Kalaupapa

Jinyoung Lee, producer and director of "Songs of Love Hawaii," spoke with The Conversation's Catherine Cruz about her film that explores the story of the first Korean immigrants in Hawaiʻi.

The smallest county in the United States may not exist much longer. As HPR’s Catherine Cluett Pactol reports, Kalawao County is preparing for a big transition.

Carlos Gutiérrez Ayala, director of the Forensic Sciences Unit at Chaminade University, spoke to The Conversation's Catherine Cruz about the lab's role in assisting the Catholic Church with a project for Mother Marianne Cope.

This month, services were held to celebrate the life of Gloria Marks, one of the last surviving patients of Kalaupapa, Molokaʻi. She was among the thousands once banished to the remote peninsula because she had leprosy, now known as Hansen’s disease.

Gov. Josh Green returned from a trip to Italy, where he met with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican. Green spoke to The Conversation about his visit and the military leases that are set to expire across Hawaiʻi.

Nancy Holman, superintendent of the National Park at Kalaupapa on Molokaʻi, spoke to HPR's Catherine Cruz about the reopening of tours to the historic settlement created for Hansen’s disease patients.

A former settlement for people with Hansen's disease on Molokaʻi that’s been closed to tours and religious pilgrimages is reopening this month. Kalaupapa National Historical Park says it was closed since the COVID-19 pandemic because the disease posed a threat to its last remaining elderly patients.

January is Kalaupapa Month, a time to honor and learn the history of the remote settlement on Molokaʻi's northern coastline that once served as a place of exile for thousands of people diagnosed with Hansen's disease. As HPR’s Catherine Cluett Pactol reports, several dates make January significant for Kalaupapa.

Joseph Dutton was a U.S. Civil War lieutenant who later spent 44 years serving those with Hansen’s disease in Kalaupapa, Molokaʻi. Advocates have been gathering evidence about his life and legacy to send to the Vatican for review.

Devotees of two Catholic saints — Damien and Marianne of Molokaʻi — want to see where they spent a pivotal part of their lives caring for Hawaiʻi’s leprosy patients. A pilgrimage to the Kalaupapa settlement is logistically challenging since this beautiful and haunting slice of northern Molokaʻi is defined by its natural isolation.