Stories from kūpuna from Waialeʻe on Oʻahu’s North Shore will be preserved thanks to a project from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
More than 20 UH ethnic studies and anthropology students recently wrapped up oral history interviews with area residents. They hosted a hōʻike in partnership with the North Shore Community Land Trust at the Waialeʻe Lako Pono restoration site.
They talked about the Waialeʻe Training School for Boys, the UH Experimental Agricultural Station, kuleana lands and more.
“I really love learning about the history of this place," said Dani Kaohe David, a UH Mānoa graduate student. "I didn’t think I would as much as I do now. And it makes me wanna go back into my own community and research the places there.”
The project was part of a North Shore Field Course taught by UH professor Ty Kāwika Tengan and under the guidance of Center for Oral History director Mary Kunmi Yu Danico and associate director Micah Mizukami.
“We're looking to instill in them an ethical sense, a kuleana-based approach to honoring the words of our narrators, the storytellers sharing their life experiences," Tengan said. "It's something that can only happen in a field school situation.”
The project was funded in part by an award from the UH Mānoa Provost’s Strategic Investment Initiative, a campus-wide competition designed to increase cross-unit and cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Recordings of the oral histories will be made available to the general public later this year.
