Noelle Kahanu

Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu is a Native Hawaiian academic, curator, writer, and lawyer. A former director of community affairs at the Bishop Museum, she directed the 2010 documentary film Under a Jarvis Moon, about the young Hawaiian men sent to work on Howland, Jarvis, and Baker Islands.

Biography

Noelle Kahanu was born in Honolulu.^[1] She is of Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, and Scottish background.^[2][3]

In 1998, she graduated with a bachelor's in political science from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.^[2][4] She then pursued a Juris Doctor degree from the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, graduating in 1992.^[2][3][5] She subsequently served as counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs from 1992 to 1997.^[2] Returning to Hawaii from Washington, Kahanu then worked for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Native Hawaiian Education Council.^[2]

From 1998 to 2014, she worked for the Bishop Museum, a history and science museum in Honolulu, eventually becoming its director of community affairs.^[2][3] While at the museum, she produced 25 exhibitions on Native Hawaiian art, history, and culture, and helped shape the museum's extensive renovations.^[2][6] She has also worked on efforts to repatriate artifacts taken from Indigenous groups, alongside her partner, Eddie Ayau.^[3][4][7][8]

With Heather Giugni, Kahanu co-directed and co-produced the 2010 documentary film Under a Jarvis Moon, which told the stories of the young Hawaiian men sent by the U.S. government to secretly colonize Howland, Jarvis, and Baker Islands in the Pacific before World War II.^{[2][9][10][11]} The film had its origins in a 2002 exhibition at the Bishop Museum, "Hui Panalāʻau: Hawaiian Colonists, American Citizens."^[9][12][13] Kahanu's own grandfather, George Kahanu Sr., had been one of the men sent to Jarvis Island.^[11][12]

Since 2014, Kahanu has worked as a specialist at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's American Studies department.^[2][3][14] In 2023, she was selected as one of three curators of the 2025 Hawaiʻi Triennial.^[15][16]

In 2020, she was a co-author of the book Refocusing Ethnographic Museums Through Oceanic Lenses.^[1] She has also published works of poetry, including pieces written in Hawaiian Pidgin, as well as the children's book Raven and the Sun: Echoing Our Ancestors.^{[17][18][19][20]} She has produced works of traditional art using modern materials, and in 2008, Senator Daniel Inouye, with whom Kahanu worked on the Committee on Indian Affairs, selected her to decorate Hawaii's ornament on the White House Christmas tree.^{[2][21][22][23]}

References

1. Choy-Ellis, Mohina (2021-09-05). "Meet Our Authors: Philipp Schorch & Noelle Kahanu". Native Books. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
2. "Noelle M. K. Y. Kahanu". University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa | American Studies. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
3. "Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu". IndiGen. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
4. Burlingame, Burl (2000-12-30). "Group picked to bury remains instead gives 205 sets to state". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
5. "Pacific Spaces International Lecture Series: Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu". Vā Moana / Pacific Spaces. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
6. Yoo, David K.; Azuma, Eiichiro (2016-01-04). The Oxford Handbook of Asian American History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-986047-0.
7. Burlingame, Burl (2000-05-13). "Bishop Museum staffers involved in artifacts dispute attend national convention". Honolulu Star-Bulletin.
8. Gnecchi-Ruscone, Elisabetta; Paini, Anna (2017-04-07). Tides of Innovation in Oceania: Value, materiality and place. ANU Press. ISBN 978-1-76046-093-8.
9. "Hawaiian colonists chronicled". Honolulu Star-Advertiser. 2011-01-18. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
10. "Under a Jarvis Moon". PBS Hawaii. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
11. "Noelle Kahunu discovers her history". Hawaii News Now. 2010-02-12. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
12. Gordon, Mike (2010-01-24). "Desert-island adventure". The Honolulu Advertiser. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
13. Tengan, Ty P. Kāwika. (2007). "Re-membering Panalā'au: Masculinities, Nation, and Empire in Hawai'i and the Pacific". The Contemporary Pacific. 20 (1): 27–53. doi:10.1353/cp.2008.0016. hdl:10125/14054. ISSN 1527-9464.
14. Mark, Steven (2023-02-19). "Exhibit brings Native Hawaiian artists to University of Hawaii campuses". Yahoo. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
15. "Wassan Al-Khudhairi, Binna Choi, and Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu to curate Hawai'i Triennial 2025". Biennial Foundation. 2023-01-25. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
16. "Art Industry News: A Searing Documentary About Nan Goldin's Sackler Takedown Gets an Oscar Nomination + Other Stories". Artnet News. 2023-01-25. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
17. Nordstrom, Georganne (2015). "Pidgin as Rhetorical Sovereignty: Articulating Indigenous and Minority Rhetorical Practices with the Language Politics of Place". College English. 77 (4): 317–337. ISSN 0010-0994. JSTOR 24240051.
18. Srikanth, Rajini; Song, Min Hyoung (2015-12-01). The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-316-36845-9.
19. McDougall, Brandy Nalani (2016-06-03). Finding Meaning: Kaona and Contemporary Hawaiian Literature. University of Arizona Press. ISBN 978-0-8165-3385-5.
20. Stephens, John (2017-09-11). The Routledge Companion to International Children's Literature. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-67606-5.
21. Oshiro, Joleen (2006-03-12). "Maoli arts". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. Retrieved 2023-02-21.
22. Mark, Steven (2014-10-19). "Bound by tradition". Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
23. "Ornaments Representing Hawaii". White House. 2008. Retrieved 2023-02-21.