Workshop Preserves Personal Stories

By Dayanti Karunaratne | Editor

Family stories usually have a way of being passed down through generations. But sometimes when an elder passes away, stories are lost. A workshop on June 19 aims to preserve Molokai stories and teach people of all ages how to do it for themselves.

“It’s so important for us right now to start to document the stories of our Kūpuna. A lot of them are passing away already, and they hold so much experience and knowledge,” Melia Kalawe of Ka Ipu Makani Cultural Heritage Center said. 

She said workshop participants will learn how to conduct interviews with family members and access digital resources that will help them with the process.

“We want the whole family to come,” Kalawe said about the workshop. “The younger generation can practise interviewing kupuna and see how we can do oral history interviews.” 

Her organization is responsible for the Moaʻe Molokai Digital Repository, an archive of submissions from community members and various institutions. She said they were approached by the Center for Oral History about partnering up for the workshop. The Center is an Oahu-based group that collects, preserves and highlights the recollections of Native Hawaiians and the multi-ethnic people of Hawaii. 

It’s actually not the Center’s first trip to Molokai. Decades ago  representatives from the Center came to Molokai to conduct interviews with families in the ‘Ualapu‘e area. Following that visit, the Center published a book, which is kept at the Molokai library.

To register for the June 19 workshop or to find out more about oral history, visit www.librarieshawaii.org/branch/molokai-public-library