When Oʻahu resident and former journalist Diane Ako began looking into her ‘ʻhana’s history, there was a mysterious gap. Her great-grandmother, Helen Maliu, had disappeared years before, and no one in her family knew why.
“We didn't know anything about our great-grandmother, my cousins and I, and when we would both separately ask our parents, 'Oh, so Great Grandpa Ako had this wife, what happened to her?' Like, why does the family tree end there?" Ako told HPR. "We really didn't know.”
With no answers from older family members, they eventually connected the dots to Kalaupapa.
“I think they were just taught to stop asking, but that didn't pass over to our generation. We asked and asked," Ako said.
But Ako and her cousin Paul still couldn’t confirm what happened or why their great-grandmother left behind at least eight children.
“The stigma of having a relative sent away for what was then called leprosy curbed the search or silenced our great-grandmother from the conversation," she said.
In 2016, Ako wrote a blog post about her search for answers.
Her longtime friend, former coworker and producer Martha Shade reached out.
“She read my blog, and she said, ‘Hey, this is really interesting. We should do a story about this.’”
Momentum quickly picked up.
“After I post this blog, literally 14 minutes later, Ka ‘Ohana O Kalaupapa, Valerie Monson, wrote and said, ‘Oh my gosh, I can confirm for you what happened.’”
The organization helps connect families with loved ones who were sent to Kalaupapa during the government’s Hansen’s disease exile policy.
Shade said the story was immediately compelling to her. She’s the film’s director and producer.
“We were living busy lives, but on the side, Diane was doing this this search, and I was just always so captivated by that story,” said Shade. “So I think others will be too, I hope.”
Ako and Shade spent the next decade planning a visit to Kalaupapa.
“I, as the emissary of my family, wanted to go over and see where [my great grandmother] lived, and what it was like for her,” said Ako.
“It took 10 years to coordinate our schedules to be able to get to Kalaupapa because it was actually not easy,” explained Shade. “Then to be able to get a filming permit — there was a lot of red tape — and we understand the red tape because it's an important place, it's a sacred place, and we wanted to do everything right.”
Shade said about a year ago, they finally made it happen. The 15-minute film documents Ako’s journey and what they find out.
The film’s name, “Pili Hou” means “to reconnect.”
“The idea of being torn from your children and being torn from your ‘ohana like, that is the heart of this movie,” Shade said. “And somebody who, two generations on, still cares and still wonders about her ancestor and wants to make peace with that, and wants to find her and find her story -- that's what this is all about.
“In a sense, giving her a voice again, and a face,” continued Shade. “There was only one photo of her, one very grainy photo, of her existence. That's it. That's all Diane had to go on.”
Ako also brought her daughter along to Kalaupapa, who, by the time they made the trip, was old enough to surpass the settlement’s age restriction of 16 years old.
“It was really important for her to understand this piece of our history, because the children are the ones that carry the story forth, right?”
Ako and Shade also celebrate their friendship through the completion of the film.
“I think she did a fantastic job with the movie because I know it was my story, and I lent some help being in some kind of producer way, but she pretty much drove it,” said Ako, who is the film’s narrator. “She did all the heavy lifting. She's amazing. We're still friends. Can you believe that?”
For Shade, following the footsteps of Ako’s great-grandmother also illuminates a dark part of history.
“It's a great story, a sad story, and a story that unfortunately happened many times in Hawaii, mostly to Native Hawaiians,” she said. “You know, this was 90% Native Hawaiians that were at Kalaupapa.”
Ako hopes the film helps create more dialogue around what’s coming up for the remote settlement.
“There's the long-standing desire to get a memorial built that's been going on for years, and there's also this separate conversation about what does the government do with the land once the last patient who lives there passes away,” Ako said. “So I think these are really big and important conversations.”
"Pili Hou: Finding Helen" will premiere at the Hawai’i International Film Festival on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. On Nov. 8, it will show at Kahilu Theater in Waimea, Hawai’i Island. Over the next year, it will make the rounds of other festivals, including the Pasifika Film Fest in Australia.
You can visit the film's website for more information.
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