<Begin Segment 17>

TI: With the war now over, what did you do, what was your life like after the war is over, your father's now back, so what did you do?

YI: Well, actually, you know, if I really wanted, I could have gone back to college, and I ended up being a drop out. And I did all kinds of stuff, you know, and then I think in 1947 I was hired by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply and then, you know, I worked thirty something, thirty-two years at the Board of Water Supply.

TI: And what happened to Waipahu, you know, the plantation, the camp? What happened?

YI: Well, let me see now, I got married in 1949 and my wife and I lived with my folks, in fact, we're the only ones, my brother was in the military and he was at language school and my younger sister was going to college I think already. And then, I think we lived a couple years in Waipahu as a married couple and then the army started to dismantle their buildings, they no longer needed it, see. And you know, they built military housing all over the place because there was a big, what you call, contingent of military. And then they put some of the buildings up for sale, you know, and my (brother-in-law) bid for one of the buildings, big barracks, you know. And he said if I help him that he'll give me some of the lumber, so he, his brother, and the three of us went to dismantle the building and good lumber, I mean, you know, good lumber. And my brother-in-law had a big property way out in Nanakuli, and he said, "Why don't you build a house there?" you know. So, did you know that I built a three bedroom house by myself? I was not a carpenter but I was working at the Water Supply and the engineers, you know, taught me how to do things, you know, how to set the footing and stuff. So I only needed to hire carpenters to cut the rafters, I didn't know how to do that. I built a three bedroom house without electricity, we had to use gas and then my wife started to teach at that community, Nanakuli (Elementary School), so that was it, yeah.

TI: Well, that's pretty amazing, to build your own house, that would be a pretty daunting task to think about.

YI: Yeah, I used to go weekends and you know, do as much as I can. It wasn't that hard though, I mean, you know, basically... and the lumber was fit to build house, you know. After you paint it and sand it, it looked like new lumber, and those were good lumber, not the fresh lumber like today. Some of my friends helped me and then the friends at the Water Supply helped me with the plumbing, oh, I guess I had electrician way later when the power was available. And then we moved in and I finished up over the weekends.

TI: That's a good story. What about your parents in terms of, you know, the camp, the plantation, what happened?

YI: Okay, so my son was born 1955, January, so that September we had a fire, the plantation house burned down and I think I burned it down because we had the bath house and then because the bath, ofuro is only to soak, right? So you don't change the water every day, so the second and third day, the water is soft, you don't need too much fire to get the water heated. So I used to burn a lot newspaper so I get the fast heat and you know. And naturally the surrounding wood get kind of scorched, right, if you... so one night my son was about nine months, oh, and because I had a bad cold I slept in another room and the room that I slept in was next to the bathroom, you know. Then I smelled smoke, and my whole room was smoky, you know, and so I got the family out and tried to fight the fire but we don't have a fire system, and plantation, they had a fire truck but it was not the standard fire equipment, so you know they had standard pipes for emergency, use it, in the whatever fire truck they had. So when city and county fire truck came, their coupler didn't fit the plantation plumbing so the house burned down. Afterwards, they were trying to save my neighbors.

TI: So this was a plantation house?

YI: Then, you know, fortunately my sister had enough room so we, five of us move in with my sister. Then we had (to find) our property to build our house and the property that we live in today belonged to Oahu Sugar was the developer, through the agent, anyway and when it was offered to employees, well, my father was an employee, we didn't think about buying the property. So finally when I had to buy it, I had to pay twice the amount per square foot.

TI: Oh, so if you bought it when they offered to employees, it'd have been --

YI: And that's the plantation mentality, right, we were comfortable living in the plantation because they provided all our amenities, you know, they give us firewood, finally they bring in electricity, electricity was free, rent was free, so our mentality with kids that grew in the city were different. They're all working to buy a property and resettle, right, well, we're planning to stay in that free environment, you know, so I think that's the difference in the, what you call, living mentality.

TI: That's interesting.

YI: We were comfortable so, you know, many of them eventually moved out from the sugar plantation but there was no urgency to buy property and build your own home. I think that's true for all plantation workers, I think.

TI: Do many of the camp people still live Waipahu, that area?

YI: Eventually, I think what happens, not in the case of Waipahu but they sold it to the employees, you know. But it wasn't too long because all the sugar plantations on this island, what you call, went kaput, there's no sugar plantation on this island. There are some communities where they bought the home from the plantation. I don't know whether they bought it outright or, you know, whether they're leasing it or not.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.