Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Lillian Nakano Interview
Narrator: Lillian Nakano
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Torrance, California
Date: July 8, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-nlillian-01-0006

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MA: It seems like there's also the history of Hawaii itself, and the role of the military in that, sort of suppressing the native Hawaiians.

LN: That's right. It was terrible.

MA: How was the relationship between the native Hawaiian population and the Japanese and Chinese?

LN: You know, it was very good. In fact, when -- although it got worse, I think -- but when my dad was growing up, they all, they were so bilingual, they spoke Filipino, they spoke Hawaiian and Chinese, whatever. Because people were just, it was a melting pot at that time. However, things changed a little bit, especially when the war came. You know how the war does things like that. There begins to be economic competition, things like that, into the... and native Hawaiians always felt that they were left out, and they were. They didn't really get an equal share of the pie, you know. And it's always been that way. I understand now, though, that in Hawaii they were having a movement for the Hawaiians...

MA: Sovereignty, Hawaiian sovereignty?

LN: Yes, yes. I was asking Grace about that. But there aren't too many literature on that. So I guess everything is not very clear. But anyway, it's always been a problem in a way, because the native Hawaiians were kind of like the Native Americans. Sad.

MA: Yeah, it was their islands, their land before anyone...

LN: That's right. But simply because the Chinese and then the Japanese and the whites, they were all so much more educated. So eventually there was all this very unequal...

MA: Was there like a, in Hawaii, a sort of racial hierarchy? You know, it seemed like, just what I know or what I've heard, like there's the Japanese and then Chinese and Filipino and native Hawaiian. It seems like there was this sort of racial hierarchy in a way.

LN: I think so, uh-huh. You hate to admit it, but I think there is. Because, see, bankers were all Chinese, okay, and the Japanese were the mercantile group. So naturally, the economy is controlled by the two groups. And so you have the Hawaiians kind of left out of all that because of lack of education and so forth. It's, I don't know, it's sad when you think about it.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.