History

Grandma Nonaka’s Legacy Still Lives Carolyn Morinishi Special to The Hawai‘i Herald “Kyö wa Odaisan yo. Pau kaukau, we go.” Takano Nonaka of Hanapëpë, Kaua’i, or Baban as her grandchildren affectionately called her, was as committed to spirituality as she was to her family. Every month during the 1960s, she would call to her grandchildren....

The Historic Hawai‘i Foundation will present a Preservation Award to the Nisei Veterans Memorial Center and Maui artist Kirk Kurokawa for the mural wall he produced for the center. Kurokawa painted the larger-than-life mural wall using ordinary house paint. His work on the mural was featured in a story by contributing writer Melissa Tanji in....

The Pivotal Role the UH Professor Played in the Recovery of the Ehime Maru Melvin Inamasu and Violet Harada Courtesy Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i George Joji Tanabe Jr. likens himself to a salmon that traveled from a river to the open ocean and then returned home to spawn. Tanabe grew up in Waialua on....

The Hawai‘i State Public Library recently began offering the streaming service Kanopy at https://www.librarieshawaii.org/ and will continue to offer it for free through April 30. The offerings include 10 films by Lucy Ostrander and Don Sellers of Stourwater Pictures, producers of the hour-long documentary, “Proof of Loyalty: Kazuo Yamane and the Nisei Soldiers of Hawai‘i,”....

Minidoka Camp Educator Works to Prevent a Repeat of E.O. 9066 Alan Suemori Special to The Hawai‘i Herald The Minidoka War Relocation Center opened on Aug. 10, 1942, in the wake of the signing of Executive Order 9066, President Franklin Roosevelt’s surrender to the wave of fear and paranoia that washed over the country after....

Japanese Immigrants Helped Put Kona’s Coffee Bean on the Map Dan Nakasone Special to The Hawai‘i Herald As I listened to Takeo Nakasone’s story, I was struck by a sense of place and time that began on a coffee farm on the western slope of Hualälai on Hawai‘i Island. It is where Takeo grew up....

Hamakua Jodo Mission Working to Preserve History  Jodie Chiemi Ching  The Hamakua Jodo Mission, in Pa‘auhau Mauka on Hawai‘i Island, was the first sanctioned Buddhist temple in the state of Hawai‘i. It was built in 1896 at the epicenter of the five sugar plantations on the island, and served the community of Japanese contract laborers.....

Some of the Most Valuable Life Lessons Were Learned in the Pineapple Fields of Wahiawä Dan Nakasone Special to The Hawai‘i Herald “You have to learn the value of a dollar,” Dad would tell me. Other kids in Wahiawä and the surrounding area likely heard a similar “lecture.” It was the mid-’60s. I was 15....

Excerpts from Bill Fernandez’s Latest Book Introduction: In the 1920s, when Hawai‘i’s imported plantation workers began striking for living wages and decent living conditions in their camps, the plantation managers responded with violence, including the use of guns. “Terrorism in Paradise” by Kaua‘i native Bill Fernandez is a historical novel set in the Islands during....

The Photographer Captured Street Life in Honolulu’s Chinatown As It Began to Disappear Wayne Muromoto Commentary, Special to The Hawai‘i Herald Memory is a funny thing. It can be selective . . . as my wife often reminds me when I forgot to do a household chore. It can become dramatized into a fable —....