February Events: Hawai'i History Day

Hawai‘i History Day (Table Event)

Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities

Honouliuli's first official event of 2025 was participating in the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities Hawaiʻi History Day Event! This event took place at Mililani High School where the park service set up a table to educate local students about Honouliuli National Historic Site.

Students were given two options for activities and many did both. One was a kanji writing activity where students could learn how to write a kanji that exemplified a kachikan value that Japanese immigrants brought to Hawaiʻi that helped them mentally persevere while incarcerated. Not only did they learn to write that kanji, they had to write at the bottom of the paper how they would apply that value to their own lives moving forward.

The other activity was paired with the Japanese New Year tradition of daruma goal-making. When a wish or goal is made, one eye of the daruma is colored in. When that wish or goal is achieved, the other eye is then filled in. Instead of making a goal for themselves, students had to make a goal or wish either to an internee or as an internee. This empathy-building exercise helped them learn about Japanese culture while still thinking critically about the internment experience.

For this Hawaiʻi History Day activity, over 30 students came to the Honouliuli table to either participate in the activities or to learn about Honouliuli National Historic Site.