Yen Cheung Au
Kalihi: Place of Transition
This project features life history interviews with present and former longtime residents of Kalihi, a multi-ethnic working-class district located west of downtown Honolulu, which has a long history as a home of island immigrants.
Yen Cheung Au, Chinese, the sixth of sixteen children, was born in Waiahole, Oahu on March 7, 1894. His father was a rice farmer in Waiahole. Yen Cheung helped his father in the fields by scaring away the birds which threatened the rice crops. He also helped the family by catching fish and shrimp. He attended Waiahole School until the fourth grade, then the family moved to Kahaluu. In 1915, the family moved to Honolulu and bought a house near Liliha and Judd Streets. Three years later, Yen Cheung was drafted into the U.S. Army and served at Schofield Barracks during World War I. Following his military discharge, he began working as a messenger for American Can Co. in Iwilei. Shortly after, he worked as a meter reader for Hawaiian Electric Co. In 1925, Yen Cheung started working as a machinist at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. Two years later, he and his family bought a home in Kalihi- Kai--the same home he resides in today.
Scope and Content Note
A ninety-year-old retired Pearl Harbor shipyard worker discusses his childhood experiences in Waiahole and his adult experiences in Kalihi.
Program Note:
This interview is part of the Center for Oral History's project Kalihi: Place of Transition. 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.
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