<Begin Segment 15>

MN: You know, you mentioned a stream, did you folks do anything in the streams?

KM: That Iao Valley Stream, up Iao Valley, was the favorite picnic grounds for the families. I think the AJA families did more picnicking than any other community's families. But Iao Valley was a favorite picnic grounds for the families. We'd go up there on many, many, many occasions just to eat teri beef. I remember cooking on the hot rocks, the teri beef. You cook it on the rocks and make a big fire and put the teriyaki on the rocks to cook it. And the water was always fresh water. They could drink, the stream water was very fresh, you could drink it right off the river. There weren't people worried about pollution those days, pollution was not a problem. But it was a favorite, Iao Valley was a favorite picnic grounds.

MN: You were saying AJA families would go on these picnics. What else what you folks do as a family?

KM: As a family, all of the so-called, what would you call it? Not carnival, but operettas. The Japanese...

WN: Plays.

KM: Yeah, the plays, shibai and all that. We would have certain occasions when the schools would put on, once or twice a year we would put on these community functions where different classes would perform different dances, different things. These were for families, basically for families. Over and above, the Bon Odori and Fourth of July was a big thing, Fourth of July was a big thing. Emperor's birthday wasn't that kind of, it was basically not too big, but still it was celebrated, family style. So most of the functions were family affairs.

MN: You just said that Fourth of July...

KM: Was a big deal. Yeah, was a big deal in Maui.

MN: Among the Japanese, AJA families or larger community?

KM: My recollection is that -- and this was confirmed not too long ago when I was doing some research on sumo -- that Bishop Museum, I found a picture of tournament that was held, inter-island tournament that was held in Kahului on Fourth of July. The picture showed part of the entire group of participants, plus part of the attendants. I would guesstimate that it was probably over two thousand people at this Fourth of July affair.

MN: And when you looked at that picture and you looked at the people in attendance, were they predominately AJA?

KM: Oh, all Japanese are, all Japanese. All Japanese community. Because those were from the neighbor islands also. You had people coming from the neighbor islands. It was a big state tournament.

MN: And in those days, was your father involved in the sumotori tournaments, too?

KM: I guess he was part of the committee that worked on the whole gathering because Mr. Sado was the perennial boss for sumo. In fact, in the internment pictures I see, there was a picture that my father kept of sumo being held in the internment camp in Santa Fe. And I see Mr. Sado in the picture.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.