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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW with Jesse Kuhaulua (Daigoro Takamiyama) (JK) July 30, 2015 Interview By: Mel Inamasu (MI) John Okutani (JO) Jane Kurahara (Jak)

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ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW with Jesse Kuhaulua (Daigoro Takamiyama) (JK) July 30, 2015 Interview By: Mel Inamasu (MI) John Okutani (JO) Jane Kurahara (Jak) JAPANESE CULTURAL CENTER OF HAWAI‘I ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW with Jesse Kuhaulua (Daigoro Takamiyama) (JK) July 30, 2015 Interview by: Mel Inamasu (MI) John Okutani (JO) Jane Kurahara (JaK) Note: Comments in brackets [ ] are by the transcriber. Inaudible words or sections are identified by ((?)) in the transcript. This transcript has been edited to remove pauses, repetitive phrases and false starts. MI: Today is July 30, 2015. We’re here at the Japanese Cultural Center conference room to interview Jesse Kuhaulua, or Takamiyama. With me are two other volunteers. My name is Mel Inamasu and… JO: John Okutani. MI: And… JaK: Jane Kurahara. MI: So the three of us are here to interview Jesse. I’m going start the interview, but all three of us will be conducting the interview and asking you questions as we go along. And I think we’re most interested in today is, basically, not so much your professional career, but how you got there. And also, now, about your reflections of your career [JK acknowledges], your life, how you look at your role as far as being, maybe, a cultural ambassador between Hawaii and Japan. I know you’re from Wailuku, Maui. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your early childhood? Maybe tell us about your parents? Where you lived on Maui, and just go from there? JK: I was born at the old Maunalani Hospital. It’s now near the plantation, the sugar cane plantation—what was that? [taps fingers] Wailuku Mill? MI: Wailuku Mill. Yes. Sugar hospital. JK: Now—now I think it’s an old people’s home. MI: That’s right. JK: And after that, I went up to Ulupalakua with my grandma because my mother was originally from Ulupalakua. And—she’s a pure Hawaiian, and I’m three-quarters [Hawaiian] and a quarter of Portuguese [ancestry]. MI: So tell us your mother’s full name, and a little bit about her. JK: Lillian Kuhaulua. She was… Jesse Kuhaulua (Daigoro Takamiyama) Oral History Interview MI: What’s her maiden name? JK: Her name, Kuhaulua. Well, she didn’t get married. But she was with my father for about, —until he passed away, quite young, but he had—four—five kids with him. Altogether six, but one of them, my youngest, I don’t know. [Pause] MI: So are you the oldest one? JK: I’m the oldest one and there’s altogether six, three male and three female. I was the oldest and my sister Faith was a year younger than me. Then, Rita was my other sister. Then we had my brother Jackie and then Michael, and the youngest is Leila, my youngest sister. MI: Did you grow up in Ulupalakua? JK: Well—Ulupalakua, but I was raised up in Wailuku, Happy Valley. My mom was Lillian Kuhaulua. She comes from the biggest Hawaiian family, I think, on Maui, the Kukahiko family. I remember my grandmother’s brother, Reverend Kukahiko, [from] either Kula area or Lahaina area. But the thing with me, [at] my younger age, I had no interest visiting the family. My mother used to always take the kids go over, but I used to stay home. I didn’t really want to go out and meet the family, so I didn’t know much about them. And all my three sisters are all passed away. My [sister] Fay died at 61, I think. She had some kind of cancer. Rita went to school with Brian Hiranaga, [MI acknowledges] She died quite young. My mom died at 54. She was diabetic. She died a very young age. And my youngest sister, also, she was thirty-something, I think. She also was diabetic. And me, I’m so proud, because I supposed to be following my mother’s side, because I’m not, my diabetes is very low. MI: Now, so, how old were you when you moved to Wailuku? JK: I think I was over four or five, because I went to Wailuku Elementary School. Go to school, we were bare-footed. [Everyone chuckles] And I was involved in a car accident, at third grade. That’s why I got stuck in fifth grade at Wailuku Elementary, because I didn’t go school for a long time because I was in hospital. I was in the hospital for a couple— because at that time, they were building the iron bridge, and I was crossing the bridge without looking. Just cross the street and [slapping sound] I get bang! Next thing I knew, I was in the hospital and for quite a long while. JaK: Oh my goodness. MI: So your mother raised all of you by herself? JK: Uh, yes. By ourselves, because…[pause] JO: You know, in Japanese cultural values, you know, you got along with ganbare [perseverance]… JK: Yeah. JO: Raised as a Hawaiian, you know, in a Hawaiian environment, do you recall any strong Hawaiian cultural values? That maybe impacted on you, when you were raised? MI: No. I don’t know—just… JO: Because they had the concept of ohana [family] and… 2 Jesse Kuhaulua (Daigoro Takamiyama) Oral History Interview JK: Ohana, but—you know, where my mother go, when she go right, I go left. [Chuckles] Things like that. You know, it was a joke. Every time, they used to go Ulupalakua, go visit the family up there, very seldom that I go. I used to stay back—go out with my friends. JO: Were you independent? JK: Pretty independent. I didn’t really want to go where my mom goes. You know, she goes there; I go the other way. Then, going to school, we were down in Happy Valley. I started going to school, Wailuku Elementary. That’s where, my third grade, I got involved in this car accident. I didn’t go to school for quite a long while because I got hurt. MI: But—so you recovered well from the injury. I mean, you could play at sports? JK: Well, I could, but no, that’s the problem. Sports. When sports came in, at Wailuku Elementary, I really didn’t—I could dance, you know. The teacher used to make us dance. Sports-wise, I was real clumsy. Clumsy. What I mean by clumsy—in playing baseball, at Iao School, I wanted to turn out for the softball team. I couldn’t make it. I wanted to play first base. MI: Was that because of the car accident? JK: Well, maybe, because the only thing that I was doing a lot is playing, playing around with the kids. Football. And I was big. That’s only the thing, but I was clumsy. Maybe you can use the word “clumsy.” And—[pause] Remembering, I couldn’t really make the team. MI: But you were bigger than anybody else. JK: Yeah, yeah, I was real big. And when time to swim, like swimming in school, I didn’t go swimming. The reason why, maybe I was clumsy or something, and I didn’t want to go swimming, play sports, and at Iao School, I finally had the opportunity but I couldn’t make the team. I like baseball… MI: Who was the coach who didn’t put you on the team? JK: Umm, that I don’t know. [Everyone laughs] I forgot. MI: Was it Shishido? JK: Yeah. But [that was] my high school football team. But, when we had P.E.—I was quite interested in sports. The only sports that I think, the team that I made, was at Iao School when [it] had a track and field. But they made me go shot put and that’s the only thing I did, but I didn’t do that well. The smaller guys were out to ((rank??)) me. I was thinking of these kids at that time, these kids at shot put, but I wasn’t really doing well. MI: And then you went to high school [Henry Perrine Baldwin High School, a public high school in Wailuku]. What happened? JK: And then I wanted to play baseball. I strike out a lot. And I used to make a lot of errors, so I didn’t make the team. Then basketball. I wanted to play basketball then. I was a little too big for basketball but I did. I couldn’t dribble really to a man so I didn’t make the team. The only team I really made was the track and field, with the shot put. That’s the only thing I did. 3 Jesse Kuhaulua (Daigoro Takamiyama) Oral History Interview MI: So then you went to high school. Everything changed. [Kuhaulua played football at Baldwin High School when the school won four straight Maui high school football championships, and Jesse was an all-star tackle in his senior year.] JK: Like with—Edward Sawada. We went to summer school, because my mom said, “You gotta go to school,” and so—with Gregory Matsui, Alan Gushiken—the four of us, we went to school. And the class I went to—was my football coach, Larry [Shishido]. So there were people that—you know, at the party [Japanese Cultural Center’s 2015 Sharing the Spirit of Aloha annual gala event], I told that there were five people that really took interest, you know, helped me get in there—Isamu Ogasawara, who taught me the art of sumo. The other was Larry Shishido, who encouraged me to take sumo wrestling for football. Then the other was Kats [Katsugo] Miho. Kats Miho was with the 442nd [Regimental Combat Team, in World War II].
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