The Lihue Hongwanji Mission, near Lihue, Hawaii on Kauai, is a historic mission whose construction was started in 1901. It was a branch of the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.[1] It is significant as the oldest surviving Japanese Buddhist mission on Kauai; it "reinforced Japanese ties to the mother country by preserving the language, education and cultural foundations, of immigrant Japanese laborers." The Lihue Plantation Company supported its development as a way of indirectly maintaining social control. It included Sunday school classes but the Japanese language school gradually became the most important part of the mission.[2]
