The islands make up less than one percent of U.S. land mass, but are home to more than 40% of the nation’s endangered and threatened species. A recent study found that Hawaiʻi is home to nearly one-third of the world’s plant species, including 63,280 species found nowhere else on Earth. More than 100 endemic plants have gone extinct, while 51% remain threatened. Many native plants are only found in lab environments — 273 taxa are considered to have 50 or fewer individuals remaining in the wild.
Researchers like Perlman are performing critical work to protect and restore Hawaiʻi’s native species, ecosystems, and cultural resources. But recent cuts to federal funding and shifts in protective policy threaten to undo decades of progress. The University of Hawaiʻi’s Lyon Arboretum and its Plant Extinction Prevention Program (PEPP) work to collect, propagate, and reintroduce plants into the wild. Since 1992, the Hawaiian Rare Plant Program (HRPP), housed at the Arboretum, has focused on rescue and recovery of critically endangered native plants. There are more than 30,000 plants within its in vitro germplasm collection and greenhouse — over 70% of which are federally listed as threatened or endangered. Researchers operate with surgical precision, donning gloves and goggles and working with equipment that has been bathed in alcohol or baptized by fire. Micropropagation and cryogeneration techniques are used to prevent species loss. To date, the program has successfully grown 300 Hawaiian plant species, including 136 that are threatened or endangered.
Federal funding decisions have dogged conservation of Hawaiʻi’s most vulnerable species. “On average, mainland [birds] received over 15 times the funding of Hawaiian birds despite [having] similar priority ranks,” Dave Leonard, a wildlife biologist, wrote in the journal Biological Conservation (2008). Between 1996 and 2004, for example, the red-cockaded woodpecker received more than $11.6 million from the federal government, a sum that is more than three times the amount made available to all 31 listed Hawaiian birds combined, Leonard said.
An Associated Press analysis of 2020 data found that plants receive just 2% of the roughly $1.2 billion a year spent on endangered and threatened species. “For a tiny fraction of the budget going to spotted owls, we could save whole species of cacti that are less charismatic but have an order of magnitude smaller budget,” Leah Gerber, a professor of conservation science at Arizona State University, said. Prior funding disparities pale to the threat imposed by recent cuts to support and staffing. Three years ago, the seed conservation lab received a $250,000 federal grant to support high-resolution imaging and online access to its collection, which is one of the largest tropical seed banks in the world. The project was in its final months when researchers were informed that funding had been cut following an assessment by the Department of Government Efficiency. More recently, the Trump administration proposed a set of rules to revise Endangered Species Act regulations. Critics argue that the changes would allow economic considerations to influence species-protection decisions and accelerate development projects in areas inhabited by threatened and endangered species. The fate of Hawaiʻi’s rarest species is no longer just a biological challenge, but a political and financial one. Conservationists continue their meticulous, at times dangerous, work, but progress falters without adequate support. With federal funding cuts and regulatory rollbacks threatening years of recovery efforts, Hawaiʻi stands at a critical juncture: invest in protecting the world’s most unique ecosystems, or risk losing irreplaceable species that exist nowhere else on the planet. "We are still here": The delegation from the Marshall Islands participated in the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC) last year, which was held in Hawaiʻi for the first time in the festival's 52-year history. "In the Marshall Islands, they dropped 67 nuclear weapons. They destroyed our way of life. They relocated our people. And yet, we still have our culture," one delegate said during the festival's opening ceremony. After the Second World War, the Marshall Islands were part a U.S.-administered United Nations strategic trusteeship, initially under Navy control and later transferred to the Interior Department. (The U.S. ended trusteeship in 1986, when the Compact of Free Association took effect.) From 1946 to 1958, the United States detonated more than 60 nuclear bomb tests in the Marshall Islands, 23 of those tests were conducted on Bikini Atoll. Residents of the atoll had been asked to temporarily relocate so that the U.S. could begin testing atomic bombs for "the good of mankind and to end all wars." The residents were assured that they could return home after the nuclear test program wrapped. The largest series of tests began on March 1, 1954, with the detonation of “Castle Bravo,” the largest nuclear weapon ever tested by the U.S. “Bravo” was one thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and its blast cut a crater about a mile wide into the Bikini reef. Meteorologists predicted wind conditions that would have carried radioactive fallout to a group of small atolls lying to the east of Bikini, according to a statement from then-Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss. But the wind shifted south, hitting the islands of Rongelap, Rongerik, and Utirik. Marshall Islanders, U.S. service personnel, and crew members of more than 1,000 Japanese fishing boats were exposed to radioactive fallout. Marshallese experienced significant health consequences in the aftermath of nuclear testing, including an increase in cancer risk, infertility, stillbirths, miscarriages, thyroid abnormalities, and congenital birth defects. Radiological contamination of the Bikini Atoll still prevents Islanders from returning to their homeland to this day. By 2018, one third of the Marshall Islands' population had moved to the U.S. Today, about 10,000 Marshallese people live in Hawaiʻi -- a number that is expected to rise, with one study claiming climate change would render the archipelago uninhabitable as early as 2035. In October 2025, President Trump called on U.S. military leaders to resume testing nuclear weapons in order to keep pace with other countries. The last nuclear test conducted by the U.S. (in 1992) was held at an underground facility in Nevada — one of the country's most closely divided swing states. Some experts note that it would take the U.S. at least 36 months to restart testing at the facility, BBC News reported. Meanwhile, earlier in the year, the U.S. Air Force conducted a test of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg base in California, landing at Kwajalein Atoll (Marshall Islands). The test was hailed by officials as a demonstration of the strength and readiness of U.S. nuclear deterrence. Months later, the Air Force announced that it had suspended plans for cargo rocket testing with SpaceX at Johnston Atoll. That program sought to determine the viability and utility of using large commercial rockets for Defense Department logistics (perhaps nuclear-capable systems). The Air Force had considered Kwajalein, Midway Island, and Wake Island as sites for testing, as they already support ongoing military operations. A game of nuclear weapons chicken is already playing out in the Pacific theater. Trump's call to action merely brought it, and its implications, further into the daylight. Read more about Pacific Island nations and the new Cold War in our newsletter archive (July 2025).  A newly released document by the Justice Department outlines a legal argument that could provide the basis for the Trump administration’s reduction or elimination of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Trump had previously signaled interest in changing Papahānaumokuākea’s status during his first term, aligning this interest with a broader focus on economic development of the Pacific. Supporters of the move argue that development of Papahānaumokuākea is critical to U.S. self-sufficiency and security, especially as geopolitical tensions in the region mount. Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is the largest conservation area under federal protection in the United States. It encompasses the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, the Midway National Wildlife Refuge, the Hawaiian Islands National Wildlife Refuge, and the Battle of Midway National Memorial. The area is home to more than 7,000 marine species, including endangered and threatened species — among them, the Hawaiian monk seal, the green sea turtle, leatherback and hawksbill sea turtles, and various seabirds and plants. Papahānaumokuākea also holds profound cultural significance for Native Hawaiians, who inhabited the islands for thousands of years prior to western contact. The region is considered sacred to Hawaiians, referenced in the Kumulipo creation chant as a place from which all life originates. There are sacred sites throughout the region, but the islands of Nihoa and Mokumanamana contain the largest share of archaeological remains that point to Hawaiian habitation and use. (A basalt artifact was also found on Papaʻāpoho in 1991.) For these reasons, Papahānaumokuākea resides on both national and state registers for historic places and is listed as a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “The monument holds tangible and intangible resources,” said Hawaiian scholar Kekuewa Kikiloi, a former cultural program coordinator for the monument. “A huge part of it is just the place itself and what it means to the Native Hawaiian people and our spiritual beliefs. It’s a huge part of our history, the story of our origins and afterlife. All of that place is sacred to us.” The area also preserves remains from the Battle of Midway, a pivotal turning point in the Pacific theater during World War II. Although much of the fighting occurred north of Papahānaumokuākea, an intense air fight was waged over and around Kuaihelani and the monument preserves the wreckage of aircraft and ships from both sides of the fight. Papahānaumokuākea was established by President George W. Bush in 2006, under an executive order citing authority from the Antiquities Act. It is this authority that is central to the legal argument for modifying the monument. The Antiquities Act empowers the president to designate national monuments on federal lands to provide legal protection of cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest. The Trump Justice Department argues that the act gives presidents the authority not just to establish, but also to modify national monuments — an authority past presidents from both parties have exercised without objection from Congress, which, to the administration, signals tacit congressional approval of the display of power. Opponents argue that the authority to modify or even reduce national monuments rests with Congress and that prior legislation governing public lands has asserted that authority. The Justice Department also argues that the Antiquities Act gives the president discretion to determine the scale of a national monument, and that the parcel reserved for protection be the smallest area compatible with its proper care and management. If a president determines, then, that there either never were, or no longer are, objects to be protected on a given parcel, the smallest number of acres compatible with the proper care and management of such objects is zero, and the president would have the authority to eliminate the monument altogether. Since May 2024, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its partners have been conducting a series of expeditions on Okeanos Explorer to improve knowledge about unexplored and poorly understood deepwater areas of Hawaii and Johnston Atoll. The regions were first identified as a geographic priority area for exploration and sustainable development as an extension of Trump’s blue economy initiative. NOAA asserts that data collected in these expeditions will establish a baseline to catalyze further exploration, research, and management of the area, which will impact, among other avenues, future oil and gas activity, offshore wind development, commercial fishing, and deep sea mining. The expeditions will also provide a better understanding of the remains from the Battle of Midway, which will give clearer insight into its cultural and historical significance and inform future decisions about preservation. (The Justice Department document references historical instances in which public lands once reserved for military use were later recategorized, bolstering the argument that, as commander-in-chief, the president has the authority to determine a former military site’s cultural significance.) There has been a renewed push for the Trump administration to revoke a ban on commercial fishing in Papahānaumokuākea, following its decision to reopen parts of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Native Hawaiian Cultural Working Group (NHCWG) have publicly opposed the effort. (Prior to the designation of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, commercial fishing operations had led to declines in several key species.) “Commercial extraction and locust-like behavior creating unbalance in the world is not Hawaiian. These protected, no-take areas are a contemporary Native Hawaiian solution to restoring balance from commercial extraction,” Pelika Andrade, a NHCWG member, said. “The protections of Papahānaumokuākea are only necessary because of how industries, like commercial fishing, have depleted our oceans. Our ultimate goal, as Native Hawaiians, is ʻāina momona, and what the [Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council] is proposing does not align with that.” ʻAulani Wilhem, NHCWG member and former NOAA superintendent for Papahānaumokuākea reflects: “People would ask, ‘What are you protecting it from?’ And our answer was ‘That’s the wrong question. It’s about who and what are we protecting it for?’” Recent federal budget cuts are threatening decades of progress in HIV prevention and care, particularly for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPIs), who already experience a disproportionate impact from HIV.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has terminated multiple grants focused on PrEP, a drug regimen effective in preventing HIV infection. The Trump administration also cut funds to HIV vaccine research, recently terminating a $258 million program as, “NIH expects to be shifting its focus toward using currently available approaches to eliminate HIV/AIDS,” a senior official at NIH said. Federal workforce cuts within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and leadership at NIAID, have sparked concerns about future HIV prevention and treatment efforts. The Trump administration is also considering eliminating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) HIV prevention division, which provides funds for prevention, detection, and outbreak response. This dismantling of our nation’s HIV prevention and treatment infrastructure comes amid a critical time for HIV-positive Native Hawaiians. Nationally, NHPIs have the third-highest HIV diagnosis rate, behind African Americans and Hispanic people, according to one report. Native Hawaiians are 2.4 times more likely to be diagnosed with HIV than white individuals; and native Hawaiian women are 2.5 times more likely to die from HIV-related complications, according to the Office of Minority Health. A recent review of Hawaiʻi hospital data found that HIV-positive Native Hawaiians were significantly more likely to be hospitalized compared to other races. “This means Kānaka Maoli were more likely to wind up in a hospital on their deathbed at the time of [HIV] diagnosis,” Kekoaopololū Kealoha, an administrator at Hawaiʻi Health & Harm Reduction Center and social media influencer, said in a recent video. Access to early diagnosis and ongoing treatment remains a challenge, shaped by deep-rooted social factors. Many Native Hawaiians live in under-resourced areas—far from clinics, specialists, and consistent care. High costs of living, limited insurance options, lack of in-language and culturally competent resources, and housing and employment insecurity (1 in 6 NHPIs live in poverty) make it harder to maintain treatment. The social stigma surrounding HIV impacts LGBTQ, transgender, or māhū individuals, leading to reduced testing and adherence to treatment. “Drastic reductions in the workforce across the Department of Health and Human Services, along with the cancellation of billions of dollars in federal grants to states, municipalities, educational institutions, and community-based organizations that form the very foundation of our national infectious disease prevention and treatment programs, is reckless and will result in increased HIV cases and the loss of life,” said Papa Ola Lōkahi's CEO Dr. Sheri Ann Daniels. “For HIV vaccine design and development, we’ve begun to see light at the end of the tunnel after many years of research,” said Dennis Burton, an immunology professor at Scripps Research. “This is a terrible time to cut it off…This is a setback of probably a decade for HIV vaccine research.” Advocates point out that between 2012 and 2022, CDC-led efforts prevented nearly 28,000 infections, saving over $15 billion in lifetime medical costs. As Congress debates future spending, community leaders have urged lawmakers to restore funding and maintain broader safety-net services. “With dialogue and with talk story, we can better focus on the issues, principles, other than pointing the finger and to come out to a better place than where we are,” Kumu Hula Brad Lum said. Between 1935 and 1942, more than 130 young men—most of them Native Hawaiian—were sent on a mission by the U.S. government to occupy remote, uninhabited islands in the Pacific Ocean (Howland, Baker, Jarvis, Canton, and Enderbury). Known as the Hui Panalāʻau, the men endured isolation, searing heat, unrelenting sun, illness, sharks, vermin, and, even, enemy fire, all in the name of American territorial expansion and national security. The program was supported by the Kamehameha Schools and the U.S. Department of Air Commerce, and recruited students, many with military training. Most recruits were unaware that they were being sent to desolate islands to help the U.S. government establish a claim of continuous occupation for territorial ownership. “They looked for someone that had some Hawaiian background…because of our descendance as part Hawaiians, we would be used to the South Pacific or wherever,” James Carroll explained. This wasn’t the first time the islands had hosted Native Hawaiians. In the mid-1800s, Native Hawaiians labored for American guano companies, harvesting droppings of seabirds to make fertilizer. Abandoned for decades, following guano depletion, the islands came into interest again in the 1930s, as key landing spots for military and commercial air routes between Australia and California. “The United States was trying to establish its power in the Pacific internationally, because Japan was becoming very expansionist,” historian DeSoto Brown explained. “To counteract that, the undercurrent of this entire project was for the United States to be able to claim more territory…and the public justification was [that] commercial aviation could possibly use these islands.” The group would gather meteorological data; cultivated plants; maintained a daily log tracking fish and birds on the islands; and collected specimens for the Bishop Museum. “Sharks gave us plenty to worry about,” George N. West said. “I was brushing my teeth one evening just at the fall of night when, like the explosion of a firecracker, I heard two voices shout at me. I understood what the voices said and jumped out of the water just in time to see a shark close its jaws. Whew! Escapes from sharks were many.” The mission turned deadly following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Just a day later, Japanese forces struck the islands, killing Joseph Keliʻihananui and Richard Whaley. “They dropped about 20 bombs, then turned and came back over the islands, dropping some ten more. The explosions shook the ground under our feet and the smoke concealed almost everything from our view,” West recalled of the 1941 attack. “When the planes finally left, Mattson and I walked over to where Dick and Joe were lying. They had been badly hit. They were both hurt in the legs and one had a chest wound and a hole in his back. We were going to fix up a place to put them, but by the time we got something arranged, they were dead.” In 2024, President Joe Biden formally recognized the Hui Panalāʻau’s role in advancing U.S. security and establishing the cultural and scientific groundwork for the establishment of the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument.  April is Native Hawaiian Plant Month, a time to celebrate Hawaiʻi's unique flora and the vital role it plays in our culture, identity, and spiritual well-being. It also offers an opportunity to raise awareness of ongoing environmental threats that endanger cultural cornerstones. While ʻōhiʻa lehua isn’t currently listed among Hawaiʻi’s 578 endangered species, its rapid decline is reshaping ecosystems across the islands and posing real challenges for those working to safeguard Hawaiian heritage for future generations. ʻŌhiʻa lehua comprises roughly 80% of Hawaiʻi’s native forests. Many of Hawaiʻi’s federally recognized endangered birds and pollinators rely on the tree for food and nesting sites. It also plays an essential role in watershed protection and conservation, preventing erosion and flooding. Beyond its ecological importance, ʻōhiʻa lehua holds deep cultural significance. Rooted in the moʻolelo of Pele and considered a sacred kinolau of other deities, ʻōhiʻa lehua features prominently in Hawaiian ceremonies and practices, including hula, kapa cloth making, music, farming and food cultivation, weaponry, and medicine. For over a decade, ʻōhiʻa lehua has faced an invasive fungal blight known as Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death (ROD). Infected trees appear to die within days of (and up to a few weeks following) exposure. ROD has been detected across Hawaiʻi, Kauaʻi, Maui, and Oʻahu, devastating more than 270,000 acres of forest and killing over one million trees. “Playing out an average mortality rate of 10% per year, you’re going to see 100% mortality in a given ʻōhiʻa stand in less than 20 years,” Flint Hughes, an ecologist with the Pacific Southwest Research Station, said. Multi-agency ROD teams have been working alongside Native Hawaiian groups on handling ʻōhiʻa material in cultural practice. Some hālau have stopped using ʻōhiʻa altogether, sparking public debate, and controversy, over whether the plant should and could be used. Lei makers, in particular, face intense criticism for their use of lehua blossom and liko; and many leverage the scrutiny to draw attention to ethical and sustainable gathering practices. (Cultural practitioners in southern and central California are turning to a New Zealand-derived variety of ʻōhiʻa lehua in their lei making, allowing them to continue cultural practice while remaining aligned with lei makers at home.) The fight for ʻōhiʻa lehua extends beyond Hawaiʻi. Teams across the continental U.S., including at Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, and Arizona State University, are efforting preservation and reforestation. Some researchers working to combat the disease were born and raised in Hawaiʻi. Prevention and awareness remain key strategies in the battle against Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death, absent an effective treatment. However, recent cuts in funding and reductions in the federal workforce, particularly those at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Hawaiʻi, are sure to hinder these efforts, and impact conservation and invasive species mitigation in the years ahead. “Lehua is the first warrior that goes into battle. It’s the first sacrifice,” Hiʻilani Shibata, a cultural practitioner and consultant, said in 2016. “So when I think about the Rapid ʻŌhiʻa Death, I think…the ʻōhiʻa is telling us something. It's almost like the first thing telling us we're out of balance.” The 62nd Annual Merrie Monarch hula festival is around the corner. Play along while you watch. And pōmaikaʻi iā ʻoukou to competing hālau from the Hawaiian diaspora: Hālau Kealiʻi O Nālani (Los Angeles) and Academy of Hawaiian Arts (Oakland) Stream the Merrie Monarch hula competition live Thursday, April 24 through Saturday, April 26 via Hawaii News Now mobile and OTT apps (coverage starts at 6pm HST). The competition is also available to stream on the festival’s website.  Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole served as a non-voting congressional delegate from 1902 to 1922. During his tenure, he secured $27 million for key projects, including the establishment of Pearl Harbor, Makapu‘u Point Lighthouse, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, Kilauea National Park, and construction of a hospital at Kalaupapa.
He also authored the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921 (HHCA), which allocated roughly 200,000 acres of former crown and government lands for Native Hawaiians. The act granted 99-year land leases for residential, agricultural, or pastoral use as part of a broader effort to rehabilitate Native Hawaiians. While lessees could live on home land virtually free, they were required to build their own home or purchase one from a developer. The act also offered financial and technical assistance for housing and farming. Prince Kūhiō faced strong opposition from the ranching and sugar industries, which successfully pushed to limit available homestead land and institute a 50% blood quantum. As a result, over a quarter of HHCA-designated lands were barren lava fields, while another 7,800 acres were steep mountain slopes that, according to one legislator, “a goat couldn’t live on.” Following the act’s passage, the federal government provided minimal funding and oversight. Issues persisted, as the state assumed management, following statehood in 1959. Today, the program serves approximately 8,400 residential lessees, but more than 23,000 applicants remain on the waitlist for land amid a severe shortage of affordable housing. In the past 25 years, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) has largely invested in building subdivisions to meet this crushing demand for homestead land and housing. However, these homes are often too expensive for low-income applicants; and DHHL, facing a lack of qualified buyers, has favored higher income applicants, according to one analysis. “It’s serving Native Hawaiians who are middle class or upper middle class. It does nothing for Hawaiians who are working poor or homeless,” attorney Tom Grande, who represented 2,700 plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against DHHL, said. “Their duty is not to check my credit,” Robin Danner, a beneficiary leader from Kauai, said. “Their duty is to issue me my land.” DHHL maintains that it offers various programs to help low-income beneficiaries become homesteaders, including homebuyer education, financial literacy training, and direct financial aid. Much of this funding—over $150 million in the past two decades—comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In January, President Trump issued an executive order directing all federal departments and agencies, including HUD, to freeze federal financial assistance, including grants and loans. This funding gap may hinder DHHL's ability to acquire and develop new lands or serve Native Hawaiian beneficiaries. President Trump issued an executive order halting birthright citizenship for persons born on U.S. soil. His legal argument focuses on language in the Fourteenth Amendment that he says grants citizenship only to persons "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. Under his order, at least one parent would need to be a citizen or legal resident of the United States for a child to receive birthright citizenship.
We have previously explored citizenship, indigeneity, and the sovereignty movement. What does Trump's executive order mean, then, for Native Hawaiians? Well, it's complicated. Current law: The descendants of the aboriginal people of Hawaiʻi were subjects of the Hawaiian Kingdom and following the overthrow became subjects of the Republic of Hawaiʻi. Under the Hawaiian Organic Act, which established the Territory of Hawaiʻi, all persons who were subjects of the Republic of Hawaiʻi on or after August 12, 1898, were granted U.S. citizenship. Native Hawaiians today would be considered U.S. citizens through parentage. What the end to birthright citizenship means for sovereignty: We previously discussed a branch of the sovereignty movement that argues that the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi maintains its sovereignty despite the 1893 overthrow of Liliʻuokalani. Citing international law governing states at war, the movement contends that Hawaiʻi is under illegal occupation by the United States. International law prohibits the acquisition of citizenship of the occupied state by birthright during occupation. This means descendants of individuals who were subjects of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi at the time of the overthrow (including Native Hawaiians) would not be considered U.S. citizens (unless through parentage, where they would enjoy dual citizenship, or naturalization). What the end of birthright citizenship means for Native Hawaiian claims of indigeneity: For advocates efforting Native Hawaiian tribal status, the call to eliminate birthright citizenship complicates an already fraught landscape. Trump's Justice Department is citing an 1884 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found members of Indian tribes were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and were not constitutionally entitled to citizenship. Congress didn't grant citizenship to Native Americans until June 2, 1924 (through the Snyder Act); and it wasn't until 1965 that most tribal members were granted the full breadth of that designation with the ability to vote. Should Native Hawaiians be granted tribal status under the Trump administration, there's no certainty that they would also be considered U.S. citizens (unless individuals enjoy dual citizenship through parentage or become a citizen through naturalization). A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's executive order, calling the move "blatantly unconstitutional." Watch this space.  For more than 100 years, starting in 1866 through 1969, more than 8,000 patients diagnosed with leprosy (also known as Hansen's Disease) were forcibly exiled to the Kalaupapa peninsula on Molokaʻi. Roughly 90% of these patients were Native Hawaiian, with ages ranging from 4 years through 105.
The first 12 patients were isolated and confined to Kalaupapa on January 6, 1866, following the passage of an act by Hawaiʻi's legislative assembly and approval by King Kamehameha V. The act gave Hawaiʻi's Board of Health the authority to establish a settlement for people believed capable of spreading the disease. Under the act, law enforcement was permitted to arrest people suspected of having leprosy; the Board of Health could seize patient property to cover the expenses of confinement; and some patients were forced work to maintain the Kalaupapa settlement. Most patients were too ill to work. Reports of insufficient housing, lacking supplies, and deplorable conditions spread. Native Hawaiian families that had inhabited the peninsula for over 900 years helped tend to the ill. These families, too, were forced to evict their land in the 1890s, following a crackdown on spread of the disease. Conditions improved under the Kalākaua monarchy, and with the arrival of Father Damien, a Belgian priest widely regarded as Kalaupapa's greatest caregiver (alongside Mother Marianne Cope). Damien built churches and homes, cared for the ill, and remained in the colony until his death from leprosy at the age of 49 (he was canonized in 2009, and Cope in 2012). Isolation laws in Hawaʻiʻi expanded amid the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The territory of Hawaiʻi instituted a policy of separating children born at Kalaupapa from their parents. Children were placed with relatives or in orphanages, never to reunite with family. But this period also saw an expansion of infrastructure and development, leading Kalaupapa to establish bustling economies. The settlement saw its first fish market, poi factory, steam laundry, butcher shop, and communication with the outside world (via newspaper). It was home to glee clubs, athletic programs, and debate societies. In fact, 700 people from Kalaupapa signed the Kuʻē petition following the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani. New treatment helmed by Alice Ball (the first woman and first African American to receive a master's degree from the College of Hawaiʻi) in the 1920s gave hope of eradication. New therapies following World War II meant Hansen's Disease patients were no longer contagious and there was no further need for isolation (forced quarantine ended in 1969). Kalaupapa was designated a national historic park in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter, and it is currently managed by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. Nine of Kalaupapa's former patients are living today, four choose to reside in the settlement still. Families hope to dedicate a Kalaupapa memorial in 2025 on the grounds of the Baldwin Home for Boys facility (originally Kalaupapa's general hospital). |