Kawaiaha‘o Church begins digitizing archives

When Kahu Kenneth Makuakane discovered documents at the State Archives detailing his great- grandparents’ journey to immigrate to Hawaii from China many years ago, he said finding that connection helped bring them back to life.

Now he’s hoping a new project to digitize all of Kawaiaha‘o Church’s hundreds of thousands of archived records will help others find similar connections in their family histories.

“It’s like a chicken-skin moment,” said Makuakane, the church’s senior pastor. “To put life into things that I’ve only heard about, it gives me a sense of place and being.”

Makuakane said digitizing and cataloging all of the church’s records, including audio tapes, music and photographs, as well as baptism, marriage, death and funeral documents, is a huge undertaking and has been a long time coming. But thanks to a $98,288 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, two staff members have been hired to oversee the project, along with two part-time workers to scan the documents.

Many of the church’s paper documents, he said, are old and compromised, so preserving and restoring them is important. The goal is to upload all of the records to a public database on the church’s website, along with better organizing and storing of the physical archives.

Many community members have requested to see certain records, Makuakane said, and it’s been challenging to find the documents, some of which are so old and fragile church officials don’t want to risk further damaging them.

There isn’t a timeline yet for when the records will be available online, in part because additional funding is needed to complete the digitizing process. Officials hope to work with more volunteers to help scan documents so the process can move more quickly.

Founded in 1820, Kawaiaha‘o Church was the first Christian church built on Oahu and served as a community gathering place. Many Hawaiian alii worshipped at Kawaiaha‘o, located on the corner of King and Punchbowl streets, and were baptized, married and lain in state there too.

A phrase in a speech delivered on the church’s front steps by King Kamehameha III in 1843 later became the state’s motto, “Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka ‘Aina I Ka Pono,” commonly translated as “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”

Along with the Constitutional Convention of 1864, important political meetings and constitutional oaths of office by many of Hawaii’s rulers took place at Kawaiaha‘o Church. In 1962, the church and the neighboring Hawaiian Mission Houses were designated as a national historic landmark.

Because of those centuries of history, Makuakane said it’s more important than ever to preserve and perpetuate its stories and more.

“This church exemplifies more than what people realize,” he said. “We don’t look at (the archives) as just stuff, but we look at it as people’s lives. That’s what makes this so spectacular.”

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Jayna Omaye covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national serv­ice organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under­covered issues and communities.