For any of you who do not know what Kalaupapa is....it is the Leporsy colony on the island of Moloka'i. For about a century anyone who had leporsy here in Hawai'i they were taken from their families, jobs & life and shipped to Moloka'i. I read a book about a lot of what happened and was just blow away (The Colony by John Tayman) by how these people were treated and just cast away with little regard.
Summary of The Colony: From 1866 through 1969, the Hawaiian and American governments banished nearly 9,000 leprosy sufferers into exile on a peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Former Outside editor Tayman crafts a tale of fear, endurance and hope in telling the story of these unfortunate victims of ignorance (leprosy is caused by a simple bacteria and isn't nearly as contagious as was long believed). After a smallpox epidemic wiped out a fifth of the Hawaiian (FYI: this is the Hawaiians.....not white people who live in Hawai'i) population in the 1850s, leprosy was seen as the next cataclysmic threat, and drastic measures were taken. For more than 100 years, anyone diagnosed with the disease was taken to the remote colony. Initially, conditions were horrible, with few services or proper medical treatment. Pushed to their limit and fueled with potent moonshine, the internees frequently rioted, causing overseers to enforce cruel laws. Later, as science and social thinking evolved, conditions improved and many in the settlement lived lives of near normalcy. Drawing on contemporary sources and eyewitness accounts of the still surviving members of the colony, Tayman has created a fitting monument to the strength and character of the castoffs in particular, and human beings as a whole. B&w photos.
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Anyways...I was again reading in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and found this article I wanted to share with you.
AT long last, the state has apologized for the horrendous, century-long exile of thousands of leprosy patients to a secluded peninsula on Molokai. A resolution approved by this year's Legislature was read to former patients last week, and Congress should follow with enactment of a bill authorizing a monument to be placed at Kalaupapa.
State Sen. J. Kalani English read aloud the resolution, which acknowledged the banishment of patients of leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, from 1866 to 1969, when the forced exile came to an end. Many of the patients remained on the peninsula, which had become their home.
As the resolution noted, mothers and fathers were forced to surrender their children diagnosed with leprosy to Kalaupapa, while children born to parents at Kalaupapa were taken away at birth and sent to other relatives or to orphanages. Many parental relationships were broken forever.
Eight thousand patients were exiled to the peninsula, and federal legislation would allow a monument bearing their names to be placed at Kalaupapa, which Congress established as a national historical park in 1980. In late 2006, the House approved authorization of the monument proposed by then-Rep. Ed Case, and it approved it again this February under the sponsorship of his successor, Rep. Mazie Hirono. A similar bill introduced by Sen. Daniel Akaka was endorsed by a Senate committee in May and advanced to the full Senate, which should give its approval by the end of this year.
Ka 'Ohana O Kalaupapa, a nonprofit organization of patient-residents, has been collecting the 8,000 patients' names from state archives for placement on the memorial. Federal and/or state funds are likely to be needed to pay for the memorial once the cost has been determined.