Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 1, 1 January 2011 — OHA-funded exhibit brings Hawaiian history to Pearl Harbor visitors [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA-funded exhibit brings Hawaiian history to Pearl Harbor visitors

By Francine Murray The more than 1 million annual visitors to Pearl Harbor's new Paeifie National Monument Visitor Center will now get a pieture of Hawaiian history through an exhibit funded by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. "This will be one of the first looks our visitors have at Hawaiian culture at Pearl Harbor. It's not just the Navy-centric story of the attack on Pearl Harbor told here," said Laurie Moore, Director of Development and Community Relations of the Paeihe Historic Parks. "As the World War II Valor in the Paeihe National Monument Visitor Center, we now have the opportunity to kind of expand our story." This bountiful region abundant with fish and pearl oysters, whieh the harbor was known for, was called Ke awa lau o Pu'uloa, or "the many channels of long hill." Looking inland from the memorial you see the long hill stretching toward the sea. "Pu'uloa has a rich history and we wanted to be able to tell that and show that to the 1.6 million visitors that eome through here every year." "We weleome back the loeal

people, and we want them to understand there is something new here. It is not the same old, same old," said Moore. A commemorative Kama'āina

Day was held Dec. 5 to remember the loeal residents and what they endured during and after the attack on Pearl Harbor. "One thing we did was set aside tickets for loeal residents," said Moore, adding that the tickets exempted them from the long waits to take the boat ride out to the memorial. "They had entertainment throughout the day. They welcomed back hula, whieh hasn't been at Pearl Harbor for a very, very long time. They also performed the last original playlist that the USS Arizona Band played about a week before they perished in the attack." The 69th anniversary Pearl Harbor Day commemoration and dedication of the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center followed on Dec. 7. After two years of construction, attend-

ees were among the first to see the recently completed $56 million Visitor Center. "The visitors will first enter in the Road to War exhibit," Moore explained as she described

the layout of the new Visitor Center. "There they will learn about the American view and the Japanese view of what was happening in the world, why the two heeame enemies and why the attack was imminent. And then thev will eome

out to the O'ahu court where it is a very peaceful and calming plaee. Here they will learn why Americans had an interest in the harbor and what they thought it would be in terms of a benefit to the Navy." Earlier this year, the OHA Board of Trustees approved a grant of $100,000 to support this O'ahu Gallery, an open-air exhibit displaying the Hawaiian cultural significance and history of the Pu'uloa area pre-World War II. Among the many interesting facts the Gallery includes is information about the 1887 Reciprocity Treaty between Hawai'i and the United States government. "We were pretty excited to get this in the exhibit because obviously there are feelings on both sides of the issue, and we were very

sensitive in telling it in a very aeeurate and fair manner. (Here on the plaque,) this is what the King says to the Legislature, and then you ean see the amendment that Congress inserted into it. Then we eome out to say the Treaty would be an enduring source of contention and would cause Hawaiians to view American intentions with suspicion." The 1893 overthrow is also mentioned. "This is something we went back and forth with our reviewers about. This was probably one of our most difficult sentences, believe it or not - how we got that across."

In designing the new exhibits they had to keep in mind that the visitors only spend about 30 seconds at eaeh exhibit. So it was important to get the information quickly out to them, with the maximum content in the minimum number of words. "It's frustrating because there is so mueh more to tell," said Moore. Before the military development kānaka maoli cultivated taro, breadfruit and sweet potato on the fertile land and had many large fishponds in Pu'uloa. These thriving fishponds and the people of 'Ewa were believed to be protected by the shark goddess Ka'ahupāhau. Hawaiian

elders speak of a huge 20-foot shark swimming upside down beside the boat of a mother and son as they fished in Pu'uloa. The mother began chanting, and when the shark left she said Ka'ahupāhau warned her horrible dying would happen in the waters of Pu'uloa. This was three days before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. "It was very important to everyone that we show different perspectives, and everyone understood the great need to do that," said Moore. "We tried to do our best to get all the diacriticals in the exhibits. The Uni-

versity of Hawai'i Hawaiian Studies at Mānoa, they were wonderful and really did everything they could to help us get it right. We had a lot of kūpuna and kumu add their corrections. Bishop Museum was helpful. So, we had a lot of folks that did what they could do to help us get it correct." Admission and tickets for the boat ride to the USS Arizona Memorial are free, but on a first eome, first-served basis. For more information, visit PearlHarbor HistoricSites.org. ■

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The Pearl Harbor Historic Sites include the World War II Valor in the Pacific Nahonal Monument Visitor Center, the USS Arizona, the USS Oklahoma, the Battleship Missouri Memorial, the Pacific Aviation Museum and the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum & Park. - Photos: Francine Murray

- Lūurie Moore, Director of L Development and Community Relūtions of the Pocific Historic Porks

Right next to the O'ahu Gallery, this Crossroads of the Pacific sign at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center is an enhanced replica of the 1 940s Crossroads of the Pacific sign that was at Kau Kau Korner restaurant in Honolulu.