Talking Hawai`i's Story: Oral Histories of an Island People

PALAMA TO PEARL HARBOR

AGNES EUN SOON RHO CHUN PÄLAMA TO PEARL HARBOR In looking back, I really didn’t know what would have happened to me and our family [had it not been for World War II]. At that time, it would have been just my mother and myself. I would have gone to school, and probably looked for a part-time job, and then probably got employment someplace [instead of entering the federal civil service]. But I know the war just turned everything upside down for everybody. Agnes Chun was born in Honolulu in 1925. Her parents, Hee Chang Rho and Young Hee Chi Rho, were originally from Korea. Chun lived in the multiethnic Pälama neighborhood with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. Her mother worked in the pineapple cannery and took in sewing to support the family. Her father, who was in poor health, died in 1935 when Chun was a third-grader at Ka‘iulani School. As a teenager, Chun worked summers as a trimmer and packer in the pineapple cannery. She went to Kaläkaua Intermediate School, then to McKinley High School, but her education was interrupted by World War II. In the days that followed December 7, 1941, Chun helped with wartime registration and fingerprinting. With school temporarily closed, Chun worked as a messenger and, later, a timekeeper at Ford Island naval station in 1942. Following what would have been her senior year, she spent a half day working at Ford Island and a half day in school, which enabled her to graduate in 1944. In her career in government service, Chun held various supervisory accounting positions, including that of comptroller in the Pacific Third Fleet. She worked in Korea as financial manager with the army before retiring in 1980 with thirty-eight years of service. Chun, “Pälama to Pearl Harbor” 21 She was married in 1949 to Soon Ho Chun, a teacher. They had three children. Agnes Chun was widowed in 1989. Chun was interviewed in 1992 by Michi Kodama-Nishimoto for a project entitled An Era of Change: Oral Histories of Civilians in World War II Hawai‘i. One of thirty-three interviewees of the project, which documented life on the Hawai‘i home front, Chun recalled how employment opportunities for women and students increased dramaticaly as a result of war. Although a larger percentage of the total population was working in the Islands than in most other parts of the United States, jobs were still plentiful. There were openings for not only domestic and laundry workers, waitresses, clerical workers, teachers, nurses, and other occupations traditionally held by women , but for traditionally men-held jobs such as chauffeurs, mechanics, and storekeepers. Chun’s federal civil service employment record during and after World War II epitomizes this trend. By 1942, 1,400 women held federal civil service jobs normally held by men. FATHER AND MOTHER My parents came from Ong Jin in Hwanghae-do, Korea. My dad and mother were married there and they had three children. Their children all died when they were infants. My mother said they suffered from kygŏngki—seizure or stomach disorder. I don’t know whether they had a very difficult time in Korea concerning livelihood. My dad came out here, worked in the plantations, someplace in Kaua‘i. My mother just said he upped and decided that he’d come with his friend. My mother found out from friends that he had left. My mother was living close to her sister, and so she stayed with her sister. Eventually after a ten-year separation, when he came to Honolulu, he asked my mother to join him. She arrived here in 1912. Therefore, she never had the experiences that many of the Korean women had, like working in the plantation camp, cooking for the men, and doing their laundry. They lived in the Pälama area, close to Akepo Lane. I think the neighborhood was a mix of Chinese and Japanese and Koreans. My mother mentioned that she had young lady friends whose children she delivered. And in fact, there was one boy, I remember, Ernest Pai, who was delivered by my mother and, lo and behold, Ernest has wavy hair like my mother. So she always says, “The boy was delivered by me, so he has my hair.” Before his [i.e., father’s] illness, he was working at the pineapple cannery and was in charge of a group of men on contract stacking...