I did my homework before I sat down to talk with ukulele master and impresario Roy Sakuma. Checked his website (www.roysakuma.net), read the articles written about him over the years, debriefed some of his friends. I thought I knew pretty much how the interview would go.
It's well-known that he's a high school drop-out and former City of Honolulu groundskeeper who went on to found the internationally acclaimed annual Ukulele Festival at Kapiolani Park Bandstand and a group of ukulele studios which have taught thousands of people the joy of the ukulele.
My first question was boilerplate; I asked about his childhood in Makiki.
Right off the top, Roy surprised the heck out of me. He said growing up was full of pain.
He went on to reveal that his mother was seriously mentally ill, a paranoid schizophrenic, and she remained untreated throughout his childhood and adolescence. His older brother was also seriously mentally ill. Little Roy thought it was normal for family members to have conversations with imaginary people, keep no regular schedule, have very little healthy food in the house. He couldn't concentrate in school and began cutting out in KINDERGARTEN!
You can hear Roy tell the story himself tonight at 7:30 on LONG STORY SHORT on PBS Hawaii. The show repeats at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. It's the first part of a two-part conversation.
Roy was finally ready to share a part of his life that he'd mostly kept under wraps. One reason he opened up is to encourage people to seek professional mental help. He never became mentally ill (as he feared, because sometimes it runs in families) but he sought counseling to help him make sense of a bewildering early life and residual gaps in understanding.
Roy Sakuma has found both professional success and a happy family life--and he traveled a long, emotional journey to get there.
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