Kuʻu Home ʻO Keaukaha: He Lei Moʻolelo No Ka ʻĀina Aloha (My Home, Keaukaha: A Lei Of Stories For Beloved Lands)

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorMcDougall, Brandy N.
dc.contributor.authorKapuni-Reynolds, Halena K.
dc.contributor.departmentAmerican Studies
dc.date.accessioned2024-07-02T23:41:41Z
dc.date.available2024-07-02T23:41:41Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.degreePh.D.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10125/108334
dc.subjectIndigenous studies
dc.subjectMuseum studies
dc.subjectHistory
dc.subjectDecoloniality
dc.subjectHawaiian History
dc.subjectHawaiʻi Island
dc.subjectKeaukaha
dc.subjectʻĀina
dc.titleKuʻu Home ʻO Keaukaha: He Lei Moʻolelo No Ka ʻĀina Aloha (My Home, Keaukaha: A Lei Of Stories For Beloved Lands)
dc.typeThesis
dcterms.abstractKeaukaha is a land and sea area located in Hilo, Hawaiʻi in the ahupuaʻa of Waiākea. Famed for its brackish waters, rocky coastline, and abundance of natural resources, it is home to numerous wahi pana (legendary, storied places) whose stories shed light on the Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) ancestors who once made their livelihoods there. In 1924, Keaukaha became the home of the first Hawaiian Home Land community established on the Island of Hawaiʻi under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920 (HHCA). The HHCA is a U.S. federal law passed in 1921 that established the Hawaiian Homes Commission and set aside over 200,000 acres of land for the purpose of rehabilitating “native Hawaiians” with 50% or more Hawaiian blood by returning them to a leasehold land base. The first Keaukaha homesteaders, comprised of long-time residents of the area and newcomers, founded an “improvement club” that organized and advocated for the community’s needs—a legacy that is carried on today by numerous community organizers a century later. This dissertation offers the first book-length archival study of Keaukaha with emphasis on the 19th and early 20th centuries. It builds on the works of other Indigenous and Hawaiian studies scholars by relying on Hawaiian language and English language primary source materials to create a decolonial story of place before and soon after the establishment of the Keaukaha Hawaiian Home Land community. By retheorizing huli kanaka (the Hawaiian term for anthropology) as a critical ʻŌiwi social and aesthetic theory, and by utilizing a “lei kui” (a type of lei where flowers are pierced and strung together) methodology, I thread together ʻŌiwi and non-ʻŌiwi historiographical methods to reveal stories of Keaukaha’s past. This work intervenes in the academic literature on Hawaiian Home Lands by centering a single community’s efforts to create and maintain ‘Ōiwi community in the face of displacement and dispossession during Hawaiʻi’s Territorial Era (1900-1959). Although the stories traced in this dissertation are marked by loss and struggle, it also recounts practices of ʻŌiwi joy and a refusal to be replaced by settler-colonial processes. A key example illustrated throughout this dissertation is the practice of huakaʻi hele (sightseeing tours) to visit relatives, friends, and wahi pana. Through this project, I practice and theorize decoloniality, as theorized by Global South scholars, by actively working to remember and theorize from the ʻāina aloha and ʻŌiwi community that raised and educated me.
dcterms.extent325 pages
dcterms.languageen
dcterms.publisherUniversity of Hawai'i at Manoa
dcterms.rightsAll UHM dissertations and theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission from the copyright owner.
dcterms.typeText
local.identifier.alturihttp://dissertations.umi.com/hawii:12146

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
KapuniReynolds_hawii_0085A_12146.pdf
Size:
49.03 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Ph.D. - American Studies