Michelle Souza and Laura Richarz

00:04 My name is Laura Richards. I'm 58 years old. Today's date is March 7th 2010, and I'm an East Los Angeles with my dear friend, Michelle Souza.

00:18 My name is Michelle Souza. I'm 58 years old as well. Today's date is March 7th 2010. I am in East Los Angeles and I am with Laura Richards a dear friend of mine.

00:33 Tell Michelle you and I have known each other since 1974 the really long time. So we've had lots and lots of conversations over the years about a million things. And one thing you talked a lot about Timmy is your family specifically your mother and I know that you really proud of a lot of things that she did and she had a really interesting life. So I was going to come ask you about some of that stuff. Okay? Well, I'll try to tell you it's best. I can remember sort of about the whole history of my family. We are from the islands the Hawaiian Islands. My mother was born in 1918 in North Kohala on the big island of Hawaii and her parents married when they were 16 and 22 years old and when her mother was 17, she got pregnant with my mother. She walked 5 miles to hospital down the plantation Rose and she had my mother. My mother was less than 2 pounds at the time of her birth and she had no name so they took her home and they use

01:33 Let her sleep in a drawer and they used to feed her by dipping a handkerchief into milk and having her cycle on it when she was 3 days old the godparents took her to the Catholic church because they were staunch Catholics and you wanted to have a baby baptized as soon as possible. So they took her to the Catholic church, and there was a French priest there who would come over with some other French priest to evangelize the native Hawaiians and he asked what her name was and they said just baby girl. She has no name and he said well, when was she born and they said February 3rd to February 3rd, 1918. And so he said while I'll name her son toast blah blah CS which is the word for Saint Blaise the saint of that day.

02:22 So Santo blasius she was until she was 3 years old at which point she came to my parents and my grandparents and said I don't want to be named that anymore because Santos is a man's name and I'm a girl. So the names were blasting her and she actually remain blastina until she went to school and she had an English teacher from you know, probably the east coast and when the she was asked her name and she said blasi another teacher just write her name down as Blaze blase without an accent on the end. So it's not blah say it's not Blaze with a z it's Blaze with an S. And she was always very staunchly. Why don't you to know her name was Blaze without the zhiyun without the accent. So my mom, you know grew up in North Kohala. She was the oldest of six children and she

03:12 First of all love to read her father did not know how to read when he came to this country from Puerto Rico at the turn of the century, but he taught himself to read in Spanish and he would read to them from Don Quixote. And so she became this amazing reader and she used to actually go into the bedroom and get a book and read behind the trunk and like they're by not doing her chores and her parents saw this but would forgive her and let her read and so she became this like she just became this person that was always in quest of information. So she graduated she went to school on the big island and when she graduated

03:54 She went to the University of Hawaii. She is the oldest of six children and she was the only one to get a to further her education. She went to the University of Hawaii in on Oahu took the boat there from the big island and

04:10 She

04:12 She graduated in 1939 with a ba and she was the very first Puerto Rican of any gender male or female to graduate at that time. The very first Puerto Rican to graduate from the University of Hawaii. And what did she study? I think she got a ba in teaching. I mean basically, you know that time you can only be a teacher or a nurse kind of thing. So she is so she became a teacher so she stayed on that island. She worked for like haole households in which of the white folks at the time. She was a cleaner. She worked at the Dole pineapple canning plant and she worked, you know, she worked for the University of Hawaii in like I think it's a teaching not a teaching capacity but maybe as an assistant or something and she also did some teaching so did she stay on Oahu after she graduated why she did that until she decided that you wanted to start a further her career long, so she decided to become a librarian. But what happened right at this time, this is 1939 when she graduated the war happened so drink soda.

05:12 The war she works at the Uso. You know, she danced with the soldiers. I know I remember you gave me a book call the last strange place and there's a whole chapter about the Uso and they talk about Blaze Ya in the book. She was you know, she'd go out with the soldiers. She had she did really interesting times like at that point during that that was when she was in Harley EVO and there were a bunch of soldiers and bunch of you know girls on the beach and a tidal wave happened, you know went out to sea and she's they were all running in and they could see the the ocean, you know coming back in at Cinema one big wave. She had like really interesting experiences fighter also, tell me that she saw the planes coming over on 402 Pearl Harbor. I don't remember if she did or not. She saw the Green Flash though. Once I'm fascinated by the Green Flash and I've searched for the Green Flash and I'm very envious he see the Green Flash. So any the green flashes when usually when you're well, actually I just saw it for the first time ever when I was

06:12 When I was visiting my home a couple years ago. It's when the Sun.

06:18 Everything aligns in the sky as the Sun is setting and there's a certain Haze in the sky. Every other conditions are right in as the sun. Just when the Sun.

06:28 Is right at the horizon line. There's a green flag over the ocean over there. It's only over the ocean. There's like the screen flashed and it's a very hard. I mean, I never saw it and all my years of growing up in Hawaii until like two years ago when I was 56 years old, I was pretty amazed but my mom always would talk about the Green Flash and I was always very envious that I never got to see the Green Flash. So, so anyhow when she after the war she and my godmother

06:58 Went to New York because my mom had been accepted to Pratt Institute in.

07:05 It's not in Manhattan. I think it's in.

07:09 My aunt went to Columbia and my mom went to Pratt and I can't remember which bro, that's it. But you went to Pratt Institute. Is this the first time she's ever been off the island the very first time she'd only ever been on a boat and then they were taking planes and trains took a plane to to the West Coast and then took a train across the country. Totally these two little Hawaiian girl, you know, they'd gone through the war together and they were older. So I think my mom at that point was probably about 26 or 27 it took the train all the way across to New York and she spent four years at Pratt and she had these great stories one of them, which I absolutely love was she was in the class?

07:51 I think there were like two women in a bunch of men. You know, I'll be coming Librarians and the teacher asked did anybody know what the CBI was?

08:01 And my mom looked around and nobody was raising your hands. And so she raised her as in the teacher said yes, and she said the china-burma-india triangle, but the other which is he know the war at the Pacific Theater in World War II was the china-burma-india theater was turns out it was actually the cumulative cumulative book index cuz it was a lot of reclast but I say mom got a lot of points. I think just answering the question, you know, when nobody else knew. She knew some she knew what CBI was it was just the wrong CBI so she took her classes, but she actually had a great time in New York in a sheet. She used to tell us stories cuz you know just little Snippets of seeing people like Billie Holiday perform and Marian Anderson singing and Jose Ferrer and Jose Freya ridings in Cyrano de Bergerac and Marlon Brando A Streetcar Named Desire. She got to see the Stella Stella Stella and

08:55 She graduated, I think it was 1947 maybe or 48 somewhere in there. I can't really remember to have to look at my notes, but it's not that important 46 to 48 and she went back to the islands after she graduated because I think she missed him and more importantly she had a job lined up there, you know, when jobs are hard to come by so she went back to the islands and

09:21 She met my dad and she cooked them a meal the first do that. There was two couples my blind date kind of thing. My mom and my dad and this other couple that introduced him as you cook them a home cook meal on you fell in love with your dad is there over her pork chops or whatever they were and proposed two weeks later and you know if they waited a while but they got married and I think in 1948. Wow, that must have been some kind of culture shock on two ends one going from the islands to New York and then coming back after 4 years of all that coming back home, which I absolutely love cuz like she's just in like this big old snow drift and Central Park and she looks so happy. You know my mom.

10:05 Always sort of embraced where she was and she wasn't afraid to go to new places, even at the end of her life, you know when she came to live with us. So so anyhow, she met my dad and

10:17 They got married eventually and I was born in 1952 and my sister was born in 1954. There's only two of us. We lived on Oahu and my mom want to know who's do. I know who's treat. My mother was My Librarian when I was a kid and the school was only about like two blocks away from the house. So I go to school there two things. I remember about this time he or she was the children's librarian. It was just like a grade-school number one should never let me get away with anything in the library wouldn't classes with come in and I sort of fool around because I thought Wanda. Of the library and he know I can get away with this mom was like I was just like another kid in the class, you know, and the other thing which she did which is wonderful we should go off. She go in on the weekends in like work on special arts and crafts projects or she might have something to do and she take my sister and I with us with her.

11:06 And Pat and I would just run around in the library in like look at the books everywhere fiction non-fiction. I mean, we're young, you know, but I would just I can remember the smell of the library the smell of the books. It was just it was just wonderful and I think that's another reason why I just I love to read I mean, I can't not read it would kill me. If I couldn't read, you know, well that must be one of the things that keeps us good friends because my grandmother was a librarian that's right and books were always a huge thing in our life. And I know you've expressed interest sometimes of you'd love to have been used bookstore you like to own and how we like to hold books and open books and titles and covers and will never be a Kindle person is just something to be said for like turning a page, you know, I just can't scroll. I can't I don't know. Anyhow.

12:02 Yeah, so then my mom, you know my mom rose up in the library world of Hawaii and she work for the state of Hawaii at the end is like teaching other Librarians and processes stuff like that, and then she retired and when she retired

12:18 At age 50

12:21 She sort of.

12:23 Took but she knew as a librarian and all the research and stuff that you do when your library and she transferred that into trying to find out about her family. And so she started with her family and that expanded to this like this second career almost she was almost busy or after she retired then when she would have been working. So what she did was my mom decided to study the history of the diaspora from Puerto Rico to Hawaii, so she

12:52 Wrote about the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico in 1900 is called San ciriaco.

13:02 And that sent everybody from Puerto Rico to other places one bean Hawaii. The second one was like probably the east coast and the West Coast, you know in search of better times cuz there's nothing to do in Puerto Rico. Everything was decimated all the fields all the everything in Hawaii was very much like Puerto Rico in terms of the kind of crops that they built in all the longitude and latitude and their place in the world. So so my mom started to write about that and research it and read her parents come over in that first wave her father came over and I think believe her mom was bigger was born on the big island has her father came over when he was 7 and her mom was

13:44 Well, maybe your mom was a baby and I'm not sure. So anyhow, she wrote a couple books. You wrote a book with my dad and I always said it was like they were like this team sort of my mother was Don Quixote like up on the horse, you know, tilting at windmills and you know, just finding all this stuff out of my father was like the the faithful typist on the dog hate you note sample of Lights. I mean he could she had like these dreams.

14:12 But he actually put them on paper sort of in and kept her sort of, you know, he could he could explain the questions, you know, like the nuts and bolts kind of thing.

14:22 So they were sort of like this little team together, you know, and they wrote a book together, which is published with settings in the second printing it which I think you've seen in the my mom wrote another book with a colleague of hers about a Puerto Rican poet named fraticelli. People still call me about the first book wanting to find their ancestors cuz she at the end of the book my father and she compiled a list of all the families would come over on these like 5 or 7 boats and all the names and people still to this day call me somewhere and say, you know, where can I get this book and I say, I'm sorry, it's out of print right now. I think they are reprinting it but you know that was back in Hawaii through the Puerto Rican Heritage society. Would she also started and I'm sort of far away from that now you didn't you go to Puerto Rico Willard, I went to Puerto Rico and I went to Portugal. Yep. My ma and Spain my mom after my father passed away in 1996 when my mom was 76 or so she was

15:22 Asked shoes but a t at the time to we did three trips actually one trip was to Spain. She would talk to the conference. She met her colleague there that I think they were talking about that poet named fraticelli at the time another time. We went to Nashville. That was actually for my honeymoon. I eloped in Las Vegas New Mexico after I got a phone call from you and you were like, yeah, I guess who I'm seeing ya hi sister lived in Nashville. And you guys were in the Nashville Opryland hotel and they were walking one day. My other sister was visiting my other sisters were together and they met you know, I meant one bit once or maybe never Mitch. I don't know if I met her once or never but I've seen pictures and so I saw this these two women I saw this woman, I went. Oh my God, I went up to a sitar you Sherry Richards. She goes. Yeah, but I said, oh my god, I've known your sister forever. She's one of my closest friends and it was Sherry and your older sister. Myndi who I've known.

16:22 Until then who I had heard many stories about and it was so incredible to be like, you know so far away from everything and run into people use her to Laura. Guess who I'm with is pretty incredible. You know, my sister's got to meet lazy ass might be so, you know, I would go she was older we went to Spain and we took a side trip to Portugal cuz that's where my father's family was from we searched we went to Porto which is the little town north of Lisbon and we were looking for hit. My father's Uncle who had retired there and it turns out he had died but we had this mad hilarious one day trip, which if I ever make a movie I'm going to call searching for Uncle Eddie because I literally made this circle.

17:09 Around town and we got all these Portuguese people involved in the Rock cramming into the taxi with this is none of us really all speak the same language, but we're all we find a place we find the town and turns out he's dead in his wife's got to the seaside, but we found his little village and then we go back and the woman says he's buried in the cemetery go back to the cemetery and they've made a beautiful. You know, they have a really nice like my man Tamar whatever it turns out the cemeteries right behind the apartment building that we started out with Deb day looking for a five-figure. So we have these little adventures you known. I would go with her companion and by that time she was getting a little you know,

17:53 I mean my husband would say I drift but she was drifting and I saw I was like, you know The Herder and I was the companion and I would take care of things and and we did that and Nashville we did that in Madrid and we did that in Puerto Rico to me went back to Puerto Rico. Right? Right. So so she so that's what she did and then when she was 81

18:27 She decided it was too hard to live in Hawaii by herself. Cuz my sister was living in north of Seattle and Everett. I was in LA and she took the Great Leap of coming here and she never expressed any kind of fear at leaving. She felt that family was the most important thing and like going to New York and having another adventure. My mom wasn't afraid to have another adventure.

18:55 We kept the house. I think my father before you died and told her to sell it and my sister wanted to and I said no we should keep it and I think that in retrospect in hindsight that was important because I think even though she was adventurous, you know.

19:11 That was always there that was always her. So she and I always knew that that right there, right? And so so she could spend half the year with us in this have to do with my sister up North and then she moved up there cuz it was easier her grandson was up there and just too hard living with us and then they moved to Albuquerque and my mom I move my mom to Albuquerque that was about a year-and-a-half ago and

19:34 She was pretty you know, she was pretty elderly at the time like 89 or 90 and then she passed away about I don't know 6 months after she been there something something really actually quick maybe less than that, maybe three months, but she just have this great story. She had this great history. You know, she was she was she was interesting though. She was an educator. She was a teacher and that came out sort of in a personality, you know, as she got older to it was like bought this is the way it is, you know, everything was like, okay, I'm the teacher. So therefore this is what I say in so what I say is right and I'm not going no no. No, it's hard to predict somebody when they're 9 years old as well, you know, well, you know, my mother was a teacher and and I think they rate the quality that they share is you want to learn how to do this and we can learn how to do this right if you express interest in something and they say let's do this. Yes, we will learn how to do this together or if she knew how

20:34 She teaches and I think that's how you have a lot of Adventures by saying. Well, I've never done this before right? Let's right.

20:46 People that never

20:50 Always wanted their two daughters to be happy and that was the most important thing. You know, I remember when I was 18, you know coming from the Puerto Rican family. It was like I was supposed to be married. I was the oldest granddaughter when I was 18 years old all my aunts and uncles all her brothers and sisters were going with why isn't Michelle married Michelle should be married. Michelle should be married and my parents would say, you know, what?

21:12 Leave her alone. If she's happy, we're happy. She doesn't have to be married. If she doesn't want to be married, you know, they were the only ones that stood up for me, you know, and I'll let you go off to have your own adventure that exactly and as long as and if they had any reservations if they had any fears about where I was going or what I was doing both my sister, and I they never ever ever.

21:38 Express that unless we ask them, you know, and then they would tell us what they felt. They really gave us the freedom to be who we are and I think I'm both are there great. You know, my dad has a story that little stories cuz I don't know his family nearly as well as my mom's but what I remember when he was young and living in Hilo and he had a younger brother they tie themselves to the lawn mower. You don't like just a pushover because they were so little it would take two of them and they'd have to tie themselves to the front of the lawn mower to mow the lawn a little kids and when you went back Sandman when you were a little kid, you still had your chores and I was told it was you asking a lot you have to do and you expected to do the era of our parents because they were so much change happening. We think there's a lot of changed now, but really it was a it was some of the changes were real.

22:38 Monumental right and how they dealt with the life that changes the same time some things didn't change much at all night, but for her to be able to go and just say I'm going to New York when she's never been out of the island is just astounding that's a big trip. That is a big guy. Remember you talking about how when you were growing up on the islands that going to the mainland was a big deal took 8 hours on the plane and we get all dressed up with gloves and it's hot there and you get all dressed up. I have pictures with little bobby socks and shoes and I never wear shoes to school or anything. So those are special occasion and address and we get on the plane. But again the first time my sister and I traveled we travel together by ourselves because at that time

23:26 First of all, they did I think they were they were who is more concerned parents would try to not split, you know, like the family wouldn't travel together in case the plane went down or something right? But for some reason for some reason my sister and I went on head before my parents my parents had the faith in the courage and the whatever and didn't end with o n e we flew to Los Angeles, but we actually were picked up by an uncle who my Uncle Eddie the one from Port stay with him and San Pedro to my parents came over. I don't know. I don't know why I just remember getting on plane and being afraid and my sister was two years ago and she was always a lot. I remember taking them playing all by myself and I was ten and in those days cuz we're old people, you know, you dress up to get on the plane and it was a big deal and the stewardesses wear these military-type uniforms and they hand out gum, so I wouldn't get air sick.

24:25 Car was so good you'll and you just get off the plane. You wouldn't going to terminal you just come down and when would be you know, the trade winds or something and and then they'd be there with a tray with little paper cups of fresh ice cold pineapple juice. Oh my God, it was the best thing ever. You know, there's something about getting off a plane on the tarmac in Hawaii. And that those soft Tradewinds just kind of caressing your skin itches. It's a beautiful ride. It is really beautiful beautiful place to grow up. It is a beautiful place and I'm always proud that I grew up in a territory. I like that idea of people when they ask me where I where I'm from I tell him Hawaii because

25:07 That's why I feel like I'm from you know, I mean I've lived in San Francisco. I went to school in Clermont. I lived here in La now for 20 years and there's a part of me that feels you know, how I feel but I feel like my Essence is in Hawaii, you know, and when people ask me what I am because my father was Portuguese and Japanese and my mom is Puerto Rican.

25:31 I know, you know, I feel like I'm a I'm a triple minority and you know, but I know I need that too, And yes, very common because there's so many people that came to who I am in a different place, but my mom yeah, she was an interesting lady. She was an interesting lady. Yeah, I know.

25:52 It's maybe not the greatest lesson. But what are the what are the lesson that you learn from her?

26:00 I think I learned from her to be adventuresome to have a good work ethic.

26:14 Do not be afraid to go to new places.

26:18 I really don't have any fears about going to do no parts of the city that people might not be no might not want to go to you are a Fearless little papaya. I try I try to be no end to

26:33 Did just I guess have courage, you know to go through my life. Just having courage in to see what I tell my live. My life is fully as I can, you know.

26:47 + 2

26:51 I don't know. I guess that's it took you know, just try to

26:55 She was she was interesting though, you know of the two of them my father I think was the one that was more relaxed my mom because she was a teacher was sort of like, okay this this this and this my dad would go. Hey just going to come down to relax or whatever and so from him. I got that. I think I'm a good balance.

27:16 Yeah, I think I'm a good balance.

27:20 Memory of her I'm trying to picture what she looks like and is there when you envision your mother can you describe of what pops into your head?

27:30 What pops into my head is a woman that?

27:43 That

27:46 Is wearing a Mumu and wearing a big lauhala hat which is you know, like them a woven hat and

27:56 But also has on like

28:00 A necklace for the cross in the cross is turquoise from the set one of her travels in the southwest or something. You know, I mean, she was very she was an island lady from Hawaii, but there was something else that she had

28:14 Then made her Puerto Rican or Latino or whatever. It's really hard for me to explain I think you know.

28:28 She wasn't very tall, but she was strong and she was very limber because you know, we didn't have a dryer clothes dryer. So we'd hang everything on on you know on the clothesline and so even up until when she left Hawaii when she was dating when she still be hanging stuff. So she was always on her tippy-toes, you know when she was actually

28:49 I think about 87 or 88. I remember in Seattle went North to Seattle when she was living in her little place next to my sisters who is in a retirement facility. She actually got down on the ground in the living room on the carpet to find something on like the whole shelf of the she got all the way down at age 89 or 87.

29:12 And I remember my husband Jim being there. Just watching her like oh my God, she got she got down and she got up on her own, you know without any help it took her a while, but she did it.

29:23 So so she was small in stature as you are. He was small in stature. She was

29:30 I don't I don't know how to describe breathing that she did in my grandfather's nose, which was the Taino Indian, you know part of the family with the Puerto Ricans, you know, they say

29:40 Actually the end of her life when she always used to say she was Puerto Rican and this was a big thing that I couldn't understand the end of her life when she should have had a little dementia. She would say she wasn't Puerto Rican. I be clear. What are you talking about? Mom rights Apes, she'd be with me and I say I'm Puerto Rican and she hit by a car might be quite what are you doing? You're not Puerto Rican. I'm going what does that mean? And

30:05 So she felt you know, the Puerto Ricans are basically was an island right in the Taino Indians were the where the natives they're just like the Hawaiians were the natives in Hawaii and then Hawaiian Puerto Rico were you don't all the refugee that immigrants came in? So you had Spanish and Italian one set of my family. My father's side migrate. My grandfather's side. We're like from Italy but part of the family were actually tie know and so my mother has had this like bikini nose like her Father, which I think is an Indian. It's a very was a very Indian face to know compared to some of the other ones in the family. We have you know, we have one I've went Uncle who married a Danish will miss all my first cousins are blonde and blue-eyed and then I have another set of first cousins that you know, she she she married at my Aunt married a man who is Korean and Japanese so they all look very Asian. I mean we look when you get us all together like this giant Melting Pot

31:05 And

31:11 Yasso

31:13 Like a lot of white people in Hawaii. Yeah, like a lot of people in all island in the lot of people came in yet all intermingled. Yes. They did. Remember James Michener when he wrote Hawaii. The last section is called the Golden man. And the one character is the amalgam of all the characters that have come to the island.

31:32 And that's a lot of times the way I think about a lot of stuff in Hawaii. Yeah. It's pretty all mixed up all mixed up like Chop Suey. They say like Chop Suey an American.

31:45 So well, I know you really proud of your mom cuz I've heard you speak of her a lot and her stuff is now in the Centro Centro De estudios puertorriquenos at Hunter College in New York. A woman came out and actually went through all her papers, you know, all the notes in written about all these genealogies of the diaspora and the families and stuff and so our stuff is back there and it's for people to look at that are interested in you know, Puerto Ricans and I'm I'm really proud of that. You know, that that they took hers that she gave her stuff. I still have a lot of her stuff a lot of her writings with your sort of hard for me to go through because I

32:24 They are there in complete, you know, some of them are just like one sentence on a page and I I have but I haven't been able to know a little by little and wind winnowing them away have a lot of photographs. She loved to take photography when she was young. And so I have a lot of photographs of my family's history from the twenties in the thirties and forties and stuff with your wonderful to see her, you know with all her legs when she graduated in couple pictures of her in the snow in New York and now and that's why I think it's so great that we still have things on paper. Yeah. I worry about digital right thing and that you have a piece of paper. I know it can last a long time and even if it's in a box for a long time and you look it up and you see someone's handwriting and you go. Oh, wow. I remember that. She she she wrote everything down, you know who's really important to her teaching information was really really important to her. But there was two little kids like me when I was younger, you know.

33:24 To everybody that reads the books and stuff. They still calls and says hey, where can I get this book? So, you know in the Little slice of little teeny slice of pie of the of the Peace of the world, you know that she documented and I'm really proud of her for doing that and I'm proud of my dad for being by her side B Hunt I'm her favorite type is being her travel companion, you know being you know her right arm. Would you needed it letting her do what you wanted to do, you know to remember where we came from right and the things that they dealt with it we didn't have to deal with

34:01 Sounds pretty cool. If you'd met her you would have liked her ever met her over all the it is like to but you never met her which I thought was so ironic that your mom yet and I still want to intimately, you know, one of these days I'll get her down here. Now. I really want to meet your mom. Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't get to meet yours. Yeah, I know a lot and I have that book now.

34:28 Well, it's been really good talking to you about your mom. Thank you and have to come back this again someday and you can have you have to talk about your dad. We all have stories to tell her that's another whole nother story story. Well, Aloha and Mahalo. Thank you. I love that to you too, babe.