We are a team of researchers and community leaders examining the history of reformatories and industrial schools in Hawaiʻi, grounded in aloha for keiki and ʻāina, with the goal of supporting intergenerational healing.
Our mission is to not let the children held at such institutions be forgotten. We aim to weave their stories into public and scholarly understandings of Hawaiian history. We strive to honor their stories while also ensuring Hawaiʻi’s keiki and ʻāina are treated as precious and key to our collective future.
The ʻōlelo noʻeau that guides this work, and inspires the title of our project, is: “He lei poina ʻole ke keiki,” meaning, “a child is like a lei never forgotten.” This saying invokes the ways that babies are cradled in their parents’ arms or how toddlers often cling to and hang from their caregivers, clasping their arms around adult’s necks. Such sayings emphasize how beloved children are within Native Hawaiian communities.
Our project logo, designed by Kanaka Maoli artist and scholar Makamae Sniffen, embodies this ʻōlelo noʻeau by featuring an image of a child with their arms clasped around a parent, as well as a flower lei of hala and ʻilima. These pua were traditionally associated with Waialeʻe, the site of the boys’ industrial school, as documented by Kawela Farrant. Hala further signifies moments of great transition, including passing away, while ʻilima is the flower symbolizing the island of Oʻahu. The keiki faces the audience - reminding us of their resilience, while the makua - although more transparent and facing away - reminds us that, despite their separation, they are still there and ready to care for and carry their keiki. The title font evokes the art deco style of the Territorial era of Hawaiʻi, when the institutions we study operated.
While the stories of these children have gone untold in most histories of Hawaiʻi, this project seeks to reweave the metaphorical lei connecting the children who were often taken away from their families for years at a time. We believe that reweaving the stories of these children, and making them truly “poina ʻole,” or not forgotten, is essential in crafting more just futures for children in Hawaiʻi today.
The specifics of this work will develop collaboratively over time, but will broadly involve the following goals:
Consistently practice robust community engagement in order to:
raise awareness of this history in Hawaiʻi
understand the needs and desires of descendants and communities with ties to the schools’ locations
provide opportunities for processing and healing from generational trauma through reclaiming and revitalizing Native Hawaiian cultural practices connecting us to ʻāina (land, that which feeds).
Specific tasks include:
Development of appropriate Native Hawaiian cultural protocols to govern this work
Site-specific meetings with organizations and communities with ongoing ties to the schools
Discussion of and planning related to potential ahu and/or other memorials for children at Kawailoa and Waialeʻe
Addressing intergenerational trauma and practicing intergenerational healing
Conduct rigorous historical research utilizing primary source documents related to these institutions, in both English and Hawaiian languages.
Specific tasks include:
Archival research (Hawaiʻi State Archives, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Mission Houses and more)
Oral history research
Use this research to correct errors in the federal Indian boarding school investigative report related to Hawaiʻi
Dissemination of findings through public scholarship (e.g. op-eds, open-access scholarship) and in academic fields including, but not limited to, Hawaiian Studies, Indigenous Studies, Carceral Studies, Childhood Studies, and History of Education.
Create a digital resource about this history that provides interpretation of this history for Native Hawaiians and others in Hawaiʻi. The goal of the digital resource is to continue to raise awareness about and promote contextual understanding of this history and to make primary sources more widely accessible for researchers and those with personal familial ties to formerly institutionalized children.
Specific tasks include:
Creation of culturally relevant, ethical stewardship protocols related to digitizing information on this history (e.g. decisions on whether or how to display real names; handling of sensitive materials; requests to remove materials, etc)
Digitization of primary sources
Creation of a digital database inclusive of primary sources as well as interpretative work (potentially including data visualizations, story maps, compilation of demographic statistics over the years, tracking children through transfers to various institutions including prison, etc.)
Opportunities for community to contribute their own stories or materials
Maintenance of this digital resource
Develop teaching resources and curriculum to allow this history to be taught in schools, especially in the local areas surrounding the locations of these institutions.
Specific tasks include:
Creation of teaching resources (K-12 and college) based on the research and digital resource
Engagement with K-12 schools and colleges in Hawaiʻi (curriculum workshops, site visits, etc)