History

Exhibit Celebrates 150th Anniversary of the Meiji Restoration and Immigration to Hawai‘i Wayne Muromoto Commentary Special to The Hawai‘i Herald In the “I Ching,” there is a popular canard, or myth: In crisis or change, there is opportunity. This is based on a false and superficial reading of the Chinese characters, or hanji (in Japanese:....

Visitors to the Hawai‘i State Library in downtown Honolulu are now greeted by the newly installed monument honoring the late Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color — and the first Asian American woman — to serve in the United States Congress. The Maui-born lawmaker’s decades in public service won her accolades as a....

Jodie Chiemi Ching Neatly displayed in the home of Hozen “Lefty” Shimabuku are precious mementos of the 32 years (1966 to 1998) he worked as a Washington Place groundskeeper, serving four Hawai‘i governors — John A. Burns, George R. Ariyoshi, John D. Waihe‘e III and Benjamin J. Cayetano. That’s a lot of memories. But the....

Susan Nunes Published with Permission Sketches by Ryo Shinoda Editor’s note: In observance of Veterans Day, we are pleased to share with you this excerpt from writer Susan Nunes’ short story, “Biffontaine.” It is part of her collection of short stories titled “Paradise Café: A Family Memoir in Stories.” Nunes is a Hilo native who....

Kevin Y. Kawamoto Special to The Hawai‘i Herald The University of Hawai‘i’s Center for Oral History on the Mänoa campus is open for business once again, and longtime Ethnic Studies Professor Davianna Pömaika‘ºi McGregor has stepped up to serve as the center’s new director. McGregor was among the early supporters of the Ethnic Studies Oral....

A Look Back on the Case That Rocked the AJA Community 90 Years Ago Jonathan Y. Okamura Commentary Special to The Hawai‘i Herald This year — Sept. 18, to be exact — marks 90 years since Myles Yutaka Fukunaga, a 19-year-old Nisei, killed Gill Jamieson, a 10-year-old Punahou student in Waikïkï. In a highly publicized....

Dan Nakasone Special to The Hawai‘i Herald It was noon on Sept. 27, 1948, when the USS John Owen made landfall at White Beach, the U.S. naval facility on the eastern coast of Okinawa island, near the tip of Katsuren peninsula. Onboard the ship was a precious cargo of 536 pigs that had survived the....

UH Law School Professor Eric Yamamoto Examines Those Lessons His New Book, “In the Shadow of Korematsu” Alan Suemori Special to The Hawai‘i Herald To many of us, we are living in an America that today appears increasingly unrecognizable. As our nation makes a hard turn to the right, we are voyaging through the shadow....

Gail Honda Special to The Hawai‘i Herald The following interview write-up is the third of seven that will be published in The Hawai‘i Herald this year. It is part of a series titled, “In Their Own Words.” In the spring of 1980, I had the opportunity to interview seven former internees of Honouliuli Internment Camp....

For Colin Yamamoto, They are All Historical Treasures Melissa Tanji Special to The Hawai‘i Herald A seat belt from Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a car speaker from the old Kahului Drive-In, plantation kaukau tins, handmade potato peelers and vegetable graters from the 1930s and ’40s. These pieces from Maui’s past are just a fraction of....