<Begin Segment 20>

BN: So going forward a few years then, you were telling me before about, well, that you retired and then you took aikido, and then this is when Hideto Kono...

JK: Well, Hideto Kono came to me (while I was taking) that aikido (...). My mother was very ill (at that time). I had her at my house. My sister had taken care of her for a long time (when) my mother was okay. And then so I told her one day, "Grandma, we can't do it anymore," because we had to lift her. And I have a bad back and so does my husband. She says, "I know what you mean." She says, "Do I have enough money to go to Hale Pulama Mau?" And my brother (who) was keeping account of her money, said, "Yes." So she says, "Okay, as long as I don't depend on the government, I will go." You know Japanese pride.

BN: Was Hale Pulama Mau kind of Japanese?

JK: Yes, it's attached to Kuakini Hospital, which used to be the Japanese hospital.

BN: So there's kind of a Japanese...

JK: Yeah, push to it. But, and fortunately, she was in a room right outside of the nursing station. And there were two beds in that room, and her fellow patient was a public schoolteacher, so she could talk with her. Not somebody who sat over there like this. So for her it was a good experience. And for us, too, it was good because we could go and talk with her. But it must have been hard for her to see these people strapped to their wheelchairs and sitting all day at the nursing station with their head just, you know, (hanging). 'Cause she had all her buttons.

BN: She was sharp.

JK: She was sharp. And that lady next to her was sharp, so it was good.

BN: Okay, well to get back to Hideto Kono and getting you to volunteer...

JK: Well, you know, when the committee was first organized, Patsy Saiki, the author, was chair. And I remember meeting at Tendai Mission, and I worked with them. And then I kind of left the committee when I took care of my mom. And Hideto had asked me, "Jane, would you do the gallery?" Hideto was chair of the board, I think, at that time. And he took a crack at, he helped in the gallery, too, developing the gallery. But I said, "No, I got to take care of my mom." So I still remember, "Your mother died now, you don't have any excuses." [Laughs] We were such good friends that he could tell me that. And so I said, "Okay." But he helped along the way, too. And I had a very good person who was brought to me, Stan Yamamoto, who was the art person for the DOE. He (had) set up the art program for the whole state. And so Walter brought him to me, so we worked together. He (worked) on the finances. And he's the one who got me Tom Kiobe and Momi (Cazimero). I did not know them before that, but now we're fast friends.

BN: How long did you end up working on this exhibit?

JK: Many years. Many years. But you know, it was an interesting experience for me, and in working on this gallery, we tried to figure out -- not me, Tom and Momi -- trying to figure out how to place the different rooms. And we didn't want the straight walkthrough kind of thing. And the key to that was when we got the movie theater set, then the rest all fell into place at one time. So that was an "aha moment" that we rejoiced.

BN: Is the back here, you know, the kind of street scene, I mean, knowing you're from Aala and then the theater, I mean, is that kind based on Aala?

JK: Not really, although, you see, this is Yamashiro Hotel which is on the Beretania side. But Momi had come from a small town on the Hamakua coast, so she kind of knew that kind of scene. So no, it really fell into place when we got the theater. And that became a sacred shrine almost because of the war things. And at first we wanted to put the value markers -- besides having them at the entrance, what this scene depicted most. And we thought, oh, too much. But only in the theater do we have chuugi and something else. So it was a real working group, and we enjoyed each other. And we all drew on each other's expertise. So Tom had this spatial kind of... not only spatial, Momi had that, too, but Tom had the details. He and (Wayne) Kawamoto came in and did that. They were both at the University. Momi had all the contacts in town. But she's the one who first designated the theater. And we're still working at it.

BN: Were you happy with the, how it turned out?

JK: Well, you know, one of the articles in the newspaper that I remember most, Will Hoover of the, I don't know whether it was the Advertiser or the Star-Bulletin, said this is after he came through the gallery, "The best-kept secret in Honolulu. It's (done so well)." And so my agreement in taking this over was that I would do the gallery, but Walter (Saito, the executive director of JCCH), has to do the publicity because I could not work on both at the same time. So I told Walter, "Walter, you've got to push this a little bit more so that when somebody says it's the best-kept secret, it means it's good." But not many people know about it. And I don't know... I had hoped that at the time that we were working on this -- and I tried to work through legislators -- so that we would have one big museum with different ethnicities represented. Worked very hard on that, but it didn't go through.

BN: That was the state history museum, Roland Kotani?

JK: Hmm?

BN: I think, wasn't Roland Kotani one of the...

JK: Oh, he was in it, too, I think. But I remembered... my friends in the legislature, "How come you didn't come to talk to me?" But it was too big a project for the state at that time. So even today, we don't have a real Chinese one, right? We don't have a Korean one. Hawaiian maybe at Bishop Museum.

BN: But there is no state issue.

JK: Yeah. The Filipinos have something a little bit at Waipahu, or Plantation Village is something that we all enjoy. But, you know, I think we did quite well. [Laughs]

BN: And you're working on finishing and completing...

JK: Well, I told Tom the other day, "June 3rd, deadline." [Laughs] And he said, "We'll get it done." But in the meantime, he has to go to the mainland. So you know, one leaves, Momi leaves, I leave, Tom leaves." [Laughs] We don't leave at the same time.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.