Densho Digital Archive - Spark M. Matsunaga Interview (denshovh-mspark-01-0010)

<Begin Segment 10>

SM: Let's see. What has helped me in my personal life, being of Japanese ancestry? I find that just as I talked about the parents writing to us while we were in combat, encouraging us to do our best for our country America, because we were Americans, and that we owed our loyalty to America. Of the teachings which came to us and personally to me from my parents, many a time, for example, people would ask me what my secret is, that I don't seem to age. [Laughs] And my father at age eighty-two used to be mistaken for a man of sixty. And when people used to ask him what his secret was, he used to recite an old Japanese maxim which I translated to mean, "A soul completely immersed in one's work reflects a youthful face." See, he had jet-black hair and he was in good physical condition because he immersed himself in work. And when I was kid, he used to say, "If you want to stay young, Son, work, work, work. If you're a ditch digger, you be the best ditch digger. If you're a doctor, you be the best doctor. The only way you can be the best is to work, work, work. And then, my son," he would say, "you'll be rewarded. You'll never grow old." And then I used to complain from time to time, being born into a poverty-stricken family of seven children, in order to supplement the family income of the plantation, my father ran the furo, the camp furo, the public bath. And my mother ran a tofu factory, which meant that we kids had to really work. And I used to complain once in a while, said, "The other kids are playing, why can't I go play with them?" Well, I took it as part of my suffering as a kid. And he used to tell me that, "Furo ga atte fukai jinsei ga wakaru." Meaning, "a deeper understanding of human values comes through personal suffering." And he said, "Someday you're going to thank me for this." And it is true, because of my personal suffering through those years, I have a much and better understanding of the human suffering of others. And as a United States Senator, in passing laws, I can look upon the needy, the disabled, the handicapped, the poor, with much greater sympathy, and with a feeling that I want to do something for them.

[Interruption]

SM: Because I wanted to go to college, but because of the poverty-stricken situation of the family, I could not. Then in 1937, good fortune fell upon me. I won a thousand dollar prize in a newspaper contest, and I gave six hundred dollars to my father, and I pleaded with him to let me go to college. But then, see, four hundred dollars would pay for tuition, registration, etcetera, but insufficient to pay for room and board. And there was only one university in Hawaii at that time, and this was in Honolulu, and we lived on Kauai. Then I happened to be yard boy for the Hanapepe Christian Church, which was affiliated with the congregational churches in Honolulu. And Reverend Takie Okumura, the first Christian missionary to be sent from Japan to the United States, who built that beautiful castle church in Honolulu near McKinley High School, heard about my case, and he offered me free room and board if I would teach Sunday school at his church. And it was through the efforts of the members of the Hanapepe Christian Church, for which I said I was a yard boy. I didn't want to hurt my father because he was a Shinto priest. And so I approached him, I asked him if he had any objections to my accepting this offer by this Christian minister, which meant that I would have to live with him at the Okumura home, dormitory, and teach Sunday school. And to my amazement, he told me, and I put it in verse. He said to me, "When I think of the foolish fight that men over religious difference wage, I can see mortals in blind flight, headed towards one goal, whatever their age. As waters run from different heights and ferry rivers to a common sea, so do men make different rights and found religions to one great deity." He said, "I have no objection. In fact," he said, "America was founded on Christianity. You're an American, maybe you ought to become a Christian." And on that note, I accepted this offer to live at the Okumura Home.