Bunji Fujimoto, the sixth of ten children, was born March 22, 1930 in N"mole, Hawai'i. His parents, Saiji Fujimoto and Ei Sorakubo Fujimoto, were immigrants from Hiroshima, Japan. Saiji Fujimoto was a laborer and independent sugarcane grower for Wailea Milling Company which later (1944) merged with Hakalau Plantation Company. As a youth, Fujimoto helped his father in the sugarcane fields. His chores at home included cutting grass for livestock, feeding livestock and poultry, and tending the family garden. Living in an isolated area, one of his favorite recreational activities was riding the cane flumes. Fujimoto attended John M. Ross School until grade seven. Beginning with the eighth grade, he attended Laupahoehoe School, graduating in 1947. He worked for the plantation during school vacations. In 1949, he began working as a field worker for Hakalau Plantation Company. In 1951, he began his forty-one-year career in the crop log laboratory of C. Brewer Company. When he retired in 1992, the company was known as Brewer Environmental Industries. Fujimoto was interviewed in his Hilo home where he has lived since 1972. He and his wife, Matsue Uratani Fujimoto, raised two children. On the morning of April 1, 1946, Fujimoto and his two brothers boarded the bus which took them to Laupahoehoe Point where the school was located. Mter noticing the ocean receding, the students were let off the bus near the school grounds. Bunji stood in relative safety in the school playground. Toshiaki, his younger brother, who like many other students ran up to the water's edge in curiosity, was swept into the ocean and perished. Fujimoto, who has collected photographs relating to the tsunami and Laupahoehoe's history, volunteers his time at the Pacific Tsunami Museum.

Scope and Content Note
The son of an independent sugarcane grower remembers family life, cane cutting work, and schooling. A Laupahoehoe School student, he describes the receding ocean and the tidal wave that claimed the lives of fellow students, including his younger brother, and teachers on April 1, 1946.

Program Note:  
This interview is part of the Center for Oral History's project Tsunamis Remembered: Oral Histories of Survivors and Observers in Hawai‘i. Interviews from this project are available in the Center's ScholarSpace open access repository.

The Center for Oral History (COH), in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, collects, documents, preserves and highlights the recollections of Native Hawaiians and the multi-ethnic people of Hawaiʻi. It produces oral histories and interpretive historical materials about lifeways, key historic events, social movements and Hawaiʻi’s role in the globalizing world, for the widest possible use.