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BN: So your father was working in insurance, your mother is teaching, then you're born. Who was kind of looking after you and your brother?

JK: Oh, my grandma.

BN: This would be your father's...

JK: My father's mother, yeah. And then my parents, well, this is one thing about my father, he was definitely the boss of our family, that was very "Japanese-y." And the other thing was, when he spoke, I listened, and so I got a lot of... the only things I remember are mostly scoldings. But one thing he did tell us over and over, my brother and me, is that he believed in feeding us well, and he believed in educating us well, those two things. Anything else, like my mom would, when I was a teenager, she sent me to Liberty House to buy some clothes, because she sensed I was teenaged. And I got a, we both got a good scolding for that. He says, "No, that's not food, that's not education." And so that's why I remember that so well. And so, indeed, he was good to his word. We didn't just drink Dairyman's milk, he took us, he drove us out to the country to Maunawili where there were these special cows and the milk was richer. And so that's probably why we had cholesterol problems later on. [Laughs] But that was the best for us. And then as far as education went, he was always on the lookout for ways to -- and we didn't know this, we just followed along wherever he wanted -- and so at eighteen months, they sent me to school at Castle kindergarten, and my poor grandma cried because she figured I was still a little baby. But I went to Castle kindergarten and then I went to St. Andrews Priory. And then one day he said, "Okay, today you're going to go to another school, and just go there and do what they say and see how it goes. And so I went, and this was Punahou school, I didn't know. I went, and there were six of us, and we spent all day there taking a test, going to classes, and I had a good time in the music class. That's all I remember of the whole thing. And then a few days later, my father came home all excited, he was so happy. And that's the first time he told me he was proud of me, I mean, most of the time I got scolded. And he said he was proud of me, and I wondered why. And many years later, I figured it out. Those six people that showed up for that day, we were taking a test for the one opening. Because at that point in time, Punahou had a quota on Japanese. It was mostly for the Caucasians. And so I was competing for that one slot, and I didn't know that. And so that's how I got into Punahou.

BN: And then can you just briefly tell us what Punahou is, for those who aren't familiar with Hawaii?

JK: Oh, right, yeah. Punahou is a private school. It was originally started to educate the, I think, the missionary children, and then eventually the privileged children, Caucasian children, here in Hawaii. So many of my classmates were white, belonged to wealthy families. And so when I went to their birthday parties after being in Punahou, we were in these huge houses, and I thought, "Boy, I'm never going to have a birthday party." But then Punahou was just ordinary in the sense that we weren't super smart, not like your daughter. Because that happened later after Dr. Fox did away with the quota for Japanese. Then Punahou became a place where you really had to be smart to get in. So we used to get together, our class, at reunions, and we'd kind of joke with each other because half our offspring were not getting into Punahou. [Laughs] And so whenever I say I went to Punahou, people think, "Oh." And I don't tell them, "No, I wasn't smart." But that was true, we didn't have to be.

BN: But at the same time, because, as you mentioned, there's this quota of the number of Japanese and of Asians, you were sort of being held to a higher standard in some ways.

JK: That's true.

BN: Because you're competing just among the small group of Japanese for this precious spot. So in some ways, you were held to a higher level then.

JK: Yes, you're very right. Very true.

BN: My sense is that it was fairly unusual for a Japanese girl, quote/unquote, to be going to private school at that time?

JK: Yes, uh-huh. And I used to get teased by my uncle, and so I didn't like being at Punahou. Because every time I saw my uncle, he'd tease me. But later on, after he got married and had a daughter, the daughter went to Punahou, so I thought, ah, he was just being adolescent, I think.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.