Interview with Matsuko Kaya Matsumoto

Interview conducted in English.Interview conducted at Honolulu, Oʻahu.Matsuko Matsumoto, second of four children, was born in 1928 in Kapaʻa, Kauaʻi. Her parents, Teiichi and Kimiyo Kaya, were immigrants from Japan. At the time of her birth, her father was a Makee Sugar Company field worker. Preferring to work in pineapple rather than sugar, Teiichi Kaya moved his family to Lānaʻi where he operated a mule-drawn plow, picked pineapple, and did hō hana. Kimiyo Kaya tended to the family and took in laundry from bachelor workers. In later years, due to poor health, Teiichi Kaya became an office custodian. Matsuko Matsumoto, a graduate of Lānaʻi High and Elementary School, began full-time work in 1946 as a storeroom clerk for Hawaiian Pineapple Company. In later years, she labored in the pineapple fields. In 1962, she began supervising youths who signed on for summer work. By the early 1970s, she was promoted to become the first female field superintendent. She retired in 1985. She and Yukio Matsumoto, a Hawaiian Pineapple Company carpenter who helped build many of the homes which still stand in Lānaʻi City, raised two sons, Colbert and Kurt. Matsuko Matsumoto, widowed in 2001, still maintains a home on Lānaʻi. A grandmother of four, she enjoys visiting her grandchildren on Oʻahu and Kauaʻi