He lei poina ʻole ke keiki.
A lei never forgotten is the beloved child.
ʻŌlelo noʻeau #740 (Pūkuʻi)
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Despite his popularity, Elvis can’t explain all the public concern about juvenile delinquency in Hawaiʻi during 1957. Organizations such as We, the Women had brought juvenile delinquency to the forefront of public awareness since the early 1950s. We, the Women was a conservative women’s group in Hawaiʻi born to protest an impending public utilities worker strike in 1946.
The teenage girls who were incarcerated at Kawailoa Industrial School were not too different from teenage girls today. They enjoyed watching action-packed movies, staying up to date on the love lives of their favorite celebrities, and talking about their crushes and “first times.” In 1939, adventure stood out as the favorite movie genre among the majority (57%) of girls living at Kawailoa Industrial School, as indicated by a survey with 65 responses.
The marks of the physical and ideological structures of the colonial institutionalization of children in Hawaiʻi are still visible and textural like the wet shadow in the sand. For example, when we walked through the trees at Waialeʻe, I recognized the concrete base of the windmill from historical photographs of the Boy’s Industrial School at Waialeʻe.
Maunawili Training School for Girls opened in 1929 (renamed Kawailoa in 1931), though institutions for girls’ incarceration in Hawaiʻi already existed for decades. From 1929-1950, the institution frequently housed over 100 girls deemed “delinquent,” often for pre-marital sexual activity or living in homes that did not conform to white American standards. Kawailoa, administrators and territorial officials hoped, could turn “delinquent” girls into “good” girls fit for the Hawaiian society the white elite envisioned.
Share your moʻolelo (story) of training schools in Hawaiʻi from the 1940s-1970s.
10 week summer fellowship opportunity for undergraduate researchers
The inclusion of institutions from Hawaiʻi in a new report on colonial boarding schools raises important questions.