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KY: In 1923, the Izumo Shrine, the new shrine was built. My father was one of the founders of the sect in Hawaii, and he was one of the prime movers in building the new shrine. After the war started, the board of trustees at that time, because they were classified as "enemy alien," they were interned, and the group of the board of trustees remaining had, by the action, because of fear, had given the land and the shrine improvements to the city parks board. During the war and after the war it was used as a park for that area. After the war, when Bishop Miao returned to Hawaii from internment, he had a temporary shrine, but he wanted to enlarge it after the governor had allowed the return of the Shinto shrine to be used in Hawaii. The board of trustees after the war was trying for many years to see if they can have land, original land and the shrine returned. And after many, many years' effort, they were not able to get any action from a political standpoint. So my father asked me if I could see if I could help them by legal means to try to get the return of the property, so I started to attend the board of trustees meeting after they elected me on the board. And I suggested to them the steps to go through means like, say, work with Justice Marumoto, and also with Justice Frank Padgett to take legal means to get the shrine back. And finally in 1963, I think, we went to the Supreme Court and we won. So the property as you see today is the result of many, many years of effort. So now, the older generation who belonged to the congregation, still do, and so now they have a place of worship. And that shrine, by the way, is the only historic building of the entire Kukui redevelopment area that survived the bulldozers and all the destruction of the buildings that was going on at that time.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1985 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.