Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory

About the Author, Production Notes, Back Cover

About the Author anwei skinsnes law first visited Kalaupapa in 1968 at the age of sixteen. Over the last forty years, she has extensively researched the history of leprosy in Hawaii and conducted over two hundred hours of oral history interviews with the residents of Kalaupapa. She received an M.P.H. from the University of Hawaii School of Public Health in 1982. She produced and conducted the interviews for two documentaries related to Kalaupapa: Quest for Dignity and Olivia and Tim: Very Much Alive. In 1989, she published Kalaupapa: A Portrait, with photographer Wayne Levin. She is also the author of The Great Flood: Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1889, and of Father Damien: “A Bit of Taro, A Piece of Fish, and a Glass of Water, ” published in 2009 with her husband Henry Law, who was the first superintendent of Kalaupapa National Historical Park. Since 1994, Anwei has been the international coordinator of IDEA, the largest international advocacy organization and network of support by and for people who have experienced leprosy, which currently has branches in twenty-two countries. For five years she coordinated the Oral History Project of the ILA Global Project on the History of Leprosy, in which interviews were conducted with more than two hundred people affected by leprosy from forty countries speaking in twenty languages. Production Notes for… Law / Kalaupapa Cover design by Julie Matsuo-Chun Text design and composition by Julie Matsuo-Chun with display type in Linotype Didot and text type in Warnock Pro Printing and binding by Edwards Brothers, Inc. Between 1866 and 1969, an estimated 8,000 individuals—at least 90 percent of whom were Native Hawaiians—were sent to Molokai’s remote Kalaupapa Peninsula because they were believed to have leprosy. Unwilling to accept the loss of their families, homes, and citizenship, these individuals ensured they would be accorded their rightful place in history. They left a powerful testimony of their lives in the form of letters, petitions, music , memoirs, and oral-history interviews. Kalaupapa combines more than 200 hours of transcribed interviews with archival documents , including over 300 letters and petitions written by the earliest residents translated from Hawaiian. It has long been assumed that those sent to Kalaupapa were unconcerned with the world they were forced to leave behind. The present work shows that residents remained actively interested and involved in life beyond Kalaupapa. They petitioned the Hawaii Legislative Assembly in 1874, seeking justice. They fervently supported Queen Liliuokalani and the Hawaiian Kingdom prior to annexation and contributed to the relief effort in Europe following World War I. In 1997 Kalaupapa residents advocated at the United Nations together with people affected by leprosy from around the world. This book presents at long last the story of Kalaupapa as told by its people. ANWEI SKINSNES LAW first visited Kalaupapa in 1968 when she was a teenager. Over the last forty years, she has researched the history of leprosy in Hawai‘i, conducted oralhistory interviews at Kalaupapa, and produced documentaries and books on different aspects of Kalaupapa’s history. Since 1994 Law has served as the international coordinator of IDEA, the largest international human rights organization by and for people who have experienced leprosy. ISBN 978-0-8248-3636-8 9 780824 836368 9 0 0 0 0 www.uhpress.hawaii.edu HAWAI‘I HISTORY Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888 UNIVERSITY of HAWAI‘I PRESS COVE R D E S I G N BY J U LI E MATS U O-CH U N ...