Lead Stories

A Year for “Safe Risk-Taking” Jodie Chiemi Ching It’s already the middle of 2019! Here at The Hawai‘i Herald, time is flying by so quickly. So much has happened in the local Japanese American community: Hawai‘i was treated to an unforgettable kabuki performance from Japan; the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i and the Hawaii United....

Jane Heit and Tsukikage Odorikai are Helping to Re-energize Big Island Bon Dances Arnold Hiura Special to The Hawai‘i Herald A persistent rain dampened the start of the bon dance at the Honomu Henjoji temple on June 15 — and no amount of prayerful looks at the darkening sky would make it go away. Led....

Hilo Remembers the 17 Who Died and the Nine Survivors of the 1942 Torpedo Attack Wayne Yoshioka Published with Permission Editor’s note: Big Island native and recently retired Hawai‘i Public Radio reporter Wayne Yoshioka was invited to deliver the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ Post 3830 Memorial Day address at the East Hawai‘i Veterans Cemetery in....

Remembering the Man Who Lived and Breathed Hawaii Hochi Karleen Chinen Paul Yempuku was the last samurai. At least that’s what I came to conclude over the years. The word “cannot” had no place in his vocabulary. At times, that made it hard to work with him. He could be so pa‘akikï (hardheaded), and even....

Seventy-five Years After Liberation, the French Remain Grateful Gregg K. Kakesako Special to The Hawai‘i Herald As Americans pause this Memorial Day to remember fallen military members from the nation’s current and past wars, residents of two small hamlets in northeastern France will be hard at work finalizing their plans to honor the Japanese American....

A Homesick Hawai‘i Student Find a Home Away From Home in Yokohama Jackie Kojima Special to The Hawai‘i Herald At 86 years of age, Kei Komuro may just be the busiest retiree in Yokohama. Between running his okonomiyaki shop and cooking up the savory Japanese pancake four days a week, swimming laps at a local....

As a Young Crown Prince, Akihito Helped America to See the Human Face of Japan Kevin Y. Kawamoto Special to the Hawai‘i Herald Enthusiastic waves of aloha greeted Emperor Akihito during each of his official visits to Hawai‘i, beginning in April 1953 when he was just barely an adult and about to embark on a....

Dan Nakasone Special to The Hawai‘i Herald As a child, I remember seeing a photograph of a young man in what looked like a Japanese uniform next to the butsudan (Buddhist shrine) in my grandparents’ home in Wahiawä, where we lived. When we moved to our own home, the butsudan — and the photograph of....

Fifty years ago, all of Hawai‘i state government’s elected big shots — from then-Gov. John Burns and his lieutenant governor, Tom Gill, to state senators and representatives — closed their ‘Iolani Palace offices and walked across what was then Hotel Street to America’s newest state capitol building. As they walked into Hawai‘i’s political and governmental....

Hawai‘i’s AJA Flower Growers and Florists Have Kept the Industry Thriving Dan Nakasone Special to The Hawai‘i Herald “An ‘It’ Flower for a Feminist Movement” read the headline of a Nov. 29, 2017, article in the New York Times. The headline was referring to the newest Marc Jacobs Beauty campaign featuring activist-model Adwoa Aboah. In....