In many cases, the business interests of the Big Five evolved rather than vanished. The problems they sometimes caused followed as well.

In the lore of my Chinese forebears is a story about my grandparents, Walbert and Ethel Chong, and a small investment they made to help establish Maui Savings & Loan.

As the story goes, the bank’s founder, Shiro “Sam” Hironaka — whom they knew because he had worked with Ethel at the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. — approached them in the early 1960s with a simple yet compelling vision: to start a bank that would serve plantation workers in central Maui, offering loans and savings accounts.

For about a decade, Maui Savings & Loan did just that. And even though it was a short-lived outfit — American Savings Bank acquired it in 1973 — its founding repres

See Full Page