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Communities

Remembering Kaka‘ako: 1910–1950

Four men, one holding a baby, stand by row of cars in open garage.

Kaka‘ako Taxi Stand, ca. 1920. (Photo courtesy Yuri Ishibashi.)

Kaka‘ako, a 600-acre waterfront district located next to Downtown Honolulu, has undergone much change over the past century. Few traces of its former residential existence remain. In the early 1950s, rezoning led to the conversion of the primarily residential and small business district into an urban industrial area.

Shortly after the turn of the century, Kaka‘ako was a community of small stores, churches, schools, parks, and clusters of residences in ethnic “camps” or neighborhoods.

“Life was simple . . . very close-knit in the sense of community groups, eh? Because everything is centered around the neighborhood . . . And you grew up together. Death . . . or birth in another man’s family would be known to everybody because you living right in the camp.” —Wallace Amioka

Ethnic groups tended to live together in neighborhood pockets of Hawaiians, Japanese, or Portuguese, although there were no hard and fast boundary lines. Chinese and Filipinos were fewer in number and scattered throughout the district.

Sports activities drew the community together. The city, churches and other groups organized team sports—football, baseball, basketball, boxing, swimming, diving, and gymnastics.

“Barefoot (football) league . . . was organized . . . There were gangs roving around . . . robbing and doing everything else . . . so they had to organize some sports.” —Tai Loy Ho.

As late as 1940, Kaka‘ako’s population numbered more than 5,000 residents. But after World War II, community buildings, wood-frame camp houses, language schools, temples, and churches were razed to make way for auto-body repair shops, warehouses, and other small industrial businesses.

“Well, the sad story is that we had to evacuate Kaka‘ako. All the people had to move out . . . everybody had to go out because (they were) changing the zone.” —Keisuke Masuda.

Decades after the transition from residential to industrial, Kaka‘ako is slated for redevelopment. Plans call for the re-establishment of a mixed residential and business community.

“There’s no way, but I’d love to go back there and live in Kaka‘ako . . . (When) I pass (there), I have that feeling that this is where I belong.” —Gloria Felix

Virginia Mansinon remembers the closeness of the Kaka‘ako community (.au sound file, 182K).

Interviewees

Alves, Henry, 55, executive, certified public accountant
Amioka, Wallace, 64, oil company employee
Carreira, Lance, 59, company supervisor
Correa, Charlie, 60, city & county refuse worker
Enos, Edward, 72, naval shipyard cable splicer, instructor
Felix, Gloria, 66, factory worker, cook
Felix, Mariano, 71, laundry worker
Frazier, Charles, 71, newspaper printer
Heavey, Eleanor, 65, city & county park director
Ho, Tai Loy, 68, firefighter
Horne, Kuulei Waldron, 77, schoolteacher
Ishibashi, Yuri, 63, welfare department worker
Jenkins, Elmer, 80, saving and loan officer
Kapu, Sam, 77, city & county sanitation worker, golf course employee
Katamoto, Usaburo, 82, shipbuilder
Kekauoha, “Little” Joe, Jr., 58, musician
Kitagawa, Yonoichi, 65, boxing coach, machinist
Like, Albert, 78, schoolteacher
Magoon, Genevieve, 82, teacher, clerk, secretary, assistant manager, estate director
Mansinon, Virginia, 52, naval shipyard accounting clerk
Masuda, Keisuke, 76, tuna factory foreman, hotel maintenance man
Naito, Mary, 58, homemaker
Naito, Maurice, 66, city & county road division worker
Nakano, Hisao, 78, laundry driver
Nobori, Kenji, 61, firefighter
Nunes, John, Jr., 83, naval shipyard terminal superintendent
Takahashi, Kichisaku, 76, city & county carpenter
Tennis, Esta Pung, 68, YMCA employee, corps of engineers employee, courts employee, police department employee
Zane, Francis, 78, handyman

Interviewers

Gouveia, gäel, researcher-interviewer
Lee, Vivien, researcher-interviwer
Nakayama, Perry, researcher-interviewer
Taniguchi, Chad, project director