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TI: Okay, so let's, let's talk about your childhood. So where in Hawaii did you grow up?

EW: I grew up in Honolulu, in an area of Honolulu known as Kahala, or the Waialae-Kaimuki area. And I pretty much grew up the same as any kid on the block growing up in America or Hawaii. It's pretty much all the same.

TI: So describe that; every neighborhood's a little bit different, so what, what kind of activities would you do growing up, I mean, when you're with your buddies, your friends. What would you guys do on a typical Saturday in your neighborhood?

EW: Well, it's pretty much the same, like I said. I, of course, I did the Little League sports, baseball and soccer, my dad coached, and he coached my brother before me. And that's what I did on the weekends and after school, I'd practice. And played around with my brother, but because of the age gap, it became a time when it was, he moved on and I was still, still a kid, and he was becoming a teenager. But we, we played, and we had a lot of great times together.

TI: So was it mostly sports-related kind of activities? You mentioned a lot of, like, Little League sports, or was it other things?

EW: Yeah, a lot of kids get involved in sports at that age. I did the normal things. I can't say there's anything...

TI: So like soccer, basketball...

EW: Soccer and baseball is what I stayed with. I think there was a period that my mother made me take piano lessons. [Laughs] Those didn't last too long. And let's see... I took some swimming lessons.

TI: How about things like Chinese and Japanese?

EW: No, no. It's unfortunate that -- I had some friends who took Japanese school after grade school in the afternoon, they would go to Japanese school and I didn't. My father, being in the Peace Corps, he knew Spanish and Japanese, 'cause he's second-generation Japanese, but he, they didn't impress upon me any, any will to learn Japanese or Spanish. And of course, my mother being fourth-generation Chinese, not many people in the family still spoke Chinese.

TI: Well, it's interesting, you said your dad is second generation. Your grandfather, it's almost like, though, but your great-grandfather first came to the United States, but your grandfather was, was, again, born in Japan? Or was he born...

EW: My grandfather was born in Japan, yes.

TI: Okay. Although his great-grandfather -- okay, so it's almost like you could have been, almost, he could have almost been fourth generation, third generation.

EW: Almost.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.