By Anwei Skinsnes Law

Winner of the 2013 Samuel M. Kamakau Award for Hawaii e-book of the 12 months and the Ka Palapala Po'okela Award of Excellence in Hawaiian Language, tradition, and History

Between 1866 and 1969, an envisioned 8,000 participants at the very least ninety percentage of whom have been local Hawaiians have been despatched to Molokai s distant Kalaupapa peninsula simply because they have been believed to have leprosy. Unwilling to simply accept the lack of their households, houses, and citizenship, those contributors ensured they might be accorded their rightful position in historical past. They left a strong testimony in their lives within the kind of letters, petitions, track, memoirs, and oral historical past interviews. Kalaupapa: A Collective reminiscence combines greater than two hundred hours of interviews with archival files, together with over three hundred pages of letters and petitions written through the earliest citizens which have been translated from Hawaiian.

It has lengthy been assumed that these despatched to Kalaupapa have been unconcerned with the area they have been compelled to go away at the back of. the current paintings indicates that citizens remained actively and focused on existence past Kalaupapa. They petitioned the Hawaii Legislative meeting in 1874, looking justice. They fervently supported Queen Liliuokalani and the Hawaiian nation sooner than annexation and contributed to the comfort attempt in Europe following global battle I. In 1997 Kalaupapa citizens encouraged on the United countries including humans suffering from leprosy from round the world.

This e-book provides in the end the tale of Kalaupapa as advised via its people.

Many historians and others drawn to Kalaupapa were expecting this e-book for a few years and it doesn't disappoint. this can be the 1st complete heritage of the Kalaupapa payment that makes a speciality of the patients' tales and is informed from their issues of view. it really is hence an important contribution to Hawaiian heritage. Law's ethnographic study is as amazing as her historic paintings . . . The publication additionally features a designated index of names and matters that would be very important for researchers. . . . legislation does an exemplary activity developing an insightful narrative from those assets right into a publication that's fantastically learned by means of UH Press. own photographs of individuals, locations, and records intensify the tales with awesome visible elements that pull you additional into the ambience set through the e-book. --Ka Palapala Po'okela Awards, 2013 judges' comments

This ebook, whereas conveying the proof and figures, is basically what its subtitle implies: a collective memoir. all through, it's the voices of sufferers that sing and murmur, shout and whisper from the pages. And their words--from oral histories legislations has been gathering for forty years to letters, files and poetic Hawaiian songs you'd rarely anticipate from the pens of individuals so badly mistreated shatter many myths. . . . You research that for lots of Kalaupapa residents--especially within the early and mid-20th century--life was once filled with job, friendship, laughter and love regardless of the twin discomfort of being separated from family and of the consequences of the ailment itself. . . . [Kalaupapa], with its soul-searing black-and-white images and fresh layout by way of Julie Matsuo-Chun, belongs at the bookshelf of a person who cares approximately Hawaii background. --Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 27 January 2013

With its historical past book-like charm, fused with intimate photographs and well-documented tales, this ebook succeeds in personalizing the effect of leprosy in Hawaiian historical past and follows the mass influence sickness performs on a tradition and its groups. Its geared up layout makes the publication a simple learn whereas its sub-heading chapters permits readers to start Kalaupapa exploration at any web page. placed easily, Kalaupapa: A Collective reminiscence is the ebook on Kalaupapa. i'd suggest it to an individual attracted to the again tales of Kalaupapa, Hawaiian historical past, politics and injustice, in addition to for these attempting to comprehend and deal with the burden of sickness and loss. --Maui Time Weekly , 15 November 2012