Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Akira Otani Interview
Narrator: Akira Otani
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Date: March 3, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-oakira-01-0008

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TI: So let's go back now before the war again. Now did you spend much time in the fish market area? Did you do jobs or anything like that?

AO: No, I did not because, number one, there wasn't much time because as I grew and as we went from grade to grade and then we had to go from school to school like, I don't know how it is in Seattle, but here we had the grade school up to sixth grade. Then from seventh to ninth we used to call it intermediate school, they call it middle school now. Then from tenth, eleventh, twelfth the high school and in each case there were not very close, we had to walk from home to... grade school was close, maybe five, six blocks and Japanese school was right there. But then when we went to seventh, eighth, ninth, to middle school, it was about by walking maybe about two, three hours of walking time one way so by the time we got home, well, the thing is after middle school then we had to go to Japanese school which is far away again, so by the time we got home, many times, it was dark. So there wasn't much that we could do. It was only when I started going to the university I think that on weekends I used to help my... I used to go to the market and do some work but not the handling with the fish products as such. It was mostly doing some office work.

TI: Well, how about summertime, summer break, what kind of work?

AO: Summertime, mostly the people were very fortunate, in the summer we had what they call the pineapple industry and Hawaiian Pine and Hawaiian Pine which is Dole and the California Packing Corporation and Libby all the big canning companies, they all had their plants in between more or less where our fish operation is, more or less, it's in between the airport and Honolulu town. It's not quite Kalihi but there we had the canneries and school children, both men and girls, boys and girls, worked in the canneries during the summer time. And those that were in town went to the canneries, those in the country worked in the pineapple fields. So we were very fortunate, we were able to go to the canneries, pay was cheap, but then everything is relative. So we considered very fortunate we were able to go to work in the canneries, earn enough to pay for our school tuition but that took maybe... the summertime was more or less, it coincided with pineapple picking and production, canning period and so it fit right in so that most of the children went to work in the canneries and earn some money at that time.

TI: Now did the school year fit exactly or did they actually move the school year a little bit just to --

AO: No, I think it just about fit in perfect, just exactly in the summertime.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.