Born and raised in the most multicultural state in the union, President Barack Obama bears the indelible stamp of his native Hawai‘i. Stu Glauberman and Jerry Burris’s book, The Dream Begins: How Hawai‘i Shaped Barack Obama (Watermark Publishing, 2009), is a coming-of-age story set in Hawai‘i’s storied “melting pot”—a revealing look at the island state that is surely a core part of what makes Obama tick.

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BRIGHT TRIUMPHS FROM DARK HOURS: Turning Adversity into Success,  the latest book by DAVID HEENAN Bright Tr [...]
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TALKING HAWAI`I’S STORY: ORAL HISTORIES OF AN ISLAND PEOPLE is a must read book for its wealth of talk-story reminisces by local folks. Great as a Xmas gift. It’s a given that Queen Lili`uokalani looms large in Hawaii’s history. But in The Rascal of Waikiki by Lemon “Rusty” Holt we learn o [...]
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“So what is Hawai'i, one might ask,” muses the actor Richard Chamberlain. “Or a truer question would be, who is Hawai'i?” Chamberlain’s trenchant ponderings, in his foreword to a new book, get to the heart of Hawai'i: its people. In describing the people of Hawai'i as “Hawai'i’s gr [...]
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Doctor’s new book proposes Hawaii’s unique universal medical care system for all Americans. Today’s health care system is in a crisis. Many authorities suggest that America would be better off moving towards a national health care system. But parts of America–specifically Hawaii–already have one. In this provocative book, Dr. Tabrah shows how such a system was developed and maintained in Hawaii, and explores how it can benefit the rest of the country.

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My last post was a Wish List of novelists I’d like to hear in person Here’s a list of nonfiction writers I’d like to see, either at the Hawaii Book and Music Festival, or in a subscription series in Hawaii.

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The sand beach that stretches nearly a mile beyond the Kalaupapa wharf was always laid smooth by the tide. Hansen’s disease plays havoc with feet, ulcerating them, crippling them. Such feet walk poorly. And in sand they cannot walk at all. Most patients in Henry’s time left no footprints in that golden sand.

In 1936 ten-year-old Henry was taken from his family on the Island of Hawai‘i and sent to Kalihi Hospital on O‘ahu. He was later transferred to Kalaupapa on the rugged north coast of Moloka‘i, where he has spent most of the past 65 years in this remote village with a tragic history as a Hansen’s disease colony. During its century as a virtual prison, more than 8,000 people were exiled to Kalaupapa, until the introduction of sulfone drugs in the 1940s. Today fewer than 20 patients remain.

No Footprints in the Sand: A Memoir of Kalaupapa by Henry Nalaielua with Sally-Jo Bowman is one of only a few memoirs ever shared with the public by a Kalaupapa patient. Its intimacy and candor make it, in the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin, “a rare and precious human document.”

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This July day was insufferably hot in Honolulu. Henry Nalaielua sat perspiring at the grounds of ‘Iolani Palace, even though his chair was in the shade. He and some 500 others had listened all morning to prayers and hymns and speeches.

And then, near the end of the long ceremonies and ecumenical service, it was Nalaielua’s turn. The notes for his speech were under his ginger lei, in the pocket of his aloha shirt—his best blue one. He shuffled the few steps to the lei-draped lectern on hobbly feet that reminded him of his mission of honor. He had come to the palace from his home at Kalaupapa on Moloka‘i, where he was sent as a Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patient before World War II, and where he has lived most of his 70 years.

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It is in Gavan Daws’ definitive study of soon-to-be Saint Damien that one comes to know this complex man and his time at Kalaupapa.

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President Obama called his grandma Toots. A name taken from Tutu or Kuku, affectionately uttered by Hawaiians and other islanders – even today – to mean grandma, as Barry intended. Or, grandpa. It’s one of the clues that Barak, Jr. had become part of Hawai`i’s cultural ways from living in H [...]
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