Densho Digital Repository - Katsugo Miho Interview I (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1022-1-8)

<Begin Segment 8>

MN: Changing the subject a little bit, I noticed that sometimes you would use the term "camp." You would say, "Oh, there'd be this movie on people in the camp." Why do you use the term "camp?"

KM: We referred to the stevedoring homes, "camp," because, number one, all the sugar plantations had ethnic camps, Japanese camps with most of the workers, all of the workers were Japanese. Portuguese camp where most of the tenants were Portuguese. Filipino camp was the common usage to differentiate Puunene for where, what camp? In Makero camp, or Japanese camp. Kahului, I guess we just followed the same thing by calling those who were not merchant families as camp people. Because there were a couple of Onishi camps. Some of the workers from Onishi stores lived in Onishi store-owned housing. Kobayashi camp. Onishi camp, Kobayashi camp. What was the other camp?

WN: You mean Store camp.

KM: Yeah, Store.

WN: That's JMC.

KM: Well, JMC did not have a... it was basically Onishi...

WN: There was five of them, yeah? Ikeda.

KM: No, they didn't have an Ikeda. I guess it was only Kobayashi camp and Onishi camp, I think, to my recollection.

WN: Stevedoring camp, was that near the harbor, the ocean?

KM: The what?

WN: The stevedore, where the stevedores lived.

KM: No, no, because you had Kahului... let me give you, Puunene Avenue, from Puunene, now called, it's called Main Street, that was Wailuku, and this goes to Paia. The camp was all on this side. The residences was where you had this Maui Pineapple and the Kahului grammar school, and this was basically camp, it was just divided up like that.

WN: Sort of near where the Kahului shopping center is?

KM: Where Kahului shopping center used to be is where the town was located.

MN: And you know, you mentioned, like, Onishi camp, when your father was a manager at Onishi Shokai, was that where your family lived?

KM: No. Onishi store, Nakashima fish market, Okada fish market, across the street from the hotel, where our hotel was, had homes right behind the stores. They had homes, and we lived in the homes. All the Onishi workers lived in, there was one two-story, two two-story buildings and one side cottage for the Onishi workers, so we all lived there.