Honolulu, Kona, Oʻahu, Ko Hawaiʻi Pae ʻĀina
The mission of the Richard Kekuni Blaisdell Hawaiian National Archive is to collect, mālama, and share contemporary genealogy of Hawaiian national identity.
The collections currently in the care of the HNA include over 1,200 cubic feet of a wide variety of ephemera from contemporary history relating to Hawaiian national identity. This publicly accessible community archive has the potential to generate a variety of inter-disciplinary and collaborative opportunities, where it can play an important role in reviving Hawaiian understandings of history and provide tangible continuity of the genealogy of ʻŌiwi activism.
Ka Lei Maile Aliʻi’s work has involved many years of collaborative relationship building among cultural practitioners, activists, academics, and institutions with the aim of raising Hawaiian national consciousness and nurturing relationships to ʻāina and people, both locally and abroad, toward a progressive and culturally grounded global future. Our years of organizing have helped make visible shifts in both public and institutional discourse and programming inside and outside of Hawaiʻi on Hawaiian history, cultural activism, de-militarization, and the fundamental connections between peace and justice in Hawaiʻi and indigenous sovereignty abroad. The Hawaiian National Archive is a natural evolution in broadening and deepening the scope of this work.
The HNA has the potential to tap into countless inter-disciplinary tracks where it can play an important role in reviving Hawaiian understandings of history, and in giving us international and aloha ʻāina-centric contexts and tangible continuity of the genealogy of ʻŌiwi activism. The Archive also helps document the important historic moments where solidarity among native, Black, and brown communities has linked struggles across the U.S. and beyond. By remembering our history and bringing that legacy of cultural activism into the present, we actively re-build native diplomacy for the healing of all lands and peoples. This work is revolutionary in helping us recover our sense of self, our sense of duty to recognize and to own our history, and our collective imagination for how the Lāhui can and must rise and thrive.
We must be the keepers of our own history.
What's in
the Archive?
As our digital database develops, we are doing extensive cataloguing of metadata to provide accessibility and search-ability of these materials. Topics featured in this ever-expanding archive include:
Hawaiian Movement
(Hawaiʻi Ecumenical Coalition; Kahoʻolawe; Native Hawaiian Sovereignty Plebiscite; Office of Hawaiian Affairs [OHA]; water rights; militarism; Mākua Council; Stryker Brigade EIS; Pacific Missile Range Facility EIS; Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea; Akaka Bills; "Statehood"; People’s International Tribunal Hawaiʻi; Council of Regency; etc.)
Health & Wellness
(Native Hawaiian health; Pacific & Asian American health; human genome; Anahola Valley; Halawa Valley; Papa Ola Lōkahi; Health & Disease Magazine, Hawaiʻi Observer, Hawaiʻi Heritage News, Kamehameha Schools Magazine, Pacific News Bulletin, Hematology, and other health publications; etc.)
Global Solidarity
(World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education [WIPCE]; Koori Nations [Australia]; Aotearoa; Alaska Natives; Puerto Rico; Guam; international law; human rights; Nuclear-free and Independent Pacific [NFIP]; United Nations; land defense and legal papers; etc.)
Paraphernalia
Bulletins, newsletters, books, photos, photo negatives, T-shirts, tote bags, banners, artwork, maps, posters, and newspaper clippings dating as far back as the 1970s.
Lynette Hiʻilani Cruz
Kupuna-in-Residence
Dr. Lynette Hiʻilani Cruz (she/her) is a lifelong Kanaka Maoli activist, educator, and community organizer born and raised in Hawaiʻi. She earned degrees in Pacific Island Studies and Anthropology and spent nearly 30 years as a lecturer and coordinator of service-learning at the University of Hawaiʻi and Hawaiʻi Pacific University. Through her decades-long leadership in multiple grassroots organizations, including Ka Lei Maile Aliʻi, Dr. Cruz continues to build international cross-cultural coalitions of activists, cultural practitioners, academics, and institutions dedicated to peace and justice work.
Emilia Kandagawa
Project Director
Emilia Kandagawa (ʻoia/they/them) is a Hawaiian national of African-Native American descent. They are a popular educator, researcher, cultural practitioner, and transformative justice advocate. Emilia has been an officer of Ka Lei Maile Aliʻi since 2008 and has earned degrees in Political Science, Anthropology, and Land-Based Indigenous Education. Their work is dedicated to nurturing the cross-pollination of social, environmental, and political liberation movements across the Hawaiian Kingdom and abroad.
