Biography Hawaiʻi; Koji Ariyoshi; Interview with Clyde Hayashi 7/6/04 #1

Okay. Yeah. Easy like, okay. Okay. Yes, I'll hobby for some and. Okay. And I remember a really doctorate. Okay. Okay. Sure. Okay. Okay. Anytime. Where? How did you meet? I was a lab instructor in the ethnic studies. 200 class Japanese in Hawaii. And he was invited because of his reputation. It started to be a guest instructor. And I believe that there was an exception made for him that he didn't have a PhD. But because of his experience and so on, they made him the guest instructor of our class.

So he became the person that we as lab instructors work with. And that was my first meeting with him. And then I got to them quite a bit on the staff in our many meetings and in many discussions. In terms of that class, have that class been taught much before? Why was it an important class? It was, I believe. When I was a lab instructor, about four or five years. It started four or five years before the Buckman Hall occupation and all of that history. I came in quite a bit later. And it was a very important class for me personally. I think for a lot of people that was for us in high school. We're basically presented Hawaiian history as Stanford doll, plants, all of these pineapples. I can still remember that picture, him standing in front of the fields that he personally planted 200,000 pineapple plants.

Superman, right? And it was really important for me and others, I think, for myself personally, to find out why was I here? I mean, my grandmother, I know grandfather came from Japan. But why was it that they came over? What were the living conditions? What kind? And so it helped me to understand a great deal. And what, you know, my grandparents went through and much more of an appreciation. Instead of, you know, my grandparents who did not speak English, who encouraged us to speak English, to do well in school. So it was very important to me personally. I think it was important to a lot of people that took it. It was the first time that many of us were looking at history in that way. Could you a pretty good choice to teach that one? I think he was a good, first of all, he was a student of history. He was amazing talking with him, the knowledge that he had of history.

He also lived through a lot of the history. I grew up on a coffee farm, sharing with us how people that ran away from the plantations and the hard conditions ended up because Kona was kind of isolated. So they ended up in Kona, working on the coffee plantations. How life was very hard and how land was owned by, you know, a few people and how life, how they struggled to make ends meet. Then he came to Honolulu, worked on the docks. And again, that part of that history he shared from his personal experience. Went to the mainland to work and shared with us that. But then came back and got involved again with the IOW, wrote the Honolulu record. And so much of what he shared with us of the history came from his personal experience. So I think it, for myself and a lot of people to be able to talk with someone that had so much experience, was very valuable, versus just reading text and research.

What do you think he wanted people to get out of the plant? What do you think he wanted 19 year olds to get out of his family? I think he wanted a true picture, a more accurate picture of our history. He truly believed that over and over he talked about how, you know, the masses of people make history, that it's never one person. And that, you know, if you really want to understand societies, history and so forth, that you have to study what workers go through and what they contribute and so on. So I think, I would think history from the perspective of workers and from the majority of people was one thing that I felt that he kept emphasizing. Not looking at the history of a society based on the leadership, the rich, the powerful, the privileged. And that's a lot of times the history that we're taught.

How important, how important did you feel he taught the issues of ethnicity or race? Yeah, I think he thought it was important. But Koji, many occasions talked about, and he had grown up in Hawaii where race was very significant, very significant. That the whites, you know, the holidays lived where the plantation bosses and that for a lot of local people up until World War II, they had actually never seen a white work with their hands, right? There was always a privileged position. So he, his experience in Georgia when he attended University of Georgia, I think, you know, was very significant because he talked a lot about tobacco road, and he talked about how, when he went to Georgia, in fact, when he asked people about tobacco road, people said it didn't exist. And he had to really, really present, finally was able to find tobacco road.

And that's where I think where he, he, it was real significant because he saw that while in Hawaii, people of different ethnic groups were at the bottom of the social economic ladder. He really, you know, oppressed state. But in Georgia is where he saw poor whites. I mean, the poorest people that had ever seen these sharecroppers. And so I think he felt it was significant, but I think that that experience going to Georgia helped to give him much more of a class outlook in terms of workers, not just in Hawaii, in our country, but across all over the world. How much did he bring in his experience in China, both in the 40s and really around the same time as he sort of came back in contact with that shape when he talked about it. He would, he would bring that in every once in a while. He would share with us his experience in the military as an intelligence officer in Yanan.

But I think more so he would talk about China as a country where workers were able to collectively work together and get much more benefit out of their labor. So I think he would factor that. And along the way he encouraged many of us to get more interested in China. A number of the ethnic studies people went on friendship tours to China. I think another thing he really felt really important at that time during the Cold War period was I think he and many others I think were afraid that there might be a war with China. So one of the things he pushed for the US China people's friendship, friendship association was people to people friendship. He would say to us that, you know, if people learn about each other, then they're more likely to say, you know, to oppose a war, to oppose aggression against one another. So in the end, I think a number of us, I went in 76, he helped us to arrange so that we weren't able to visit China and see China firsthand.

How important was the US China people friendship association to hand them to the people around him? It was very important, I think, to him. He was very active. I think probably he, with others, was most responsible for forming the chapter in Hawaii. But he also got very active on a national level. He was, I think, a foreign, he was a board member at one time of the national board. And because of his relations, he actually went to China before Nixon did. And he went and he met with Joint Live, some of the people that he had known from his Yanan days. And I think played a real key role in terms of opening up relationships between the two countries. And, you know, moving beyond just a core attitude toward China as his evil empire, this, you know, a threat to us and so on. And I think the people to people exchange awareness of a lot of Americans now have about China, I think.

And the exchange that occurred, Chinese students coming over and so on, the training so on, I think has helped to lessen that tension. But he felt it was, I know, he felt it was very important. And he spent, toward his later years, he spent tremendous amounts of time. He spent time between, once he had left at Nixon, he spent time between his flower shop and US-China people's friendship, extremely dedicated. I would say at that point, the key person in Hawaii's activity in Hawaii and a key person nationally also. He was getting involved in that, like, studies in the late 60s. There's a lot going on. Founder, he responded to the kind of political activity of the time because he'd been so involved, really suffered for his involvement in certain kinds of ideas. How did he work in business and being sort of the older statesmen?

Yeah, that was interesting. I guess I was in ethnic studies in the early 70s, 72, 73, 74 during that time period. It was interesting because there was a lot going on. It was post-Vietnam War era. There was a whole lot happening. There was a lot of passionate debate argument, but he actually stayed relatively calm, I thought. And he appreciated, I think, I recall him saying on a number of occasions, he appreciated the passion of young people. The ideas and the passion that young people have is so important for any society. And he never discouraged that. In fact, I think he probably encouraged it. But in terms of the actual discussion on the issues, he would say a little bit, but he was never really that involved about it.

I can remember him telling us that the most important thing is that if you want to make change for the majority of people, the most important thing is ideology, your class stand that you have to want to serve the people. And he said that over and over, that your goal needs to be to make change, positive change for the vast majority of people. So all of the finer details of the political discussion, at least with me, we didn't quite go over that. And he wasn't really excited. It's interesting because now that I'm much older, it's questionable how significant some of those disagreements on particular points were. And that in fact, those that I think ask what you said, those that have continued to want to do positive things for the majority of people. Actually, the people that are still involved doing things still today, you know, 20, 30 years later, still trying to do positive things in Hawaii and across the country.

Takua Nakamura once said, one of the truly admirable things about Koji area, he was a man who devoted his life to an ideology, just mentioned it there and said a few things about it. Could you talk a little bit more about how you describe Koji area, she's ideology? I asked him once, my young kid of early 20s, and I asked him once, and I said, you know, Koji, we were in his van, I think we were returning from a chemotherapy treatment, and I asked him, I said, Koji, if you could say how you would want to be remembered. And this is a person I had tremendous respect for, this is a person that I thought was just just an unbelievable person for all that he had done in his life, the courage that he showed. And he said something along these lines, he said, you know, I would like to be remembered as a person that no matter where I was, that I always try to do, always try to improve the quality of life for the vast majority of people.

And as a young person, I looked at that, that sounds okay, but is that, but I think that really, you know, whether he was in Manzanar, in a concentration camp, or during the smith activity, I mean, you know, he was arrested, put on the house arrest, he obviously wasn't free to move on, and he decided I'm going to write these set of articles, my phospho, which I stand and died it. He became blacklisted, and forced to open up a small flower shop, Nihua Street, in the back, Waikiki. And then an opportunity came along where U.S. China relations opened up, and people called on him for ethnic studies, U.S. China really, so whatever opportunity presented himself, he tried to do what he could, you know, to improve things, to make things better for the majority of people. And then, as I looked back on his life, sometimes he was more able to do than others, but the key was that wherever he was, he tried.

And again, and the gauge he used was, am I, is what we're doing, going to end up affecting the majority of people, and improving their lives. Did he talk to you? Did he mention a number of things there? Did he talk to you or talk publicly about his own feelings or experience about, for example, going through the smith act? I don't know if he, how do we call him talking publicly within some of our sessions, our meetings, and ethnic studies, he talked about it. And what he talked about the smith act was, he shared a lot of personal experiences, but what could you do that I was, I really appreciated was he always tried to relate it to, to the situation we're in at that time as well as the future. And so, not only did he just talk about his personal experience, but he talked about, for example, when he was arrested.

You know, he said that he wasn't, if they just knocked on the door, if the FBI knocked on the door, and said, in Stario, you have to come with us, he would have just gone with them. But he told us, he said, that wasn't the intent. The intent was to isolate him. There was a paranoia, it was to isolate him. So, what did they, they pounded on the door and yelled out his name so that everyone in his neighborhood knew that the FBI was arresting him. And then he shared with the star where they even went into the restroom with him because they said that he might do something. And so, it was this paranoia that people were so whipped up with this hysteria. And so, he kept telling us over and over and said, if people are not careful, that kind of hysteria paranoia can occur again. So, he talked about how friends would tell him, don't, don't relatives would tell him, don't visit us. I'm sorry, but don't visit us because I forgot what exactly the reason was, they were scared or whatever, but he saw friends that would cross the street when they saw him.

So, he talked about how that was really a campaign to isolate. The smith act was a campaign on the part of people to isolate those leaders to separate them from the people that they've been working with and the people that supported them. So, he talked a lot about that, but he also added, you know, he had a positive side to it. He said that in spite of all of the people that were scared, in spite of all of the people that felt intimidated, many people stepped forward as character witnesses, many people, and that's why in the end they were freed. And that, you know, he kept saying, if you work with people, you work with people, you do good things that there were people that will, you know, in spite of everything that happened, I think he still had a positive viewpoint in general toward people. And the strength of people to face a challenge and to prevail.

If Keith out of himself is a leader? I think he must have. You know, he never really presented himself to me anyway in that way. I mean, he was, he really tried to persuade people to engage in dialogue. And he was a leader. I'm not sure how he would have looked at himself. I know that he felt that he was, he was trying to make a difference and making a difference. I know in China friendship, he was a leader nationally. But, you know, I always, I always felt that he is a very humble person. And so he probably did, but he never, that, that was something that he never talked about, at least with me.

He spent so many years as an editor in writing. No important do you think he thought? Did he talk about the importance of the written word or publishing or writing? I think what he talked about a lot in terms of people that are trying to do good things to make positive change. He kept talking about the need to affect public opinion, the need to affect public opinion in many of our conversations with him. And writing was an important way. And he also talked about encourages to write to people and not write to ourselves. I mean, we could write something with using, you know, the most very long complicated words, right? You know, words that are not normally used or you could write it in a much more popular kind of way. And I know he, you know, in our discussions, he encourages us.

You know, if you're going to write to people, write it in a way that people can understand. And he thought writing was very important. He doing China friendship years, newsletters. He was always sharing information. But again, he talked about it in a society to affect public opinion, to get rid of it. And also, he talked about the effectiveness of the writings of the hero, not the hero, but the Lulu record. And that, you know, a lot of people, that series made a lot of people question what was happening. And so from his own experience, the power of just the written word, I think. So, yeah, he felt it was very important. How suited do you think he was to working in a flower shop? I thought his arrangements were pretty good.

You know, actually, you know, I, I, I never heard him complain. I don't recall him ever complaining about how something was unfair, or it should have been another way. I don't ever recall that. And he, it was interesting because I had so much respect for him. And when I went to help him in a flower shop, and what, a lot of it was to allow him to do U.S.-China people's friendship work. So, when he went on his trips to the mainland, I went, I went to help his son Roger. But, you know, I think he did a good job as a florist. But I always looked at him as, as, I mean, I just had so much respect for him. And then he accepted the fact that because he had been blacklisted, because the opportunities were close to him, that he was forced to do that. And, but again, I mean, another thing that I really respected, and looking back, never complained, never said, well, you know, this isn't fair, whatever, whatever he was, he tried to do the best he could.

I know a number of people from ethnic studies at one point or another end up working with him in the flower shop. Did it become sort of a classroom, or did he keep things sort of really separate? Later at night sometimes, during the day, we were pretty busy, people coming in. He worked very long hours. We were out the deliveries, pickups. But later at night sometimes, when things kind of settled down, you know, he would talk. And I always enjoyed that. How old are we? I'm getting close to the end of the day. How long do we have? 20. So back then, I did to the flower shop in that room. Did he talk at all about what it was like editing the record or just general stories of putting up paper together and what kind of role it's there?

He talked a little bit about it. And it was interesting as I've looked at some of the issues of the record. I mean, it was on his paper, right? It had sports reporting. I think I recall seeing some fashion shows and so on. He talked about how it was important to not just, you know, our interest at that point being in ethnic studies and so on, but he thought it very important to present it in a popular style, to present it in a style that in a way that working people would be interested in. And he's more of the time was spent actually in our discussions on talking about writing from prison, right? And my thoughts for which I stand and died at.

And but we did talk about how the paper itself was was was was able to survive because of just grassroots support, me selling subscriptions and so on. So I think it's in today's world of these mega corporations only newspapers. I think, you know, if there will be a community paper like that, I think we're going to have to duplicate some of the things that they did. And there was just grassroots support and just a lot of dedication, commitment to making something like that happen. And they were very, very committed. I think it only happened because of the commitment and the importance they felt such a newspaper had. And I think it's not a Chapin's talk about how one of the big things about the record was that it was an investigative paper. It had the news that the other papers wouldn't. Did he talk about that at all?

And what he felt was really important to the public to know. Yeah, it was, I think, you know, he. It was an alternative. Even, I mean, the things that they talked about how some people are critical to start with in an advertisement today. But back then, I think, I mean, people were even more critical that it was certainly the viewpoint of a certain small group of people. So he talked about the significance of the record bringing that alternative message, information and doing the investigative report, as you say, to bring the truth to people. And at that point in time, the connection between the plantation owners and the newspapers was such that, basically, again, it was a viewpoint of a certain small group of people. So yeah, he felt that that was important. And I think it did play a role.

If you look at, I mean, I don't, I guess, different people could assess it. But I think it really played an important role in terms of leading up to the 54 revolution with the Democrats came into control. And I think that's only possible if you have an educated electorate that can see that there's a need for change and understand, you know, what kind of change is needed. Thank you very much.