Wayfinding through the Storm by Gavan Daws & Na Leo O Kamehameha

Over 150 voices—young students, venerable alumni, movers and shakers, average folk, novice and seasoned teachers, Native Hawaiians, kama‘aina and fresh faces from abroad—share their experiences of the 1990s Bishop Estate controversy in Wayfinding through the Storm.

This is the human story of a crisis that erupted at Kamehameha Schools in the 1990s and came close to destroying a historic educational community. Wayfinding through the Storm tells the story of ordinary decent people who looked deep inside themselves and found the moral courage to risk everything, to come together and stand up for what they believed in: to speak truth to power.

Coming into the ‘90s, Bishop Estate and Kamehameha Schools were flourishing. However, within a matter of just a few years, the all-Hawaiian board of trustees came close to bringing the estate to ruin. Dubious schemes, hatched behind doors in the boardroom, erupted one after the other in public scandals—ethical, moral, sexual, financial, political, legal, crossing the line into indictable crime.

Wayfinding through the Storm focuses on the crisis as it played out at Kamehameha Schools. Presented as an oral history, it is told by people who lived the story, in their own words. The book is comprised of interviews with Kamehameha faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and friends, combined with court transcripts. The text is supplemented and augmented graphically through historic and contemporary photographs, cartoons and reproductions of documents.

Gavan Daws is the author of fourteen previous books, including the best-selling Shoal of Time; Holy Man: Father Damien of Moloka‘i; and Land and Power in Hawai‘i. He is also the recipient of several international awards for his documentary films and has been named a Distinguished Historian by the Hawaiian Historical Society.

Na Leo O Kamehameha, the voices of Kamehameha, are made up of Kamehameha faculty, staff, students, alumni, parents and friends.

Wayfinding through the Storm has received coverage in The Honolulu Advertiser, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the Honolulu Weekly, MidWeek and on Sunrise on KGMB9.  An excerpt from Gavan Daws' introduction to the book is available here.

Wayfinding through the Storm is available for purchase at your local bookstore and at online booksellers, including direct from the publisher at www.bookshawaii.net.

Join the discussion and receive the latest updates on Wayfinding through the Storm at the book's Facebook page.

Authors: Gavan Daws and Na Leo o Kamehameha
Softcover, 384 pp
Release Date: May 23, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9821698-3-4
$24.95 retail price

Tags: Bishop Estate, Gavan Daws, Kamehameha Schools, oral history, Watermark Publishing

This entry was posted on Friday, September 25th, 2009 at 2:40 am and is filed under Hawaii history, Hawaii non-fiction, Hawaii politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.