When Halena Kapuni-Reynolds grew up in Keaukaha, he would listen to the stories of his grandmother and her friends, eyes illuminated at the dinner table, catching glimpses of the past and the way things used to be on Hawaii Island.
“I was always intrigued by these family stories, asked her about them, and became her punahele (favorite), because I would talk to the aunties and uncles,” Kapuni-Reynolds said of his grandmother, who passed away last year. “That shaped my interest and desire to learn more about my ancestral culture, through school and my own family history, and all of this really came from Keaukaha.”
The inspiration fueled a passion for school, curation and culture, and now, Kapuni-Reynolds has been appointed the first Native Hawaiian associate curator of Native Hawaiian history and culture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
The honor will allow Kapuni-Reynolds to travel to D.C. and help craft the narrative about how Hawaiian history will be seen by both those from Hawaii and the mainland.
“I’m excited they saw value in what I could bring to the table, and I look forward to what I can do for Hawaii and Native Hawaiians in this position,” he said. “I never really imagined this for myself as somebody who does a lot of work in the community and has wanted to stay in Hawaii, but it came up at just the right time.”
Kapuni-Reynolds attended Ke Kula Kaiapuni O Keaukaha’s Hawaiian language immersion program (now Ka ‘Umeke Ka‘eo) and Ke Ana La‘ahana in Hilo.
“I like to say I’m the first person from Keaukaha to receive a K-12 education in the community and pursue a Ph.D,” he said. “Both of those programs really shaped students to grow up in a Hawaiian environment where Hawaiian language, values, songs and people were constantly around us. Many students in public school get one unit of Hawaiian studies in fourth-grade, so imagine that multiplied by 12 years.”
He went on to attend the University of Hawaii at Hilo and earned his bachelor’s degree in anthropology and Hawaiian Studies, receiving the Outstanding Graduating Student Award.
“Some of my earliest museum experiences were working through internships I participated in through UH-Hilo,” Kapuni-Reynolds said, including with Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and other cultural resource management positions.
“The one that really stands out to me is the Wahi Kupuna Internship Program, operated by a nonprofit called Huliauapa‘a,” he said. “It’s designed to introduce Native Hawaiian and local students to cultural resource management work (archaeology) in Hawaii with a Hawaiian perspective, and with sensitivity to Hawaiian concerns.”
The work led to a relationship with the Lyman Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate, which Kapuni-Reynolds has continued throughout his career.
“Around 2013, I invited the Lyman Museum to Keaukaha for a community digital archiving initiative,” he said. “They brought all those photos from the Pierce Collection, the ones the Tribune-Herald is publishing (on Mondays), and we realized how important it was getting a collection out into communities as opposed to waiting for people to come to the institution.”
The experience added to a 200-page thesis on culturally sensitive curation and how the past can connect to the future.
“The thesis was really a way for me to start a conversation that I hope to broker over a lifetime,” Kapuni-Reynolds said. “Museums are spaces that are constantly changing. There are more Native Hawaiians in the field than ever, so we’re reaching this nexus point where we can talk about the specific issues we deal with on a daily basis.”
Some of these issues, like Hawaiian sovereignty and representation, remain the focus of his work with the Smithsonian and will be explored in the 2024 Folklife Festival and a show on Hawaiian sovereignty Kapuni-Reynolds hopes to produce.
“It’s going to be about forming substantial relationships with people, but also providing guidance on how we can move forward collectively to promote the kinds of social justice issues that are prevalent nowadays,” he said of the work. “And to have conversations across Native Hawaiian communities on our islands, and across the U.S., on how we can better represent ourselves within museums.”
Representation is a key issue that Kapuni-Reynolds has grappled with over the years.
“A lot of elders expressed the view that places like the Lyman Museum were not for us, they were for tourists, but I really wanted to push back on that,” he said. “These repositories hold our stories and have the potential to hold so many stories that haven’t been archived or documented. We’re trying to break those barriers down and create opportunities and partnerships.”
When asked where people can go to see some examples of authentic history presented with cultural sensitivity, Kapuni-Reynolds opted for his old stomping ground.
“I would encourage folks to go to the Lyman,” he said. “They have a mini-section on Hawaiian sovereignty, with that classic image from 1993 of the protest march to Iolani Palace, and they navigate some tricky history around plantations and missionaries.”
Kapuni-Reynolds also is working on a dissertation at UH-Manoa focusing on Keaukaha, bringing his passions back home.
“Keaukaha was the first Hawaiian homestead community on the island, and people were genuinely excited to see what these folks were able to do and how they essentially were able to build a community from nothing,” Kapuni-Reynolds said, adding most of the research is coming from local stories and Hawaiian language newspapers.
“We have a lot of prominent Hawaiians in politics, hula and music who no longer live in the community, but say they’re from Keaukaha or their ancestors are from this place,” he said. “I’m taking that dynamic seriously, and using this dissertation as an opportunity to not just name those things, but hopefully provide a model on how we can think about and write about Hawaiian history in ways that make sense to the communities we’re writing about.”
Email Grant Phillips at gphillips@hawaiitribune-herald.com.