Lahainaluna High School on Maui is the country's oldest high school west of the Mississippi.
It opened as a missionary school in 1836, and among its storied achievements is its boarding program that continues today as the only one of its kind in the state.
The Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has collected stories from 19 Native Hawaiian students who took part in that program. This week, the center is making those stories available to the public.
Ty Kāwika Tengan is a professor at the UH College of Social Sciences. HPR spoke to him and graduate research assistant Wailana Medeiros about the oral history project.
For Tengan, there was a personal tie-in — not with the public Lahainaluna High School, but with another well-known boarding school program in Hawaiʻi.
"I also have an experience of being a boarder, not at Lahainaluna, but at Kamehameha. So knowing that there's a really important formative experience that happens when you're living on campus, and a deeper set of connections with the folks who are in the boarding program — I knew that this was an important story to record," he said.
Tengan said Lahainaluna's agricultural operations were a core part of the boarding experience. Tuition was free, and students worked on the farm, in the garden, or in different parts of the campus.
Keliʻi Alapa‘i of Kauaʻi was a Lahainaluna boarder during his last two years of high school, graduating in 1976. While working on the farm, he had a pig he named Julio.
He shared a story about his teacher, Mr. Hiromata, and his crew taking care of the pigs, including Julio.
"One day, Mr. Hiromata comes down to the pig pen, and we stay cleaning the pens. And he sees Julio out on the grass, running around like this. So he came running inside, he says 'Alapaʻi, the pig stay loose!' I go 'No, Mr. Hiromata, no, that's our pet,'" Alapaʻi said. "I walk inside. I call the pig, the pig come to me. I open up the gate, he go right inside."
Boarders supported the school with good fun, hard work — and extra hours of work cutting in the koa bushes if you broke the rules.
The Center for Oral History has been working on sharing the history of the Lahainaluna boarders since 2022. Wailana Medeiros is the graduate assistant who helped put this project together. One of her key contributions was building a digital story map.
Medeiros said many of the former boarders, who hailed from across the islands, could recall their time at Lahainaluna perfectly.
"My favorite part is the clips in and throughout the story map where each person is really telling their story, and you can see each person talking about what they experienced. And that way, you can really experience their emotions and see them reminiscing on that time that was so integral to them and their upbringing, and then eventually, their entire life," she said.
The most famous alum of Lahainaluna High School was David Malo, a figure of history and one of Hawaiʻi's best-known historians.
Boarder Brent Nakihei of Molokaʻi talked about the influence of Malo and Hawaiian culture.
"I never really understand who David Malo was until I went pau, when I went graduate, and then I kind of looked back and started studying. He knew that the Hawaiian people was literate, and he knew one school would be the first step," he said.
Nakihei added that Lahainaluna was home to the first newspaper in Hawaiʻi. Ka Lama Hawaiʻi, created in 1834, was initially published in the Hawaiian language.
Nakihei said he is proud and honored to be an alumnus of Lahainaluna.
"When I go to Maui, I always make it a point to visit the school, walk around, and they got a beautiful football field now. I'm really honored," he said.
The oral history project about Native Hawaiian boarders at Lahainaluna has been a complex project. But also one with personal ties — both for Tengan and Medeiros of the Center for Oral History.
Throughout the research process, Medeiros discovered people she was either related to or knew.
"Being able to go to the archives and kind of flip through the yearbooks, I got to see a bunch of my uncles who I had no idea went to Lahainaluna, and even was able to reconnect some of my family members that we hadn't talked to in a really long time. So it was cool to, I guess, not mend those relationships, but, like, rekindle them in a way," Medeiros said.
"I feel kuleana to Lahaina for really opening up my world as well. I feel responsible for making sure that all of these stories are taken care of, because all of these people are super special and deserve to be heard."
The oral history project is tied to a sense of place, but it's also tied to more recent events. It started before the Lahaina fires on Aug. 8, 2023, and was put on pause during recovery.
"There were some narrators that had given interviews before the fires and then afterwards, just didn't feel that they could continue to be a part of it because everything was so emotional, obviously and understandably," Tengan said.
"These stories take on an added sense of importance and meaning to capture maybe a small sliver of this experience of being in Lahaina as a boarder. But their views are, I think, really interesting because none of them were actually from Lahaina, but they came to be a part of that community. They came to be a part of that history."
The Kanaka Maoli Lahainaluna Boarders project from the Center for Oral History at UH Mānoa goes public this week. There will be a virtual public launch this Thursday from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Zoom.
This story aired on The Conversation on April 15, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Tori DeJournett adapted this story for the web.
Hawaiʻi Public Radio has been proud to work with the Center for Oral History in a partnership that began in 2018 with segments on The Conversation. A few years ago, we brought you voices from Hawaiʻi’s past that were centered around a different theme every month, with each segment relating to community perseverance and resilience.
