On the Scene with Lillian Yajima

Lillian Emiko Nawahine Noda Yajima comes from a family of high achievers. Her maternal grandparents came to Hawaii in 1899, saved their money and became leasehold pineapple growers. Her father, Steere G. Noda, was a successful businessman, politician and record-­setting athlete. Her mother, Alice Teshima Noda, was a trailblazing businesswoman, active community leader and the first Japanese-American woman registered to vote in Hawaii. Yajima was raised to follow their example.

Yajima attended Hanahauoli School, Roosevelt Junior and Senior High Schools when Roosevelt was an elite “English standard” school, and then earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a fifth-year teaching certificate at the University of Hawaii. She learned hula from Piilani and Pualani Mossman at Mossman’s Lalani Hawaiian Village and danced hula for American servicemen while visiting her husband, 2nd Lt. Tadashi “Tad” Yajima, in Minnesota, in 1945.

Yajima has shared her knowledge of traditional Japanese culture with several generations of Cherry Blossom Festival pageant contestants, received the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government in 2007, and was named a Living Treasure of Hawaii by the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii in 2016.

At 98 she is active in several community organizations, helps raise money for Kuakini Hospital’s senior care facility, and teaches hula to “younger women” in assisted-living facilities.

JOHN BERGER: This may be a silly question, but do you think of yourself as old?

LILLIAN YAJIMA: I’m starting to feel old because I don’t move around as well as I did a few years ago. And I feel like I have so little time to do so many things. Japanese culture is going to die out if we don’t keep it up.

JB: What is some of the best advice you were given growing up?

LY: At Hanahauoli School they believed girls can do anything boys can do. At most schools boys took shop and girls took cooking. At Hanahauoli girls got to take shop too. That lesson stayed with me. Then there was my grandmother who was always telling me about bachi — if you do bad (things) you’re not going to be happy afterward — so I was always a goody-goody girl. As I grew up my mother showed me by her example that Japanese women should never think of themselves as inferior.

JB: What is something about you that might surprise people?

LY: I was on the Roosevelt High School rifle team for four years and then on the University of Hawaii varsity rifle team for four years.

JB: If you could have one wish what would it be?

LY: That the Japanese government would give my mother the Order of the Rising Sun for her years of service to the community. My father received it and I received it, but my mother did so much (that) she deserves it more than us. I’ve read that it can be awarded posthumously.

Reach John Berger at jberger@staradvertiser.com