In the ongoing flurry of activity marking the waning days of his presidency, Pres. Joe Biden last week became the first U.S. president to honor the young Native Americans known collectively as Hui Panalaau, who sent in the 1930s and ‘40s to secure U.S. claims to a group of remote Pacific islands.
Biden also formally renamed the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument as the Pacific Islands Heritage Marine National Monument to better honor the area’s “heritage, ancestral pathways and stopping points for Pacific Island voyagers.”
“I am very grateful to Pres. Biden for finally formally recognizing the very difficult assignment carried out by the Hui Panalaau in this all-but-forgotten key chapter of our nation’s Pacific history,” U.S. Rep. Ed Case said in a statement released on Monday. “That this mission was successful then and now is a great credit to their commitment and sacrifice.”
From 1935 to 1942, the U.S. government recruited and dispatched 135 students and recent graduates of the Kamehameha School for Boys to live on the uninhabited Pacific equatorial islands of Howland, Baker, Jarvis, Enderbury, and Canton as part of an effort claim the islands for the United States.
The young men, who were not told of the military interests that underpinned the mission, recorded weather conditions, cultivated plants, maintained a daily log, recorded the types of fish that they caught, observed bird life and collected specimens for the Bishop Museum.
The Hui Panalaau endured sickness and hardship on their mission, including an offensive by Japanese forces the day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Three of the contingent died while serving on the islands.
“The previously unsung contributions and sacrifices of these young men and their loved ones must be recognized as a part of the history of our nation and of their beloved home, Hawaii,” the administration said in a statement released on Jan. 2.
Hui Panalaau members were identified by the National Archives and Records Administration during a review of records relating to the Equatorial Pacific colonization program and corroborated with individual employment records. The records were drawn from Office of the Territories: Central Classified Files Relating to the Equatorial Islands.
Three of the islands on which the Hui Panalaau served — Baker, Howland and Jarvis — are part of the newly renamed Pacific Islands Marine National Monument along with Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, Wake Atoll and their surrounding U.S. waters.
The federal protected area was first established by Pres. George W. Bush in 2009 and expanded by Pres. Barack Obama in 2014. It encompasses approximately 490,000 square miles of island, coral reef, nearshore and open ocean habitat including seven national wildlife refuges. It is considered one of the largest and most intact air-land-marine integrated ecosystems in the world.
The renaming was the result of an 18-month collaboration between the federal government and Pacific Island communities.
“These precious islands are not just intact integrated ecosystems that must be preserved as key to our world’s environment,” said Case, who serves on the House Committee on Natural Resources and its Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs. “They are also part of the very fabric of our Pacific ohana.”
Michael Tsai covers local and state politics for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at michael.tsai@charter.com.
