Personal Narrative: An Interview With Jonalyn Kaufmann

The local saying “You think you know, but you don’t know,” or, the pidgin version “You tink you know, but you know nuting,” is a good description of what I thought I knew about my friend Jonalyn Kaufmann, who I’ve known for the past ten years. I thought I knew Jonalyn well, but not enough to know where she came from, who her parents were or recognize her childhood struggles that led to her triumphs that sparked her determination through life. Through this interview, I have come to know more about Joni girl then what I thought I knew about her. Jonalyn Kaufmann’s life provides a perspective of what it would be like to grow up as a Japanese-German female in Central Oahu around 1960s through the late 1970s. Her life provides an understanding of what it was like to feel the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor bombing and a time of Hitler’s reign through prejudice taunts in school because of her ethnicity. Her life also tells the story of a Lesbian woman who fell into addiction with heroin, and overcame that by joining the army to become a Huey Cobra helicopter mechanic. She also helps us to understand the challenges of being a woman in the army in the early 1980s, who has paved the a way for future female recruits in the United States Army.
When I asked Jonalyn if I could interview her about her life …show more content…
Jonalyn’s parents decided to move from Kauai to the island of Oahu to the rural area of CrestView (out skirts of Waipahu, below the mililani graveyard) where they later had three girls. Her father retired from the United States military and became a supervisor for an elevator company. As for her mother, she was a homemaker who took care of the home and the children. Jonalyn, the youngest of the three children was born in August of 1961. Jonalyn describes having a normal upbringing. She grew up sharing rooms with her sister who was older than her by 11