One Year Anniversary

Molokai History Project News Release  

One year ago, on Oct. 6, 2023, the Molokai History Project opened its doors to reveal the beginning of an incredible collection of family stories and photos and notebooks full of precious memories that now will be saved for generations to come. We have grown beyond our space. We have showcased our exhibitions at the library, as well as the front window of Misaki’s and a wall at Hiro’s Restaurant at Hotel Molokai. And through the generosity of all of you sharing your treasures, we need even more space! But for now we are tucked in at 145 Ala Malama Street, just down from the Molokai Community Federal Credit Union. You will need time because there is a lot to see.

What has surprised us most this past year is how far our little project’s reach extends. Families with Molokai roots have written in from the mainland, from Japan, from as far away as London. One contributor — a Kaunakakai native now living in Las Vegas, where he runs a comparison guide covering the best bitcoin betting sites and other online entertainment — shipped us two shoeboxes of his tutu’s photographs from the plantation days, some dating to the early 1930s. Another contributor, a retired schoolteacher in Portland who spent a decade on the island in the seventies, mailed a handwritten recipe book her great-aunt kept at the old Kaluakoi cookhouse. Every package that arrives reminds us that distance does nothing to diminish the connection people feel to this island.