<Begin Segment 29>

MM: In 1959 you branched out, if you will, and became the administrative assistant to the Speaker of the House in the state legislator, state legislature, Vince Esposito. Recall that time --

RK: Yeah, that was --

MM: -- it was a very exciting time for Hawaii.

RK: Right. Well, I did dabble a little bit. Most of my friends, Dan Inouye and others were actively involved in Democratic politics. And I was at the university and so we played a role. When Jack Burns ran for governor we sort of had a university brain-trust. And I was part of that gang that met regularly with the, then-to-be governor, Burns, and late into the evenings. And we, we did a lot of... and here again, we liked to talk about what he should be doing. And my field was education, like convincing him that we should expand educational opportunity beyond the high school. And at the moment, the most logical expansion was with community colleges all over the Islands, geographically and financially accessible. And he bought into that idea. So we did that sort of thing. So I was on the fringes helping the Democratic Party. And among the leaders that I met was Vince Esposito, 'cause Vince doesn't quite remember if I met him when he was on occupation duty in Beppu, Japan. Anyway, our paths crossed then. But I got to know him later, mostly at parties. And he wanted me to become his administrative assistant. He was supposed to be Speaker of the House. I didn't want to go, but he talked to the president and the president kinda forced me to take on that task. But the irony was, the Democratic Party was, was split. And as it turned out, Vince was not elected Speaker, someone else was, Elmer Cravalho, from Maui. But Elmer asked me to stay on, so I served as assistant to the Speaker. And that's the time when we got statehood for Hawaii. And one of my biggest jobs was to get a red, white, and blue telephone on the Speaker's desk so when the call came from Washington, from Jack Burns' office, that we had gotten the statehood, the bill had passed, the red and white telephone on the Speaker's desk would ring. [Laughs]

MM: Recall that moment when the phone rang.

RK: Oh yeah, it was a joyous moment. Yeah, we all enjoyed it. And, well, the funny thing is, one of my best friends who was the house attorney, who loves to fish, and I said well, "On that day we're gonna go fishing." And we did -- [laughs] -- reef fishing.

MM: So the local boy who grew up by the beach celebrated --

RK: Celebrated, yeah.

MM: -- statehood by going fishing.

RK: In our own way. But that evening we went to Vince Esposito's house for a big party. And that's where I met James Michener. And as I recall, James Michener, here in this kitchen, he was doing his research. He was pumping all these local people about this and that and everything else, some of which appears in his book, Hawaii.

MM: That must've been a very sweet moment for you, when Hawaii became a state, given that you had worked so hard on that issue, even as a student at the University of Hawaii.

RK: Yes, all of us, and all the great majority of us in Hawaii wanted statehood, expected it. Although, at one time we thought we'd never get it because of the Southern opposition. So one time in my career I thought seriously of going to Puerto Rico to study their commonwealth status, as to whether that would be good for us.

MM: What did it mean to you, and to your contemporaries?

RK: Well, as I recall, when everyone could meet each other and say, congratulations Mr. or Mrs. Citizen, you know, full-fledged members, because until we got statehood we had a governor who was appointed by the President of the United States. There were several things that we couldn't do on our own.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2004 Japanese American National Museum. All Rights Reserved.