<Begin Segment 13>

MN: I know that we're getting close to the closing of our interview session, so I thought I'd like to spend a little bit of time on your family. Tell us a little bit about your family, your marriage and your children.

KM: Oh, wait. The 442 member the club, very early in our formation, we wanted to get involved with some community activities. One of our first activity was getting involved with the All-Japan High School Baseball Federation back in 1955. Actually, 1953, there was a private sponsor, Mr. Torao Kobayashi, who was still alive at one hundred, two hundred and three years old, he was the first sponsor of an all-star high school member from Hawaii going to Japan and traveling all throughout Japan under the auspices of the Japan All High School Federation. And we got involved with this goodwill series. Every two years thereafter, Hawaii would send one all-star team up there. Two years later, Japan would bring over an all-star baseball team. And from 1955 until 1993, we continued this program. Unfortunately, in 1993, we found out that our veterans who used to provide places for home stay of the high school students, we couldn't get enough veterans to provide a place for home stay and so we ultimately turned over the program to the Interscholastic League of Hawaii. But the 442nd Club initiated not only that program, which is within ten years after the war, we got involved with this goodwill program of our kids going to Japan home stay and Japan kids coming to Hawaii on a home stay.

But the Hawaii high school baseball tournament was defunct right after the war, and the 442 organized and sponsored and gave financial backing to the reentry of the state baseball tournaments which had not been in existence after the war, World War II. And so we, for a great many years, I don't know for how long, we financially supported the Hawaii State High School Baseball tournaments, and we just continued until today now. But Interscholastic took over after we started it. But in the beginning we'd pass out gallon cans for donations to financially support the tournament. And then the 442 got involved with this goodwill sumo tournaments, and this started off back in 1962, was the first year we promoted. But what happened was that there was this Hawaii Sumo Association of first-generation AJA community. And they had accepted a proposal by the Japan Sumo Association to sponsor a goodwill tournament in Hawaii in 1962. And when 1961 came around, the Honolulu Sumo Association found out that they did not have enough manpower to sponsor the appearance of the sumotori, and so they turned it over to the 442. And I was involved because I was approached first from the Honolulu Association and we would consider it. But being involved with the baseball program, the boys said, "Hey, that's too much." Because not only did we have baseball, but we were sponsoring circuses every two years or so, because we had to have a building fund hopefully that we would get a clubhouse. So we were involved with all this. Many of the boys said, "What is sumo? There's no sense in sumo." But I was involved with sumo from Maui days where sumo was very popular in Maui. I was luckily able to persuade the boys to take over the tournament. And we started 1962 with a small group of ten top-notch sumotoris from Japan. And a private agreement with a stablemaster, Takasago Oyakata. Takasago Oyakata was a very liberal-minded stablemaster in Japan. Stablemasters in Japan were tradition-bound. Sumo in Japan was very much bound by all kinds of tradition, and so most of the stablemasters were very concerned. But Takasago Oyakata was very forward-looking and he wanted to reestablish the ties between Japan and especially Hawaii with sumo. Because before World War II, there were a lot of appearances by Japan sumotoris in Hawaii and California with the immigrants. And so he wanted to continue this and he wanted to introduce the lifestyle and the traditions of Japanese sumo to the Western world. That was his ambition. And so we started in 1962. For ten years... not ten years, but ten different tournaments that we sponsored, but ten different tournaments that we sponsored. But it got enlarged into performances in New York, performances in Los Angeles, and then the Sumo Association went to China and Britain, to Paris, Brazil, Australia, as a result of reopening sumo back in 1962. And so the 442 had a great deal to do. And today, amateur sumo is a big thing. Just the other night I was watching a world amateur tournament in Madison Square Garden, just two nights ago. And this is a big thing now. Of course, it's a little different from the traditional Japanese type, they have a taiko drum intermission between bouts to rev up the enthusiasm of the audience. And it was a big show as compared to Japanese authentic sumo.

MN: And we should mention that you were also very instrumental in having Jesse Takamiyama.

KM: Yeah. And at that time, in 1962, we took the group over to Maui and Hilo, we had them perform and when we went to Maui the first time in 1962, Maui being my hometown, there was this young Baldwin High School football player who had been practicing sumo to better his football performance. So he was taking sumo with my good friend Okasawara, who was the stable, sumo master in Maui. And so Jesse was learning sumo for his football, learning the stance in a defensive light. And so he was participating in sumo. And so when we took over the sumotoris in 1962, he said, hey, maybe he wanted to get involved. But you got to remember, in 1962, the draft was still in existence, and so Jesse, being a high school graduate, he was subject to the draft. And so, but he decided he wanted to go, and Takasago Oyakata said, oh, he'll take him. But we had to bypass the draft system. Governor Ariyoshi was the governor at that point. Being from Maui, I had some contacts here in Maui. My very good friend was the head of the local board of Maui. So he advised me that I can try and get an exemption, at least one-year exemption from the draft for Jesse because he's going to go to Japan to get in. So we worked it out, I wrote a letter to the draft board stating the circumstances that Jesse wanted to go out and try to get involved in sumo, the national sport of Japan. And the Maui local board gave Jesse the exemption. One year later, when he had to reregister, or inform the local board, he had to report that he was weighing so much, which was way over the eligibility weight of the recruits. So he got exempted from the draft on that basis. And there was this story, he became such a... today, still, a stablemaster. All others, Akibono became a grand champion and all that, but he retired from sumo without being a stablemaster. And of the Hawaiian contingent, he was the first one post-World War II. As of now, he's still the only stablemaster of the Hawaii contingent.

MN: It's an accomplishment.

KM: It's quite an accomplishment.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.