Father Damien or Saint Damien of Molokai or Saint Damien De Veuster, born Jozef De Veuster, was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious institute. He was recognized for his ministry, which he led from 1873 until his death in 1889, in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi to people with leprosy, who lived in government-mandated medical quarantine in a settlement on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Molokaʻi.
Maxine Hong Kingston is an American novelist. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated with a BA in English in 1962. Kingston has written three novels and several works of non-fiction about the experiences of Chinese Americans.
Native Hawaiians are the Indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Sacred Hearts Academy, also known as Sacred Hearts or SHA, is located on 3253 Waiʻalae Avenue, in the town of Kaimuki in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, is a historic Roman Catholic college preparatory school for girls founded in 1909 to serve the needs of early Hawaiʻi Catholics in the former Territory of Hawaiʻi. The school maintains a special relationship with Chaminade University of Honolulu and the all-boys Saint Louis School, both administered by the Society of Mary.
Haunani-Kay Trask was a Native Hawaiian activist, educator, author, poet, and a leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. She was professor emerita at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she founded and directed the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. A published author, Trask wrote scholarly books and articles, as well as poetry. She also produced documentaries and CDs. Trask received awards and recognition for her scholarship and activism, both during her life and posthumously.
The Father Damien Statue, also called the Saint Damien of Molokaʻi Statue, is the centerpiece of the entrance to the Hawaiʻi State Capitol and the Hawaiʻi State Legislature in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. A second bronze cast is displayed in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol, along with the Kamehameha Statue. The landmark memorializes the famous Hawaiʻi Catholic Church priest from Belgium who sacrificed his life for the lepers of the island of Molokaʻi. Father Damien is considered one of the preeminent heroes of Hawaiʻi, and was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2009. Cast in bronze, the statue depicts Father Damien in his later years after being diagnosed with the disease of those he attended. Much attention was given to the recreation of the disfiguring scars on the priest's face and his arm hanging from a sling.
Jean Sadako King was the seventh lieutenant governor of Hawaii, the state's first woman to be elected as such, from 1978 to 1982 in the administration of Governor George Ariyoshi.
Marianne Cope, OSF, was a German-born American religious sister who was a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Syracuse, New York, and founding leader of its St. Joseph's Hospital in the city, among the first of 50 general hospitals in the country. Known also for her charitable works, in 1883 she relocated with six other sisters to Hawaiʻi to care for persons suffering leprosy on the island of Molokaʻi and aid in developing the medical infrastructure in Hawaiʻi. Despite direct contact with the patients over many years, Cope did not contract the disease.
Terence Richard Knapp was an English actor, director, educator, and author. He was an emeritus professor of theatre, University of Hawaii at Manoa, a Churchill Fellow and a Royal Academy of Dramatic Art associate.
Milton Atsushi Murayama was an American novelist and playwright. A Nisei, he wrote the 1975 novel All I Asking for Is My Body, which is considered a classic novel of the experiences of Japanese Americans in Hawaii before and during World War II.
Damien is a given name and a surname.
The University of Hawaiʻi Press is a university press that is part of the University of Hawaiʻi.
Hawaii has been a notable destination for Korean immigration to the United States since the early 20th century.
Susan Naomi Oki Mollway is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and the first East Asian woman and Japanese-American woman ever appointed to a life-time position on the federal bench.
Nora Okja Keller is a Korean American author. Her 1997 breakthrough work of fiction, Comfort Woman, and her second book (2002), Fox Girl, focus on multigenerational trauma resulting from Korean women's experiences as sex slaves, euphemistically called comfort women, for Japanese and American troops during World War II and the ongoing Korean War.
Gary Pak is a writer, editor and professor of English at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Pak has been noted as one of the most important Asian Hawaiian writers.
Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, also known as Kumu Hina, is a Native Hawaiian māhū – a traditional third gender person who occupies "a place in the middle" between male and female, as well as a modern transgender woman. She is known for her work as a kumu hula, as a filmmaker, artist, activist, and as a community leader in the field of Kanaka Maoli language and cultural preservation. She teaches Kanaka Maoli philosophy and traditions that promote cross-cultural alliances throughout the Pacific Islands. Kumu Hina is known as a "powerful performer with a clear, strong voice"; she has been hailed as "a cultural icon".
Frances "Fanny" Maughan Vernon was an American educator. She was a prominent clubwoman and Democratic National committeewoman of Utah.
Brandy Nālani McDougall is a Kānaka Maoli author, poet, educator, literary activist, and associate professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She is the Hawai'i State Poet Laureate for 2023–2025.
Edith Kenao Kanakaʻole was a Hawaiian dancer, chanter, teacher, and kumu hula. Born in Honomū, Hawaiʻi in 1913, she was taught hula from a young age, and dropped out of her formal schooling before completing middle school. She began to compose traditional Hawaiian music in 1946, choreographing hula to accompany many of her chants, and founded Hālau O Kekuhi in 1953. In the 1970s, she taught Hawaiian studies and language at Hawaiʻi Community College and later the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, where she worked until her death in 1979.
