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-01-0009

<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So let's move now to when you're at the University of Hawaii, so you were attending University of Hawaii, I think in your freshman and sophomore year you did, or maybe sophomore, junior year, you did ROTC?

AO: Well, yes, I don't know how it is in the mainland but here it was more or less required for anybody that's healthy enough and all the boys were required to, you know, to take ROTC and I fulfilled my duty and completed my freshman year, sophomore year in ROTC.

TI: And what was your major in college?

AO: My major in college was business.

TI: And what did you think you were going to do with a business degree?

AO: Well, all I wanted to do was go into my father's business and, you know.

TI: And how about your older brother, Jiroichi, so was he already working with your father?

AO: Yes, he was not a healthy... he had injured his back as a child so he was not healthy but nevertheless normal and he went into business right after high school and he was helping my dad, yes, he was in my father's business.

TI: Okay, so you were the first son to go to the University of Hawaii then?

AO: I was the first one in my whole family to be able to go to college, yes.

TI: And was that kind of special thing for you to go to college? 'Cause you're the first person in the whole family to go to college, what did that mean to the family and to you?

AO: Well, I don't know. I never realized it at that time but the thing is I think livelihood was tough to come by, my oldest sister had to go out to work, my second sister had to go out to work, my older brother had to go out to work, they all had to go out to work to earn a living to help our folks, you know. So I guess I was lucky being able to go to college and even then I hard time going to college. I wasn't very smart and I barely made it, in fact, I never did get to complete it because of the war at that time.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.