Eventually, after several years [in Hawai‘i], my father was asked by Mr. Cabrino, who had lots of land in Wailea, if he would take over his property and he would lease all of his property to me dad to raise cane. So he took a great liking to my father so my dad did that and my grandfather and grandmother also came to live in Wailea.
One of the things that my dad noticed was that all the independent farm growers had to wait until the very end to have their sugar milled because the sugar plantation gave first opportunity to their own sugar land. And so he went around campaigning and asking if they’d like to have an independent sugar mill. And of course everybody wanted to so they got this Costa family – a Portuguese family – to work with them and they built this Wailea Milling Company and my dad was of course the vice president. My grandfather eventually went back to Japan but we ended up staying because my dad got into this big experience and opportunity to do something for the community.
Date: May 31, 2006
Location: Hawai‘i, US
Interviewer: Akemi Kikumura Yano
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
Journal feed
