Who was Alma Kaiama?

In history, especially at Lahainaluna, there are names who rise to the top. Davida Malo is recognized as the most famous alumni, a pioneering scholar, and a royal advisor; Samuel Kamakau is a historian and an educator who preserved Hawaiian culture; and Timothy Ha’alilio is a politician that traveled to secure Hawaiian independence. 

These people are leaders in movements, models of virtue, and unforgettable characters documented as the one who changed the trajectory of social norms. While not everyone may know the story behind each individual, these celebrated figures are predominantly men. Women have also stepped up at Lahainaluna. Yet, their efforts are largely unrecognized. Their names are buried alongside dozens of others, and despite the impact they’ve made, most people would never know about them.

Amongst these figures stands Alma Kaiama, a Hawaiian educator and activist who spent her life fighting for change. 

Born in 1930, Alma Mililani Kaiama grew up in Hana, Maui, dedicating her life to empowering students, preserving Hawaiian identity, and strengthening our pride in Hawai’i’s heritage. Though unknown, she became a big contributor towards the Modern Hawaiian Renaissance and was a lasting voice for preserving Hawaiian culture. Her professional journey started at Lahainaluna.

Kaiama’s Early Education

Kaiama attended Colorado State College of Education and earned her Masters degree in Speech Therapy 1951. This was big news in Maui of the 50s where only 50,000 people lived–just under 6,000 people live in West Maui (Data Book). The Honolulu Advertiser & Star-Bulletin celebrated Kaiama’s dedication to pursuing a higher education, giving her a short write up and praising her as an outstanding educator and scholar (6). 

After her return from the mainland, at the age of 23, she began in 1952 as an English teacher at Lahainaluna. Her time there was brief, lasting only one year, yet she made great contributions. She started a speech and debate club and, most notably, she is recorded as having revived Ka Leo Luna, Lahainaluna's third newspaper, after its four year hiatus from 1947-1951. Her efforts to restore the student voice laid the groundwork to Ka Leo Luna becoming the longest running newspaper at the school (1947-2016). 

Though her time at Lahainaluna was short, Kaiama arguably revived journalism at Lahainaluna, encouraging advisors and students to continue publishing long after her departure. Her time at the school came to an abrupt end when she won a rotary scholarship for a year of graduate study in England, an achievement reported by the Honolulu Advertiser in November 1952. 

Newspaper records from both the Honolulu Advertiser and Honolulu Star-Bulletin describe her as an exceptional Maui educator chosen for prestigious international study opportunities, displaying how highly respected she was at a young age. 

Following these accolades she left the island in September, 1953, to study English literature at the University of Durham and returned to Maui a year later.

After she returned to Maui in 1954 with more educational experience and exposure to international academics, she began an academic journey that would take her far beyond the high school classroom. Through her academic journey, she became an instructor at Hawaii Community College starting in 1971. There, she revised the Hawaiiana curriculum completely, building the self-esteem of the Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian students alike, giving them a stronger sense of cultural identity (Peterson and Baker 31). 

Among her accomplishments at the college was an innovative one-credit course covering Hawaiian chants, music, dance, legends, arts and crafts, food preparation, history, sports and games. The course's popularity among Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike showed its value. 

Scholars, Barbara Peterson and John Baker, examined the period in an issue of Educational Perspectives,  “Hawaii’s Community Colleges and the Disadvantaged Student,” describing the impact of the course at the time. They noted that it “further enhance[d] the positive sense of the cultural worth of Hawaiiana. Studying topics they are familiar with and enjoy is academically reinforcing to the Hawaiian students.” (30).

Kaiamaʻs Hawaiiana course was taught by respected Hawaiian cultural practitioners and soon became an early model for culturally responsive education in Hawai’i. 

Family Life & Preserving Culture

“She has always been very outstanding,” said Frances Duyckinck Cooper Wood in an archived interview. Cooper Wood knew her through her nephew, Alexander Charles “Alika” Cooper, who married Kaiama around the late 1950s or early 1960s as their sons appeared to be teenagers or adults by an oral history interview done in the 1980s.

In the years to follow, Kaiama and Alika engaged in various activist projects, including protests against Hawaiʻi National Park service, which had control over Hawaiian territory. According to Ashtani Shih, the reasoning behind this control originated in 1916, when scientists described volcanic regions as “a ‘perfect natural laboratory’ for volcanology.” This justification was used to transfer ownership of land to the federal government for research. 

Eventually, federal interest in Hawaiian lands led President Woodrow Wilson to establish the original Hawai’i national park, including the Kīlauea-Mauna Loa section on Hawaii Island and the Haleakalā section on Maui.

The National Park Service had expanded significantly in the 1950-1960s, and author Ashanti Ke Ming Shih claims that the Park Service was working under the idea that Hawaiian lands were terra nullius, a legal term meaning empty land. Yet, at the time, there was plenty of evidence of Native Hawaiians still living or occupying the area. 

Kaiama and Alika advocated against federal control, saying “We are tired of policies that govern our ancestral sites and the management of such areas for they are made and are directed from Washington, D.C. and by a people who are ‘foreign’ to our way of life” (Shih 20). 

Ultimately, Kaiama and her husband led public critiques and protests against federal control over ancestral lands, and demanded that sacred sites such as heiau (places of worship) and authority in land management be returned back to Hawaiian communities. 

These protests were just the beginning. Kaiama, who felt the government unjustly overthrew Hawaii and stripped it of self governance, took the fight to the U.S. senate floor in Honolulu in February 1976. There, she testified for reparations for Native Hawaiians, and used the title State President of the Congress of the Hawaiian People. 

Kaiama also testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, chaired by Senator J. Bennett Johnson, and Senator Daniel K. Inouye. She was one of several people who gave hearings on the big losses of land, sovereignty, and political power of native Hawaiians being acknowledged federally and in the public. 

Because of her testimony, Kaiama’s work contributed to the second or Modern Hawaiian Renaissance, encouraging a cultural awakening that urged people to look at Hawaiian rights and land claims. Eventually, the combined efforts of Kaiama and others led to the creation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) in 1978, which was created to improve the conditions of native Hawaiians, manage trust resources for Hawaiians, and give them a stronger political voice within the government.

One year before the OHAʻs creation, in 1977, Kaiama wrote “Kaho’olawe: A Nation on Trial.” While this source isn’t publicly accessible, it showcases her thinking and her involvement in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. It also points to the possibility that she was also somehow connected at the time to the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana (PKO) movement. 

A year later, Kaiama earned her Doctor of Education in Educational Foundations from the University of Hawai’i, and became an instructor at Hawaii Community College.

In 1983 Kaiama rose into leadership at Maui Community College, today known as University of Hawaii Maui College (UHMC). Eventually, she became the provost and continued her advocacy  for Hawaii-centric education and representation in academia.

Conclusion

Alma Kaiama passed away on July 2, 2017, in Kailua-Kona at age 87. In the later years of her life, Kaiama was recorded in her later years as Alma Mililani Kaiama “Henderson” instead of “Cooper,” suggesting that she remarried later in life. 

Kaimaʻs legacy continues through Hawaiian studies, cultural preservation, student empowerment, and the continuation of Lahainaluna journalism today. Through education, journalism, and political activism, Alma Kaiama helped strengthen Native Hawaiian identity during the Hawaiian Renaissance and advocated for Hawaiian self-determination at a time of growing cultural and political change.

She will be remembered as an educator, activist, an advocate for Native Hawaiian rights, and a contributor to the Hawaiian Renaissance. At Lahainaluna, we should also remember her as an important female who contributed to our legacy.