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MM: So your mother and father met up and moved to Waikiki, and that's where you were born and your family was raised, your siblings and so forth?

RK: That's right.

MM: Tell us about those years in Waikiki.

RK: Oh, Waikiki was a delightful place to grow up in. We lived on, well, the so-called "poor" section of Waikiki, which was on the so-called "lower end," which was near the Kapiolani Park. I was born and raised -- I was born, I'm told, at the corner of Kalakaua Avenue and Ohua. The landmark there is the St. Augustine's Church, which still stands there today, but now it's surrounded by high-rises, mainly hotels. And where was I was born now stands the Marriott Hotel. But it was a nice neighborhood to grow up in. The beach was there and also the zoo was there, and the aquarium was there, and the weather was always perfect.

MM: You've often talked about how your experience growing up is not typical of the Japanese in Hawaii. How so?

RK: Well, I didn't grow up in a plantation town like many of my brethren did. And I didn't live in, you know, there were many enclaves of ghettos, where they had strong Japanese presence, like in Moiliili or Palama and so forth. But Waikiki was very cosmopolitan. My neighbors were, my immediate neighbors, after we moved on Cartwright Road with the Rasmussens and the Ornellas, I guess of Portuguese descent, and quite well-to-do. And on the other side was the Donnelly, who was a German. So it was a very mixed group. There were scatterings of Japanese around, and most of the Japanese who lived in Waikiki, as my parents did, worked in the hotels, and it was the Moana Hotel, the Royal Hawaiian and the Halekulani. Those were the three big hotels, maybe the only hotels in those days. And my dad worked in all of them.

MM: What did he do?

RK: He was a, mainly a waiter. He was in the Moana, the Royal Hawaiian, and then eventually, for over thirty years worked at the Halekulani. And he ended up being the bartender at the famous House Without a Key. Now, some of my friends told, tell me that he made the best martinis.

MM: [Laughs] Did you ever drink any of his martinis?

RK: No, he never served me any. [Laughs]

MM: Never served you any... and what about your mother? What did she do?

RK: My mother, very hard-working, conscientious. She took in home laundry. Most of the ladies there supplement, and to try to give the best to their families, took in home laundry. The neighborhood, especially when you crossed Ohua Avenue, on the other side were mainly the so-called haole families, the Caucasians, the good middle-class or better, and many of them didn't do their own laundry. And so the ladies in our neighborhood had home laundries, and as kids, we'd go, on Monday morning, to pick up the laundry, and Thursday to deliver whatever was done.

MM: How many brothers and sisters do you have?

RK: There are six children in our family, two girls and four boys. The eldest is my sister Nobuko, who got a doctorate and retired as a professor of education at the University of Hawaii, Hilo. She still lives in Hilo. Then I have an older brother, Frank Mineyuki. He's a Kibei. And then I'm the third one. Just below me is Kazuo, who was a banker, now retired, and then there's Mabel, who worked in clothing merchandising. And the youngest is Albert who worked in the airlines.

MM: So it sounds like each of your siblings, and yourself included, went on to become educated and had professional positions.

RK: Well, we, yeah. It's a diverse family. We had different interests, we did different things.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2004 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.