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BN: So how did the whole, what became this Honouliuli project that kind of becomes kind of the centerpiece of what the Center does years later, what was the origin of that?

JK: Ah, the origin was, in 1997, we got a phone call.

BN: At that point you're still in the DLS space?

JK: Where were we?

BN: Well, it's not a big deal.

JK: Yeah, we must have been, because we didn't move over there until Dick Kosaki was...

BN: Okay, yeah, that's later.

JK: And so we got that phone call, and it was one of the TV stations asking where exactly Honouliuli internment camp site was. And apparently they were going to show Schindler's List, the movie about the German Holocaust. And it was the string of, they were part of a network of stations across the country, and they were all going to show Schindler's List together, so it was a big deal. And apparently the primaries, they decided that to publicize it, they wanted to go onsite at an actual internment camp site in Hawaii and do something about Hawaii internment. And I happened to take the call, and I said, "You know, I don't think we got information here, but we'll try our best and we'll call you back." And then we went out to, we thought, people who probably would know, living out that way. And that's when we were surprised to find that, of the people we passed, only one or two said, "I think I know exactly where it is." But then their locations didn't match. And then more people said, "We don't where it is," and even some said, "We didn't even know there were internment camps here or internees." And then we began to realize that this was a bigger hole than we could have imagined. And so that's where the library, librarian in me kicked in, because to become a successful librarian, you need to be able to perceive, felt need, of your customers. And if you're working with that and providing for that, then they will come. And so I knew that this was a need. And then the other thing was it looked like it was going to be a hard job to find it, so could we devote that much time to it? And then we looked at the mission statement, and the mission statement definitely stated that our job as JCCH is to preserve, to preserve the legacy or the history of the Japanese Americans in Hawaii, and this is clearly going to be a hole in that history. So we should do it, even if it takes time or effort. And that's why we got started. That would be the initial bookend. But then we were almost as ignorant as the people we were asking. Because in the beginning, we needed pushing all the way. Tom Coffman pushed us, Dennis Ogawa got pushed by Gerald Hamada, who was the lawyer who got the JACS grant program, and he insisted that Honouliuli had to be in there. It was his idea, not ours.

BN: Where would that come from, that he would even know about Honouliuli?

JK: I know. Yeah, without asking?

BN: But that comes from him pushing Dennis to push you to find out more about Honouliuli so they can stick it in the legislation.

JK: Right.

BN: Wow.

JK: And then he'd ask these questions, and Dennis wouldn't know. I mean, like, how much per acre or whatever. And so Dennis would call me and say, "Find out." And so I'd call people and get all kinds of answers, and I'd say, "Here are all the answers," and he picked the most expensive one. And Dennis would tease me all the way, and he'd say, "If we make a mistake, I'm going to blame you." And I thought, oh, gee. But yeah, Gerald Hamada is another link. You know, these people that provided links along the way, if any one of them had not come through, we'd probably have nothing now. Because in the RC, when I hung up, I said to Shige Yoshitake, who was our local historian volunteer, "Shige, I think it's important. We've got to find this place. I think it's more important than we thought." And he says, "Easy." He says, "just call the tax office and find the tax key." And I said, "Oh, is that all?" And he said, "Yeah, yeah, it's nothing, nothing." And so I tried, I couldn't do it that way. So I thought, okay, all right, then I'll call DLNR. And I called DLNR and they were kind. They said, "Oh, just send us what you have and we'll go from there." So I found whatever I could about Honouliuli, which is very little at that point, and I mailed it to them, didn't hear anything. Finally, a year later, I called them. I said, "What are you going to tell me?" and she says, "About what?" And then when I explained to her, she says, "I don't remember getting that package," and she says, "I'll look for it." And she called back, she said, "It's lost." And so I said, okay, I'll get it all together again. And this time I thought, "I'm not mailing it, I'm hand carrying it." And so I called to make an appointment with her, and they said, "Oh, she's gone." She went to another job. And I said, "Okay, can I talk to somebody else then?" And so they let me talk to somebody else who was very kind and listened, and nothing happened. And so, but by then, Tom Coffman had pushed us enough that I figure we can't give up now. Okay, we're going to go cold calls. And that's when we went cold calls, called this person, that person.

And that's where it began to hit me how much, what kind of a community we live in. Because nobody slammed the phone in my ear, and nobody said no. They would always say, "We don't know anything about that, but have you tried so-and-so?" And they were trying to, you can see they're trying to be helpful. And finally, because of that, we didn't give up. And finally, on about the, I don't know what phone call, I got somebody who said, "No, our organization can't help you, but let's talk, because I'm a local history buff." And that person that said, "Why don't you try the farmers in the area? They walk around, they might have seen concrete slabs," and so on. And then he had the name of a farmer, Larry Jefts. And I thought, okay. So when I hung up, I opened the phone book, and there was Larry Jefts. And so we called him, and he said, "Well, maybe I can help you. Come see me after work, and bring an old picture." And boy, finding his farm with no sign, and he says, "If you pass the high voltage things, you've gone too far." I passed it about five times going back and forth. But he said, "Look for a yellow gate," and this tiny little yellow gate, I finally saw it. And then Tats Hayashi, I asked him to come because it's after work in the farm, it's going to be toward dark in the country. And so then I see Tats going back and forth, he's missing the... high voltage, yeah. But we both finally got together, we went in and we waited for him at his farm until he came out of the field. He took one look at the picture, the photo, and he said, "I think I know where this is." He says, "I'll take you there if you get permission from the owner." I said, "We don't know the owner." And he says, "Oh, I do." [Laughs] And he did. And it was Campbell Estate, and then again it's serendipity, we called, cold called this Campbell Estate, they probably thought we were nuts, and we never heard another thing.

And then Tats says, "You know, I know Jeanie Shultz, and I think she's got a connection to Campbell Estate. And he used to be head of Japan Airlines, so he says, "Let me call her." And so he called her and she said, "Oh, I'll help you," and she's the one that got us. And then pretty soon we got a call from them saying, "We'll take you in, only five of you." And so that's how... in the meantime, we had, the whole resource center wanted to go, nineteen of us all ready to go. And he said, "Hey, I'm sorry, but they'll only take five of us." And oh, I think to this day, one or two are a little bit miffed about that. They can't understand why they couldn't go. And I said, "Yeah, I know you want to go, but you know what? The president, Susan Kodani said, 'I'm going,' and I'm not going to argue with her." And that's how we got going. And then when we got out there, Larry Jefts in his truck, and Bert Hatton, the vice president of Campbell Estate, in his jeep. That's why there were only five of us could go. They took us right down to the aqueduct, and Larry says, "Here it is." We're all set to take pictures and whatnot, and then Bert says, "Wait a minute." He says, "I have a Google map here." And he says, "According to the map, the mountains are in the wrong place." And so we drove around for three hours, Bert had a flat tire, and he had to fix that. And then finally, and going toward dark, and Bert says, "This is a dumb question, but do you think I had the map upside down?" And he turned it the other way, and he says, "Oh, now the mountains are in the right place." [Laughs] And then they kept driving after that. And I thought basically it's going to get dark, and I'm ready to go home already. But they were driving around, because they wanted to take us to the place exactly where this photographer stood to take that old picture. So when we stood there, the mountains were not only in the right place, they were in the right configuration. And we were so appreciative, and we took pictures of that. And on the way out, I was in Bert's jeep. I said, "You know, Bert, you're a vice president. You spent the whole afternoon with us. I really, really, really appreciate your doing that. And he didn't say a word until the end, and then he finally, very quietly said, "I have Italian relatives, some of them were interned." And that's what helped me to learn that this community, the grassroots of this community, there's something special about this community.

And this is more universal, that when people know that it's the right thing to do, no matter how little their contribution or how large their contribution, they're going to do something to help, because it is the right thing to do. And so that's one of the big takeaways that I've gotten from this whole experience. And that's why I keep doing this thing, because I want to somehow pass it on to the young, because they certainly need it with Covid and the war, and 9/11 and all that. If you don't have anything to fall back on that is more than drugs and stuff like that. What do you do? So our young need to know this, and that's why I think talking to you about maybe an anime story so that they'll look at it. But at least we're now in the curriculum, and we just have them make the curriculum more updated and more interesting, and more so that the kids are empathetic to what happened, and what's happening again, and how they can be more resilient.

BN: Just to back up one... I don't know if you mentioned this, but the picture that you were working from, what was the origin of that?

JK: Oh, yes. That was from the book that Patsy Saiki wrote, Ganbare, and according to the credits, it was a Honolulu advertiser, photographer, who took that picture in 1945.

BN: And you were able to find the spot that exactly matched that photo?

JK: Yeah, they had a standing...

BN: You were pretty confident that you were that...

JK: Yes.

BN: So between that moment and the moment you got the phone call from the TV station, how much time had passed?

JK: Five years.

BN: It took that long just to get to that point.

JK: Uh-huh. And then push, push, push, along the way, yeah.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.