Ruth Horie: An Oral History Biography and Feminist Analysis

Abstract

This thesis is an oral history biography of Ruth Horie (1950- ), a Japanese American librarian in Honolulu, Hawai‘i whose work centered mainly on preserving and providing access to Native Hawaiian materials. Primarily a cataloger, Horie was one of the rare librarians who understood Hawaiian, a critically endangered language. She earned her undergraduate degree in Hawaiian Studies and two master’s degrees, in Library Studies and Linguistics, from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She worked for a decade as a reference librarian at the East-West Center and Bishop Museum, and then spent twenty-two years as a cataloger at Hamilton Library at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. The accompanying intersectional feminist analysis aims to examine the unique positionalities Horie embodied, and extract insights from her experience. Horie’s life and work turn out to be an excellent example for all librarians who wish to take a social justice stance in their careers.