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gky: Did it make you proud to be a Hawaiian, or proud to be a Nisei?

KY: What was that?

gky: Were you proud to be a Hawaiian, or proud to be a Nisei?

KY: Oh, yeah. We're always proud to be Nisei, Hawaiian Nisei anyway.

gky: Was there any difference between the mainland and the Hawaiian Nisei?

KY: There's some fundamental differences, you know. Mainland Nisei is, well, it's because of geographically, you know, it's a continental type, lot of land. Hawai'i is insular, small island, people are close contact. So being a insular island, the Hawaiian Nisei get in contact more on, like, say, they get closer contact. That's why they have like the kenjinkai you know, they come from certain prefecture, Yamaguchi or Hiroshima and so forth. And they kind of intermingle so their contact is more understanding. Just like the Hawaiians are more understanding with each other's culture, whereas on the mainland, they're far removed from each, the communities are far apart so they don't get that contact, so their thinking is different. That's where basically I think the Hawaiian Nisei and the mainland Nisei differ, geographically.

[Interruption]

gky: How did that translate into behavior? How did the differences in the Hawaiian and the mainland Nisei translate into behavior?

KY: The Hawaiian Nisei -- we have... anyway, the make-up of the people varied. The basic guiding, the basic guiding principle of the behavior of the Hawaiians is the Hawaiian spirit. The Hawaiian and the Polynesian culture has the basic guide to the heart, behavior of the Hawaiian Nisei, very friendly, open, giving, you know, all that. And they seem to help each other so you don't have the hardship of the weather, for one thing. We don't have the high cost of seasonal changes in clothing and things like that, where on the mainland, you have this harsh winter and, you know, but like Los Angeles, I know the Los Angeles Nisei and like the San Francisco Nisei, I notice some difference. You get in Los Angeles Nisei and the Midwest Nisei, quite different again, my observation, you know, the manner, the thinking, everything is different. So it depends on what mainland Nisei you're talking about.

gky: Is it harder or easier to get along with mainland Nisei?

KY: For my part, my wife is from the mainland, so, to me, no difference, you know. Although, a lot of the true Hawaiian Niseis, they couldn't get along. We used to have fights all the time in the 442nd, you know. They kind of got together afterwards.

gky: What do you think made the mainland Nisei and the Hawaiian Nisei pull together?

[Interruption]

KY: Actually, I take the example of the 442nd, you know, an example they, they were poles apart, you know. They just didn't get along. But from what I read in one of the periodicals, they said that the 442nd had a tour of one of the evacuation centers, and they saw, saw the hardship that the mainland Niseis were going through. And after they returned, you know, after discussing and thinking, they felt they must pull together and help the mainland Niseis, and that, I understand, is the start, they started to get better relationships.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2001 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.