UH Hilo dean Randy Hirokawa writing book on Hawai‘i’s plantation families

Hirokawa is currently seeking input from residents willing to share their first-hand knowledge.

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports on Aug. 15, 2015, that Randy Hirokawa, dean of the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo College of Arts and Sciences, is writing a new book to help preserve plantation knowledge. The book will be filled with stories about Hawaiʻi’s plantation families and Hirokawa is currently seeking input from residents willing to share their first-hand knowledge.

“The idea for this book came up in a conversation I had with (Executive Vice President) Derek Kurisu from KTA (Super Stores),” [Hirokawa] said. “We were talking about how people who lived in plantation camps were so creative and innovative because they didn’t have much and had to take full advantage of what limited resources they had. Derek made the comment that it is unfortunate that so much knowledge is being lost, because they are not being passed on from the generation of our parents and grandparents to us, and other children and grandchildren. He said that I should do a book that chronicles important things that people learned during their plantation days.”

Hirokawa took the idea and ran with it. His goal, he says, is to identify and preserve “important life lessons that can be passed on from generation to generation so that they are never lost.”

“I envision the book to be a collection of stories – some humorous, some poignant – that identifies important things that our forefathers (and mothers) learned to do well that can benefit us still today,” he said.

Kurisu has the kind of plantation knowledge Hirokawa wants to document.

“Derek grew up in a plantation camp in Hakalau,” he said. “On his popular TV show, ʻLiving in Paradise,’ he often does cooking segments where he talks about ʻplantation days foods’ and shows how they were prepared. Unfortunately, many of these recipes and ʻcooking secrets’ were not written down anywhere, so unless you were fortunate enough to have learned it first hand from your parents or grandparents, they are sadly lost when they passed on.”

To learn more about Randy Hirokawa’s scholarly work, see Keaohou, Oct. 10, 2013: Randy Hirokawa, communication: Contributed to influential theory of small group communication.