusato. Dad was born in Shiya Village in the former Takata-gun district in rural Hiroshima, where he had spent his childhood days. At the age of 15, he was sent to Hawai‘i for a chance at a better life.

For our Japan trip, Lauri and I had planned to start in Okinawa, then fly to Kagoshima and, without a fixed itinerary, make use of JR Railpasses to get to our final destination, Tökyö. A detour to Takata-gun would truly be a highlight. Grateful for my dad’s offer, I agreed to pick up a JR Railpass for him to use while he traveled partway with us.

I had missed a previous opportunity to visit Hiroshima 30 years earlier. In 1964, as a 21-year-old U.S. Navy ensign, receiving orders to a ship homeported in Yokosuka was a dream come true. I had never been to Japan before and was looking forward to taking full advantage of my assignment, going to all the exotic places I had read and heard about all my life.

Unfortunately, within weeks of arriving at Yokosuka, a pair of North Vietnamese patrol boats opened fire on a U.S. Navy ship in the Tonkin Gulf, and the Vietnam War was on. From then on, my ship would spend months at a time deployed in the South China Sea. So much for my grand plans to visit every scenic spot in Japan. I made it as far west as Ösaka and Kyöto, but not to Hiroshima. Truth be told, at the time, Hiroshima wasn’t on my list of top 10 places I wanted to visit. Hiroshima was my dad’s furusato; my hometown was Honolulu.

But now, 30 years older and a bit wiser, I could better understand the significance of a furusato. More than a hometown, more than just where one happened to have been born and raised, a furusato is a native place, a place where one can appreciate his or her roots. It’s a place of origin, and we were so fortunate to have Dad show us his old home to help us better appreciate who we were. He was just as excited to be able to take us there.

Ten days before we were scheduled to leave, my father died suddenly of heart failure. Lauri and I decided to go ahead with our trip to Japan anyway, without Dad and without a stop in Takata-gun. My furusato homecoming would have to wait for another day.

A few years later, I had a chance to extend a business trip to Japan to visit my Saeki cousin in Hiroshima City. (Somehow, our “Saeki” name became “Saiki” once it got to Hawai‘i.) After telling my cousin’s wife, Itsuko, about having missed my chance to see my dad’s birthplace years back, she offered to take me to Shiya. Two of her children, Izumi and Yoshi, took time off from work and the four of us headed out by car on the hour-long drive to the countryside.

As the concrete office buildings along the main thoroughfares grew fewer and fewer until they finally faded from sight and were replaced with farm homes separated by rice fields, I could feel the excitement building within me. I would see a store sign with our surname in kanji. And another! Saeki country. We must be getting close! […]

Having felt this reconnection with my roots in Shiya, I promised to return regularly. Not only that, I felt that I needed to share the same furusato experience with my siblings and all my Saiki cousins in Hawai‘i and their families. I wondered how many of our Honolulu Takata Gunjinkai members had visited their furusato. The group has about 100 member-families who trace their roots to Takata-gun, which is now known as Akitakata-shi (Akitakata City).

Fortunately, my sempai (mentor) Yutaka Inokuchi had been part of a club trip to Takata-gun in the past and we could pattern our trips after that experience. We’ve been planning and taking members to their ancestral homeland every other year or so now for the past 10 years.

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A scene from “Allegiance.”

The Musical’s Producer Shares the Fascinating Back Story

Alan Suemori
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

Editor’s note:  Dr. Mark Mugiishi’s entire professional life has been dedicated to healing through medicine. A general surgeon whose specialty is cancer procedures, Mugiishi also serves as associate chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Hawai‘i’s John A. Burns School of Medicine as well as chief medical officer for HMSA — Hawaii Medical Services Association. In 2009, however, Mugiishi took a giant leap of faith into a field in which he had no prior experience or real knowledge. Believing strongly in the story it sought to tell and trusting his heart, Mugiishi signed on as the producer of “Allegiance,” a musical based on the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The musical was written by Jay Kuo, Lorenzo Thione and Marc Acito and starred George Takei, Lea Salonga and Telly Leung. “Allegiance” opened in New York City in 2016. It was the first Broadway production to be written, directed and composed by Asian Americans.

“Allegiance” producer Mark Mugiishi with the star of the musical, George Takei.

Hawai‘i Herald contributing writer Alan Suemori met with Mugiishi recently to learn about the musical’s journey to Broadway.

Alan Suemori:  How did this project begin?

Mark Mugiishi:  The whole project really began with a chance meeting in 2006 when Jay Kuo and Lorenzo Thione sat next to George Takei, the television and film actor, at an off-Broadway play. The very next night, they ran into Takei and his husband, Brad Altman, at “Into the Heights,” which was written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also created [the musical] “Hamilton.” Just before intermission, a father in the show sings a song called “Inutil,” which means “worthless” in Puerto Rican, because of his frustration in being unable to protect his family. During that song, they saw Takei become quite emotional, and at intermission, they introduced themselves and asked why he had broken down. Takei shared that it reminded him of his own family, who was interned during the war, and his father who always felt helpless that he wasn’t able to shield his children from that terrible experience.

AS:  Did Kuo or Thione know anything about the internment?

MM:  Kuo and Thione are very educated guys. Kuo is an attorney who gave up his practice to become a Broadway composer, and Thione is a technology wizard who actually wrote the language that became Bing, the Internet search engine. But they had never heard of the internment. When they actually started researching what it was all about, they wanted to create something that would illuminate such a dark time in our history.

AS:  How did you get involved?

MM:  I was introduced to Jay by Chris Lee, the Hawai‘i-born film executive who was the head of TriStar Pictures. (Lee also founded and directs the UH’s Academy for Creative Media.) Jay mentioned that he was writing a show called “Allegiance” that was inspired by George Takei’s family story during the war and he asked me if I wanted to hear a few songs. When I heard the first notes, I knew my life was not going to be the same. So I signed on as the producer. Jay, Marc and Lorenzo were really at the beginning of the project and had very little, but I didn’t view this as a problem. I saw “Allegiance” as an adventure, and life is best when spiced with variety and journeys that make the heart sing a little bit.

AS:  What was the story about?

MM:  The musical is set in the throes of World War II, and it follows the Kimuras, a California farming family whose world is torn apart by the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. They are interned in Heart Mountain, Wyoming, in 1942, and each member of the family responds differently to the reality that they are American citizens imprisoned in their own country based only on the fact that they looked like the enemy.

Sam is the young son who is the bright hope of the family. He decides the best way to overcome the taint of suspicion is to volunteer to fight in the 442nd even though he may have to sacrifice his life. Kei is his older sister who defers her own dreams to raise her brother after their mother’s death. She believes that the internment is unconstitutional and the only way to battle something so wrong is to stand up and say we will not succumb to prejudice. Kei falls in love with Frankie Suzuki, the chief resister in the camp and, eventually, Sam and Frankie become bitter enemies even though they are trying to achieve the same thing in two different ways.

There is a song in the show where they talk about how American values are at stake and they sing it simultaneously, even though they are going in two opposite directions:  One is resisting the draft and leading protests; the other is joining the 442nd and is willing to die to prove his loyalty. They both believe they are fighting for their country. And they are both right. America stands for many things, but first and foremost, it means the promise of living in a society that guarantees inalienable rights:  It’s the freedom to think independently and freely and act on those thoughts. It means having the security of knowing your own individual opinions, thoughts and freedoms are protected, and I think this show really does get to the core of all of that and the question of what it really means to be an American.

AS:  What were you trying to achieve with this musical?

MM:  What we tried to do is tell the human story of what happened to families after Executive Order 9066. Of course, there is a political statement, because the show talks about what occurs when mass hysteria can grip a country and how individual families can suffer even though they are innocent of any crime. But independent of that, we wanted to tell a story about a family that anyone can identify with in order to humanize the impact of what happened. […]

There is a song in the show called “Gaman,” which is a concept that almost all young Japanese are taught by their parents and grandparents:  When things are rough, hold your head high, and battle adversity with dignity and courage. I think these are timeless lessons that will never grow out of date for any generation.

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Alan Suemori teaches Asian American history at ‘Iolani School. He is a former Hawai‘i Herald staff writer.

Marian (Tagawa) Murakami opening the airplane door upon arrival at their destination.

Former Flight Attendant Remembers Pan Am’s First AJA “Stewardesses”

Betty S. Santoki
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

It was a party Juan Trippe’s employees at Pan American World Airways would never forget. “We are going around the world,” proclaimed Trippe, Pan Am’s founder, at the company’s Christmas party in December 1928. Trippe’s employees knew him to be an ambitious and visionary businessman, but fly around the world?! It was a big dream — and a dream they would help him realize with the help of a team of women of Japanese ancestry — Japanese Americans and Japan nationals.

May (Hayashi) Tsukiyama at her graduation. (Photos courtesy Betty Santoki)

In 1935, Pan Am’s “China Clipper” crossed the Pacific Ocean for the first time. Four years later, she sailed the skies across the Atlantic. And then in 1947, just two years after the end of World War II, Juan Trippe’s dream came true. Pan Am’s first around-the-world trip saw the China Clipper touch down in 17 cities in 11 countries over a 13-day period. It was quite an adventure!

In the latter part of 1954, Pan Am began interviewing hundreds of young Nisei and Sansei women in California and Hawai‘i for stewardess positions — these were the pre- politically correct days — to staff its trans-Pacific flights to and from Japan. Japanese businessmen had begun traveling abroad — only 10 years since Japan had been defeated in World War II.

The first seven women — May Hayashi, Ruby Mizuno, Louise Otani, Katherine Shiroma, Marian Tagawa, Jane Toda and Cynthia Tsujiuchi — graduated from a training class in San Francisco in March 1955. The women, who were referred to as the Nisei, hailed from the island of O‘ahu and the farmlands of California. During the war, Ruby Mizuno from Sacramento had been incarcerated in camps in Gila, Ariz., and Tule Lake, Calif. She and her fellow stewardesses had graduated from college and entered the working world. Now they had the rare opportunity to travel to such exotic and faraway cities as Tökyö and Hong Kong — and eventually around the world — as stewardesses for Pan Am.

Joan Covington and Marilyn Takeuchi with the Taj Mahal in the background.

Territorial governor Samuel King pinned the wings on the new stewardesses from Hawai‘i. Hawai‘i’s two Japanese-language newspapers, The Hawaii Hochi and Hawaii Times, covered the event. This was big news: These women were the first Nisei to have been hired as stewardesses for a major American airline that was now flying to international destinations. The women were interviewed, photographed and asked to share their backgrounds with reporters in lunch and dinner interviews.

Akiko Ogura prepares a first-class meal in the galley of a Boeing 707. The economy class galley was the same size as the first-class galley.

The first Nisei stewardesses flew the “China Clipper,” a Stratocruiser B-377 propeller plane that flew from Honolulu to Tökyö with a refueling stop at Wake Island. During the 24-hour layover on Wake, the crew had lodging in an old army barracks that had been used by soldiers during the war. With not much to do on an atoll surrounded by water, they had cocktails at 5 in the afternoon, followed by dinner in the mess hall. They ended the day watching a Hollywood movie outdoors.

The flight then continued on to Tökyö, where the crew’s accommodations at the luxurious Imperial Hotel were a major step up. The president of the hotel greeted them in the lobby. The fact that the women were the first Nisei stewardesses flying for a major American airline generated a deal of media interest in Japan. Dressed in their uniforms, they were followed by reporters and photographed as they shopped around Ginza, had their hair done and even while eating meals. […]

The first “Nisei stewardesses” of the 1950s are now in their 80s; the second wave who followed them are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Sadly, a few have already passed on. Many of these stewardesses had fascinating stories to tell.

For example, Jacqueline Higa, who already passed away, was one of the students who hid in the caves of Okinawa when American soldiers came ashore on her home island in the spring of 1945. Many young women committed suicide by jumping into the ocean off the cliff, fearing they would be raped or abused by the Americans. Jackie was one of the fortunate ones. She survived the caves and eventually came to Hawai‘i as a young girl. She began flying for Pan Am and lived a comfortable and exciting life that so different from the war days in Okinawa.

Several other Honolulu-based stewardesses were on a layover in Anchorage when a huge earthquake hit the city. They saw the streets open up before their eyes and clung to telephone poles to steady themselves. Other remembered well the Operation Babylift flights out of Vietnam, the Vietnam-era American soldiers who flew Pan Am on R & R (rest and relaxation/recuperation) flights from Saigon, Cam Ranh Bay and other stations to Tökyö, Hong Kong and Bangkok.

History remembers Juan Trippe as an aviation pioneer. For those who worked for him and the Pan Am World Airways he created, Trippe will live long in our hearts. He left us too early at the age of 41.

So what have Pan Am’s Nisei stewardesses and subsequent flight attendants of the jet age been doing since the airline’s ceased operations in December of 1991? Several have passed on and others have retired. Many of the younger flight attendants transferred to United Airlines and flew for over 20 years.

Still others came together and in 1969 formed the Hawaii Chapter of World Wings International, a philanthropic organization of former Pan Am flight attendants. There are now over 30 chapters worldwide, with the headquarters in New York.

Lillian Seki and Sheila Matsuda enjoying a camel ride in New Delhi, India.

May (Hayashi) Tsukiyama, one of the stews from Pan Am’s first Nisei class in 1955 was among the founders of the Hawaii Chapter of World Wings International. Now in her 80s, Tsukiyama still walks daily and golfs regularly. She comes to all of our Hawaii Chapter meetings and functions and helps out at our annual fundraiser, “Not Your Ordinary Garage Sale.” May chairs the children’s section on set-up day and serves as a cashier assistant on sale day. She is still an integral part of our organization of 80-plus members.

The “Not Your Ordinary Garage Sale” is held annually on the last Sunday in February at the McKinley High School cafeteria. Funds raised from the sale benefit St. Francis Hospice and CARE International, which supports women and children around the world. Our Hawaii chapter also funds a scholarship for a graduating senior from McKinley High School every year. We raised over $15,000 at last year’s garage sale — 90 percent of which went to St. Francis Hospice, 10 percent to CARE International and $1,500 to McKinley’s graduating senior.

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Yoko Yamamoto and Betty Shimogawa (today Santoki) in London with Big Ben, the House of Parliament and the Thames River in the background.

Consul General of Japan Yasushi Misawa and his wife Yoko enjoying time with former Hawai‘i Gov. — and MIS veteran — George Ariyoshi and his wife Jean at the March 9 Nisei Veterans Legacy fundraiser.

Hawai‘i’s Consul General of Japan Shares Memories of His Father with MIS Veterans

Editor’s note: Since his posting in Hawai‘i in mid-2015 as Consulate General of Japan in Honolulu, Yasushi Misawa has delivered dozens of greetings and remarks, even kampai toasts, and been involved in countless ceremonial presentations around town. This is expected of all consuls general. All of them stick pretty close to their ceremonial agenda, rarely revealing what they, personally, are thinking or feeling.

So I was pleasantly surprised and impressed to hear the reflective comments of Consul General Misawa at the MIS Veterans Club of Hawaii shinnen enkai at Natsunoya Tea House on Feb. 26. When he returned to his seat after speaking, I complimented him on his talk and asked him for permission to share his text with our Hawai‘i Herald readers. He modestly explained that he feels a special closeness to the Japanese American World War II veterans in Hawai‘i, for his own father, if he were alive, would be about the same age as the Nisei veterans. He told me of the comfort he feels when talking with someone like former Hawai‘i Gov. George Ariyoshi, who was born just a few years after his father.

A few days later, Consul General Misawa consented to sharing his text with all of you. We are grateful to him for that.

Good afternoon and Aloha!
Thank you for inviting me to join all of you at this New Year’s luncheon. I am very honored to be given this opportunity to say a few words. There are many things that I would like to share with you concerning the history between Japan and Hawai‘i, but please allow me to begin with a little personal story.

I was born and raised in Kyöto and studied political science and modern history at the University of Kyoto. Since entering the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1985, this is my first time to be assigned in the United States and my first time ever to come to Hawai‘i.

When I first came here, I did not know much about the history of Hawai‘i and the Japanese community in Hawai‘i. Each time I learn more about the Nisei veterans, it reminds me of my late father. His experience was quite different from that of the MIS veterans, of course. He was Japanese, he lived in Kyöto and he studied in Tökyö. But he was the closest person to me in the Nisei veterans’ generation and he was my best resource to personally learn from about the history of that period.

My father was born in 1922. In December 1943, when he was 21 years old and a junior in college, he was called to serve in the army. But I knew almost nothing about his experiences during the war before I began working as a diplomat.

The relationship between my father and me was pretty good. Driving with the family to the mountains and the ocean and going fishing were his most favorite hobbies. When I was a child, he brought me everywhere he went on the weekends and holidays. He talked a lot about fishing, baseball and other sports. He also told me what nice and kind people the Vietnamese were and how delicious the tropical fruits in Vietnam were. But my father never talked about his experiences on the battlefield, even though I had asked several times. I only knew that after being summoned into the army, he was dispatched to the Philippines and Vietnam. I knew also that he enjoyed very much attending the annual veterans gathering after he retired from his company. That was all I knew at that time.

One day, he handed a newsletter to me and said, “Read it!” — in Japanese, “Yonde-miro-ya!” — without any additional explanation. It was an old-fashioned newsletter, edited by my father himself. My mother explained to me that he became the editor of the veterans group’s newsletter, which was to be distributed to its members every year at the annual gathering in August. He would finish his editorial work in time for my annual return to my hometown, Kyöto, during Obon season in August. He would hand the newsletter to me to read every year for 15 years. The last newsletter, the 15th version, was completed just two months before he passed away 14 years ago, written with a very old type of kanji.

This newsletter was created for his regimental comrades, and he also wrote and contributed some articles and essays every year. It was through these that I finally came to know some of what he had experienced during the war.

In the fall of 1943, when the position of the Japanese military had further deteriorated, all university students studying social science were automatically called up to join the military. My father was one of these students. After one year of training, my father departed for the Philippines to join the army regiment there and was responsible for weather observation. Just before his arrival at Manila Bay, about half of the regiment personnel there were killed by the bombardment and torpedoes. Even after his arrival at Manila, the regiment continued to sustain attacks, and many, many lives were lost. They tried to flee Manila twice in vain and finally succeeded and departed for Vietnam. While in Vietnam, the war ended. My father was allowed to return home in May 1946, nine months after the end of the war. He could not believe that he was actually able to return home. That is his history.

I brought the 15 newsletters to Honolulu with me and read them again and again even now. They are really a treasure to me. I had no opportunities to discuss history and politics with my father while he was alive, but I can almost feel that I am having a dialogue with him in reading his essays and reliving the history of that time through them. […]

Last year was a milestone year as we commemorated the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. In December, there was a solemn moment for all American and Japanese citizens to remember what happened 75 years ago. At the same time, we were reminded of just how far we have come since then. I think that Prime Minister Abe’s visit to the Arizona Memorial with President Obama successfully demonstrated to us the power of reconciliation. It was also a true testament to the strong partnership and friendship that currently exists between Japan and the United States.

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“I always admired Jim Burns for having grown up in the fishbowl of Hawai‘i politics with a larger than life father, John A. Burns,” said state Rep. Marcus Oshiro, son of Democratic Party strategist Robert Oshiro. (Photos courtesy Emme Tomimbang)

The Retired Judge is Remembered Fondly for His Intellect and Low-key Local Demeanor

Richard Borreca
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

Jim Burns had the untucked Aloha shirt casualness Hawai‘i appreciates, but his intellectual rigour and character were just as
          strong as his father’s straightaway posture.

Former Hawai‘i Intermediate Court of Appeals Chief Judge James S. Burns died March 9, a little more than a month before turning 80.

Burns was famous because he was the son of Hawai‘i’s beloved first elected Democratic governor, John A. Burn, and then made his own mark as one of the state’s most respected judges.

Wahiawä Democratic Rep. Marcus Oshiro knows how bright the spotlight can be when your parent is a famous Hawai‘i politician — his father was Robert Oshiro, the famed Democratic strategist who shaped the elections of several Hawai‘i governors.

“I always admired Jim Burns for having grown up in the fishbowl of Hawai‘i politics with a larger than life father, John A. Burns,” said Oshiro.

Gov. Burns, Hawai‘i’s second elected governor, who served from 1962 to 1974, was the central figure in the Democratic “revolution” of 1954 when Japanese American veterans who had returned from World War II and others took over majority control of the then-territorial Legislature.

“AJAs worshipped that man and the ground he walked on,” said Oshiro. “In many ways, he was our great father; he inspired my father and his contemporaries.

“Because of that great influence and huge shadow, I often wonder how a person develops and grows and lives and thrives to become their own person,” said Oshiro.

Jim Burns’ skill, says Oshiro, was that “You always felt good when you talk to him.”

“He could talk like a local boy. I know what motivated him and the sense we shared being local guys.

“You never forgot that this was one good local haole with us, despite the prestige and trappings of being the son of Gov. Burns,” Oshiro said.

“I always felt Jim was more Japanese than haole. He was a local boy,” said his wife, Emme Tomimbang. The couple was looking forward to celebrating their 30th anniversary later this year.

The story of how Burns got his middle name, Seishiro, is telling.

John Burns’ wife, Beatrice (“Bea”), was afflicted with polio and paralyzed from the waist down when she became pregnant with Jim. The couple, both devout Catholics, refused to have an abortion and were determined to proceed with the pregnancy. Burns had a friend, a massage practitioner named Seishiro Okazaki. He was an immigrant from Japan and a martial arts expert. Okazaki said his study of jüjitsu and jüdö enabled him to survive and beat tuberculosis as a teenager. Well-known in Hawai‘i as a healer, he offered to give Bea Burns daily massages to help with the birth of her son.

“It was a miracle birth. All the doctors predicted she is going to die, and so would the baby,” said Tomimbang.

“Bea had a healthy 8-pound baby,” she said.

When Burns asked Okazaki what he could do to repay him, he simply asked that the boy be named Seishiro.

Professor Henry Seishiro Okazaki cradles the “miracle” baby who was given his Japanese name, Seishiro.

Jim Burns became an attorney in 1965 and then worked his way up the judicial ladder, starting as a per diem District Court judge in 1976, moving through the Circuit Court in 1977 and then on to the Intermediate Court of Appeals in 1980, which had been established only a year earlier to hear almost all trial court appeals and some appeals by state agencies. In 1982, Burns was appointed chief judge of the Intermediate Court.

Former Gov. George R. Ariyoshi, who was Gov. Burns’ lieutenant governor, appointed Jim Burns to both the Circuit and Intermediate courts. He said he wanted to also appoint him to the state Supreme Court, but Burns was actually needed more on the Intermediate Court. […]

Realizing that as a state judge he could not be involved in politics or political endorsements, Ariyoshi said Burns turned to sports and was one of the state’s biggest athletic boosters.

When Burns became governor shortly after statehood, the University of Hawai‘i was central to the Montana-born governor’s hopes for Hawai‘i. He believed a robust and vibrant university system would make Hawai‘i an attractive place for both citizens and investors.

Burns set out to champion both a medical school and a law school so that Hawai‘i students would have a less expensive chance at higher education and so that the community in Hawai‘i would be enriched with legal and medical scholars.

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Ministers of the Köyasan Shingon Mission of Hawaii gather for a group photo with their new bishop. (Photos by Danny Escalona)

Unlocking the Secrets of Esoteric Buddhism

Margaret Shiba
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

On Feb. 25, the Rev. Clark Watanabe was installed as the 13th bishop of the statewide Köyasan Shingon Mission of Hawaii in a ceremony at Honomu Henjöji Mission on Hawai‘i island. The unlikely path that led the local boy to this milestone began nearly 40 years earlier in the book department of the old Liberty House department store at Ala Moana Center, when 13-year old Clark Watanabe happened upon a large, richly illustrated volume titled, “The Secret Message of Tantric Buddhism.” The boy was intrigued by the esoteric Buddhist art. Most of all, however, he was mesmerized by the idea of unlocking secrets known to few people. He saved up his allowance and purchased the book to study it further.

Thirteen years later, the curious young man entered seminary on Köyasan. After a year of intensive training, he was ordained a Shingon Buddhist priest. And 21 years after being ordained, Rev. Clark Watanabe was elevated to bishop in Hawai‘i.

While his journey has been an unusual one, “Rev. Clark” (as he is still familiarly known to
most of his congregants) is not the first Hawai‘i-born Buddhist priest to be named a bishop (he’s the third), nor is he the first local-born bishop to come from a non-minister family (he’s the second). At the age of 47, he may be the youngest, however. A “3.5 generation” Japanese American (sansei on his father’s side, yonsei on his mother’s), Rev. Clark grew up in Honolulu attending Christian Sunday School through sixth grade, but observing traditional New Year’s ceremonies at a local temple.

Studying for the priesthood on Köyasan was not Rev. Clark’s first exposure to “basic training” in a strict Japanese discipline. As a teenager he took up martial arts, which he practices to this day in the Takenouchi school of classical martial arts. Later, as an undergraduate at UH Mänoa, he immersed himself in the study of Japanese religion and history and was selected for a scholarship that sent him to Kyöto for a year to master the history, arts and practice of tea ceremony with the Urasenke Foundation. Along the way, he became fluent in Japanese language.

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Rev. Takayuki Meguro of Lahaina Shingon Mission and Kula Shofukuji Shingon Mission performed the Goma fire ritual at a side altar in front of the newly transferred deity statues, marking the headquarters of the current Shingon bishop. (Photo by Wayne Muromoto)

Rev. Clark Watanabe: “These temples are treasures, and they both merit and need your help in order to remain shining.”

Three-star Army General with Hawai‘i Roots is Leading the Charge

“I became interested in the military when I was in high school and started learning about the 442nd (Regimental Combat Team).” — Lt. Gen. Paul
Nakasone

Gregg K. Kakesako
Special to The Hawai‘i Herald

Gregg Kakesako worked for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Gannett News Service and the Honolulu Star-Advertiser for more than four decades as a government, political and military affairs reporter and assistant city editor.

In her working days, Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone’s grandmother cooked and cleaned as a live-in maid for several Army officers at Wheeler Army Airfield and Schofield Barracks. Today, nearly a century later, Nakasone is one of the U.S. Army’s top officers, leading the national charge to prevent “a cyber Pearl Harbor” — in other words, a malicious attack on the Army’s computer systems.

The 53-year-old sansei assumed command of U.S. Army’s Cyber Command and Second Army last October at Fort Belvoir in Virginia, where he also received his third star. The Army Cyber Command is the Army’s headquarters within the United States Cyber Command. While the FBI is charged with protecting civilian networks and infrastructure, the job of the Army Cyber Command is to defend the Department of Defense Information Network. Nakasone is responsible for overseeing the defense and protection of the Army’s data, networks and information systems.

A 1995 family photo of Mary and Edwin “Bud” Nakasone with their two sons, Paul (standing between them) and John behind Paul. (Photos courtesy Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone)

According to a survey by the Japanese American Veterans Association, Paul Nakasone is one of 46 Japanese Americans who have been promoted to generals or admirals. Three have obtained four-star-ranking: Army Gen. John Campbell, who served as the commander of U.S. Forces – Afghanistan; Gen. Eric Shinseki, U.S. Army chief of staff from 1999 to 2003 and secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs from 2009 to 2014; and Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., who heads the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Command.

THE MISSION

Nakasone, whose Army career spans more than three decades, said the biggest threat today are “nation-state actors that are looking for ways to get into our networks to steal our data or to impact our operations. We do everything on our network — our operations, our logistics and our defensive support,” he said. “If we don’t have confidence in our network, we can’t accomplish our mission.”

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