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LG: Could you walk me through a little bit how Louise and Saburo came to Hawaii?

MR: I know that both families came to Hawaii, say, at the beginning of the century. I don't know about Saburo's family so much. I know about my grandpa, right? He came to, I think, early in the 20th century, he was the second son, and the second son could not inherit the farm. So he decided to seek his fortune in Hawaii. So he came over to Hawaii, and sort of got settled. And, you know, once he was settled and making a living and everything, doing very well, he went to the local pastor or whoever and said, "I want to get married." And the pastor said, "Well, that's wonderful. I have three great candidates for you." So my grandpa selected one, and that was my grandma. She came over and they got married, and they lived together until they died, and that was how they got together.

So what were we talking about? How did they come? Now, I don't know how on Saburo's side... I know that, how exactly they came, I think they came at the turn of the century. They were in there in Puunene on Maui. Now, on Louisa's side, they originally were in, they lived in, were originally in Hale'iwa, which is north in Hawaii. And it was my grandma, who was Louise's mom, she wanted Louise to be able to go to college, or to go to a good high school, that would mean in Honolulu. So she was insistent, "We've got to move," to a place where the girls would get a good education. So reluctantly, I think, Grandpa moved to Honolulu so they could go to a good high school, the two girls. And I guess he still willing to have them go to college at that point, but I guess he changed his mind eventually because the other girl did go to college. So what are we talking about now? Oh, where did they come from? Okay. Now as far as I know, on Saburo's side, his dad, they were they were settled in Puunene, and his dad, I think it was Puunene or something like that, and his dad ran a Japanese language school. So I think I visited it, and at that time, after school, everyone, after school was done, you still had to go to Japanese school, so you had to learn Japanese. That's what my mom did also.

Now, one thing about my grandpa was, you know, in Hawaii in 1942 at the beginning of the war, you interned the Japanese, well, Japanese Americans. But they couldn't do it in Hawaii, because there are too many Japanese Americans. They did all the work, right? So they only... but on the night of Pearl Harbor, soldiers came to Grandpa's door, knocked on the door, and said, "You come with us, okay?" And he's said, "Okay, I have to get my shoes on," because they don't wear shoes in Hawaii too much. He went to get his shoes on, and when he came to the door, they had their guns drawn. And they took him under arrest to the county jail, so that's where he stayed. However, many of the people, sort of leaders in the community like my grandpa, and who ran the school with my dad and things like that, were in the county jail. So every day, the moms would make a bento and take it over to county jail. But eventually, he was, my grandpa was moved to Santa Fe prison in New Mexico. And one story is that -- my uncle tells me -- is that just before he went overseas, Saburo went to visit grandpa at Santa Fe, and that the soldiers were so upset that they had to salute the enemy and that they had to serve him, these two Japanese guys, in the cafeteria. I don't know. But they visited with Grandpa before he went overseas. But I remember that story is something I remember.

LG: How did you hear that story?

MR: I think my uncle told me. It's just a story that they tell, you know, this must be my uncle. And Grandma used to tell the story, too.

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