<Begin Segment 18>

KN: So describe, how would you describe your life as you started to have a family, how did you -- and I understand because of your husband's business, then lived in Japan, but how would you come here to Hawaii?

EK: Oh, that was my husband's idea. I said, you know, because to go to Japan we stopped, the company said, "You must stop in with two little ones." My second one was only, less than four months old. So they said, "You stop in Hawaii, rest, and then go to Tokyo." So we did, and we loved it, but after we came back from that tour, back to Chicago, and then when he said, "Let's move to Hawaii," this was many years later, I said, "But Hawaii is a place for vacation, not to live." He said, "Well, I have a purpose. I think..." because he had no connection with the bigger society, so to speak. For him to open an office and succeed would have been very difficult. And so he said, "You have your degree, but you may not be able to teach." Because at that time they were closing schools. And so he said, "You may have to help me by even working as a waitress. Will you be willing to do that?" I said, "If this is what you really want," and my husband is not the kind of person who will decide, he really thinks it over and then does it. Otherwise he won't do it. So I said, "He must really want this." So I said, "Okay, I've done waitressing work when I was in college, I could do it again." And so that's how we came to Hawaii.

KN: And this is with two young children with you?

EK: Yes.

KN: And so your husband had an idea for a business.

EK: Yes. He wanted to open his own and he had left us to do this. And so I had my in-laws living with us already. [Laughs] And so they felt like, "What?" They couldn't understand this. "Why would you want to move there when you have a," by then we had purchased a lovely house in the suburb of Chicago. And I went there, Highland Park, because I did student teaching, and I knew the schools were good. And I said, "For the children's sake, we've got to move to Highland Park." And I liked the area, they had a train and all that, all the necessities in a small area. And so that's how we got to Hawaii later.

KN: But I can just, you know, I was just talking before with our accounting man about, a lot of families were moved up to the mainland. They usually do not come here.

EK: I know.

KN: They do not come back.

EK: I think my husband had found so much prejudice in his work, and later he learned that for every company that he went, even after he was hired by one of the big eights, they first had to ask permission, "Can a Japanese person come and audit your work?" And some said no, some said yes.

KN: So this was during the 1960s and '70s?

EK: Yes, yes. It was still very closed. But for gender, as a woman, that gal who was so sharp and attractive, too, physically, she couldn't get a job. So she ended up teaching bookkeeping in a little town in southern Illinois. That's how it was. And so my husband, being the first, I think, I tell him, "I think you're a pioneer." Because there was another Japanese-born but American citizen guy who was hired, but he immediately was shipped to Japan. So not counting that, my husband was the first minority to be hired, we believe, as a CPA.

KN: By a big accounting firm?

EK: A big accounting firm. Incredible. And then a woman came later. Now they're begging for women, because they work hard, they're reliable, smart. So now all the companies have so many women and many partners. You never found a partner before as a woman, but now there are so many, including in Japan, they have partners who are women. So I'm so happy for that, being a woman. [Laughs]

KN: It's very interesting to hear about people's motivations moving to different areas and why they would come to somewhere like Hawaii.

EK: I know. Oh, yeah, I started to say, because he found so much of.. when we first came to Hawaii, it was so good to see like Nakamura car dealer, or someplace on King Street, there was a Nakamura automobile repair shop or something. And so many Japanese names. We said, "Oh my gosh, this is home." [Laughs]

KN: Was it a culture shock?

EK: It was a culture shock. It was a culture shock that we liked. 'Cause when I went to, I transferred to northern Illinois for my education my last two years, everybody looked at me. This is in Illinois, but outside of Chicago ninety miles. And they looked at me as though I were not exactly human. Because they didn't see too many, or hardly ever.

KN: We sent my father up to Chicago a few years ago, a person stopped him on the subway and said, of course, loudly, "Do you speak English?" And I was like, "What are you talking about?"

EK: [Laughs] Oh, yeah.

KN: So times have changed, people are more aware.

EK: But, yeah, in our days it was even worse.

KN: So I'm just imagining being a minority and then coming to a place where you are in the majority.

EK: I know, yes. So that's what he loved about Hawaii, that he said, "I'm not a minority here. I don't feel, I feel like I am a part of this place."

KN: Do you think he had better business prospects because of...

EK: He thought he did, and he did try to open his own office. But again, we didn't know anybody. You have to know people, you know, to get clients. And it's a slow thing and we're not exactly wealthy. We had mortgage on our head and Grandma and Grandpa living with us and they depended on us. So it was difficult, but in the meantime, he had offers to come and work for them. So he accepted one because they said, "We want for you to go to Japan." So he asked me, "What do you think?" I said, "Well, if we're going to go to Japan again," which I loved anyway, I said, "It's a good time because the children are still young enough they're not going to put up a big fight." A little bit older, they wouldn't want to go because they have their own set of friends and so forth. So that's when we went to Japan for the second time and loved it.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.