Letters to the Editor

 about the pronunciation of the word Molokai. I just thought I'd share an article I saved from [Star-Advertiser in] 2019 regarding the subject. In fact, I keep a cut out article in my Mary Pukui Hawaiian Dictionary. This is just fyi. 

By the way, one of my granddaughter-inlaws is a Molokai girl, and when I asked her for the correct pronunciation of her island 

 it was Molokai without an ʻokina, etc. Mahalo for an interesting article.  

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Aloha, "}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"}],"text":"Susan Kroft, Hawaiʻi"}]

2019 newspaper clipping

<title>Letter to the Editor: 2019 newspaper clipping confirms pronunciation of Molokai</title>

An ASD reader writes in to say mahalo and share the newspaper clipping she keeps in her own Mary Pukui Hawaiian Dictionary.

Letter to the Editor: 2019 newspaper clipping confirms pronunciation of Molokai

It was interesting to read the article about the pronunciation of the word Molokai. I just thought I&#039;d share an article I saved from [Star-Advertiser in] 2019 regarding the subject. In fact, I keep a cut out article in my Mary Pukui Hawaiian Dictionary. This is just fyi.  By the way, one of my granddaughter-inlaws is a Molokai girl, and when I asked her for the correct pronunciation of her island — it was Molokai without an ʻokina, etc. Mahalo for an interesting article.   Aloha,  Susan Kroft, Hawaiʻi Editor&#039;s note: Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a columnist for Aloha State Daily

IMG 1445

Rick Hamada

Hawai‘i History

Columnists

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy, the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." - President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressing a joint session of Congress on December 8, 1941.

Those who lived in close proximity to that infamous date have vivid recollections of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. More contemporary generations leading to the present day do not. That's unfortunate. It is each proceeding generation's responsibility to perpetuate history and culture to the previous generations. Although there were attempts via the classrooms, film and TV, even here at home we have neglected to preserve a detailed and fact-based legacy of December 7 appropriate for perpetuity.

[{"type":"text","text":"There are exceptions."}]

I will cite The Pearl Harbor National Memorial, The USS Arizona Memorial, The Battleship USS Missouri, The Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum and numerous other sites that preserve and present our remarkable role in history in arguably the most globally impactful event in history.

[{"type":"text","text":"The question is, when is the last time you paid a visit?"}]

When is the last time you shared these experiences with your family, especially with your children?

When is the last time you reflected upon and shared this vital history with others? With yourself?

This is not a criticism, but it is a reminder of the wealth of history ensconced in our collective communities, and we should all become educated on this history because this is our home.

Along these lines there was one glaring component of World War II that virtually everybody was aware of — concentration camps.

A simple mentioning of centers of such barbarism, brutality and violation makes one cringe. The documented prejudicial rounding up of men, women and children because of their faith was as despicable as could be. Further documentation proved that these innocents were housed in Nazi concentration camps and subjected to such atrocities that their virtually inevitable deaths seemed welcome. This was the manifestation of true evil.

The invocation of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, and other concentration camps elicit understandable outrage and shame. However, WWII was rife with actions of great exploitation and violations. Seizure of land, properties, belongings, assets, irreplaceable heirlooms and basic rights and freedoms unfortunately had a permeating presence.

[{"type":"text","text":"Did you know that we were infected with grievous violations here at home?"}]

Honouliuli National Historic Site is near Waipahu on the island of O‘ahu and is the location of the Honouliuli Internment Camp, Hawaiʻi's largest and longest-operating Japanese internment camp, which opened in 1943 and closed in 1946. 

The internment camp held 320 internees. In Hawai‘i, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans comprised more than one-third of the territory's population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were incarcerated. The site also became the largest prisoner of war camp in Hawaiʻi with nearly 4,000 individuals being held. Of the 17 sites that were associated with the history of internment in Hawaiʻi during World War II, the camp was the only one built specifically for prolonged detention.

Hundreds of Germans and Italians and other nationalities were also arrested and detained for months at a detention facility on Sand Island. Among them, Austrian-born architect 

, who would go on to design the USS Arizona Memorial itself.

The attack on Pearl Harbor was an attack on the United States. However, Hawai‘i was a territory, so authoritative control of the Islands was bestowed upon the U.S. military immediately via martial law. This facilitated unilateral authority with demands of unquestioned compliance. Severe consequences were meted out if deigned necessary.

I want to make clear that the inhumanity demonstrated by Nazi Germany and other Axis nations are mostly proprietary to them although the actions of others are indefensible as well. The same level of abject violence, death and more associated with Axis concentration camps were not elements that dominated Honouliuli.

But it was still an egregious set of actions taken against Japanese American citizens and residents of Hawai‘i.

Those actions were founded in the combination of racial prejudice and basic fear.

[{"type":"text","text":"The logic employed was simple."}]

The Japanese attacked us. You are or look Japanese. You are now the enemy, and you'll be treated as such.

That treatment of Japanese American citizens included the rounding up and arresting those who may have had some status in the community. The presence of Japanese plantation workers along with immigration and, yes, naturalization, of Japanese over generations drove the Japanese American population into the 30% to 40% range. Imprisoning that vast number was logistically and financially impossible. Selective apprehensions took place and rarely entire families.

Let's not forget that individuals were separated from families, were corralled into makeshift prisons, were denied basic rights including due process, arbitrarily suffered public humiliation in a culture that holds honor as the definition of character, loss of income, revenue and assets with no knowledge or assurances of even surviving.

[{"type":"text","text":"These people, these families, were wronged."}]

In affirmation of this important statement, there were two post-war governmental efforts to clarify said wrongs, to offer redress and provide compensation.

On August 2, 1979, Hawai‘i Senators Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga introduced Senate bill 1647 to establish the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC). In 1980, Congress passed and President Jimmy Carter signed that bill into law. The CWRIC gathered archival sources, scholarship, and personal papers that explained the government’s decision and process for incarceration.  On February 24, 1983, the CWRIC issued its report 

 “was not justified by military necessity, and the decisions which followed — detention, ending detention and ending exclusion—were not driven by analysis of military conditions. The broad historical causes which shaped these decisions were race prejudice, war hysteria, and failure of political leadership.” 

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was signed into law on August 10, 1988, and implemented the recommendations of the CWRIC. Throughout his time in office, Senator Matsunaga supported civil rights for Asian Americans and was the primary advocate for the Civil Liberties Act. According to Leslie T. Hatamiya in 

Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and the Passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988,

 “Matsunaga’s efforts cannot be overemphasized.”

And signing The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 into law was President Ronald Reagan.

These legislative efforts do not exonerate the United States government of actions during World War II. But it is legal and public admission of wrongs committed and a small restoration of losses suffered by those who were innocent.

[{"type":"text","text":"This is the 80th anniversary of the closure of Honouliuli."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"I would recommend the following:"}]

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"italic"}],"text":" "}]

Honouliuli

<title>Hamada: Commemorating Honouliuli</title>

Events coming up this weekend recognize the 80th anniversary of the closing of the Honouliuli Internment Camp, where up to 1,800 Japanese and Japanese Americans were detained during World War II. ASD opinion columnist Rick Hamada gives an overview of the history of the site, and the steps taken in the years after to attempt to right that wrong.

Hamada: Commemorating Honouliuli

Square Mike Brestovansky Headshot RGZ3736 Large

Michael Brestovansky

Government & Politics

Crime & Courts

Questions about whether the 2024 state elections were invalid may go to the state Supreme Court.

Three people — Ralph Cushnie, a member of the Hawai‘i Elections Commission, Tara Malia Gregory, a candidate for the Honolulu City Council, and resident Douglas Pasnik — filed last week a petition requesting the Hawai‘i Supreme Court to compel election officials to properly account for 2024 ballot data before the 2026 election is certified.

 that Hawai‘i County mishandled ballots during the 2024 election. He has alleged that the county’s own records for the number of mail-in ballots submitted to county dropboxes vary wildly from USPS receipts, indicating a discrepancy of more than 19,000 ballots.

In an election where Mayor Kimo Alameda defeated incumbent Mitch Roth by less than 9,000 votes, that discrepancy could have major consequences.

At the same time, Cushnie has also alleged that no county in the state has maintained any verifiable record of their ballots’ “chain of custody,” the procedures for what happens to ballots after they are submitted, who handles them and how they are counted.

According to the petition to the Supreme Court, various investigations by the commission “documented absence, incompleteness, inconsistency, preservation limitations, or unavailability of portions of election records” during ballot reconciliation, the process by which ballots are accounted for.

The petition includes a litany of questionable practices by Hawai‘i and Kaua‘i county officials, including retroactive changes to ballot counts without proper documentation, unverifiable electronic records, and certification of the 2024 election results even with open legal challenges.

The petition therefore questions whether the state can legally certify the results of an election without properly conducting the ballot reconciliation process as outlined in state statutes.

The petition concludes by requesting that the Supreme Court clarify what specific records are required in the state statutes concerning ballot reconciliation, and require that the Hawai‘i Elections Commission and Chief Election Officer Scott Nago complete reconciliation using those records before certifying the results of the 2026 election.

The petition emphasizes repeatedly that it is not seeking to challenge the outcome of the 2024 election, to remove anyone from power, or to prove the existence of fraud. But with the 2026 election imminent, the petition notes that the questionable practices of the 2024 election could be repeated.

“The 2026 election cycle is presently underway, candidate filing has closed, ballots will soon be prepared and distributed, and another statewide certification process will occur,” the petition read. “The statutory certification framework challenged in this proceeding will therefore be applied again within a defined and imminent election cycle.”

Nago had previously told Aloha State Daily that he is willing to investigate the 2024 election, but federal laws require the Office of Elections to maintain and preserve all records of an election for 22 months afterward — a requirement, he said, that allows federal investigators to review the records during that time.

Once that deadline passes in late September, state authorities can review election records at their discretion, although given that the Office of Elections will be gearing up for the 2026 election, Nago said a state review would likely be delayed.

However, Nago also told ASD that the Hawai‘i Supreme Court could also order the records to be unsealed early, although the petition does not include that in its list of requests.

I Stock 178835830 16x9 Large

<title>Hawai‘i Supreme Court may rule on 2024 election question</title>

Petition urges Supreme Court to require investigation into 2024 election to be completed before 2026 election is certified.

Hawai‘i Supreme Court may rule on 2024 election question

Stephanie Salmons Headshot

Stephanie Salmons

Business & Tourism

Aloha Spirit

Mana Up has welcomed a new batch of entrepreneurs from across the Islands to its newest cohort.

[{"type":"text","text":"Eleven companies were chosen from a record 256 applicants this year:"}]

Mana Up is a business accelerator and venture fund that aims to help Hawai‘i companies expand within the state and globally through a six-month accelerator and alumni program that curates workshops, executive mentorship, resources, sales opportunities and more.

These companies will spend six months in Mana Up's hands-on accelerator, where they'll receive mentorship and support across brand development, e-commerce, wholesale strategy, manufacturing, storytelling and global market expansion, Mana Up said in a recent announcement. Founders also will get immediate access to House of Mana Up, the program's retail platform, "putting their products in front of customers locally and globally from day one."

Meanwhile, the accelerator culminates with the annual Mana Up Showcase. The Showcase Broadcast and Global Livestream will air in October and the in-person Showcase Marketplace at Bloomingdales in Ala Moana Center is set for Nov. 5.

"When we launched our first cohort in 2018, we received 80 applications and thought that was incredible," Meli James, who co-founded Mana Up with 

Brittany Heyd, told Aloha State Daily in an emailed response to questions.

 "This year we received 256 applications — the most we've ever seen — and what's even more exciting is the quality of the founders behind them.

"To me, that's a sign that entrepreneurship in Hawaiʻi is no longer a niche path," she continued. "More people are seeing business ownership as a way to build a future here, create jobs, and contribute to the local economy. This isn't a one-year jump — it's been building steadily, year over year, and the ecosystem is starting to grow on itself. Every cohort that comes through makes the next group of founders believe it's possible for them, too."

James says that optimism is reflected in the data as well, with more than 90% of this year's applicants having said they're optimistic about Hawaiʻi's economy, and more than 40% who said that giving back to Hawaiʻi is part of why they're building their businesses.

"That's not a small thing in a state where the cost of doing business — and the cost of living — is as high as ours," she says. "People aren't just starting businesses to make money. They're starting them because they want to be part of building something for their community."

This year's cohort has a few long-established businesses. It's not a new phenomena, James says — Mana Up has had multi-generational and long-running businesses come through before — but there are two fourth-generation companies in Cohort 11, and a few more where the founder is the second or third generation to run the business.

"They've got something that's worked for 60, 70, even 80 years — loyal customers, deep trust, a product people grew up with," she told ASD. "The question becomes: how do you take all of that and modernize it so it's just as relevant for the next 70 years?

"What's interesting is that a lot of people assume an accelerator is really for the early-stage, scrappy startup, and a business that's been around for decades doesn't need that kind of help," James continued. "But what we hear from these founders again and again is that they've built something that works really well locally — loyal customers, strong word of mouth, sometimes decades of trust — but they've never had the bandwidth or the playbook to think about e-commerce, wholesale or selling beyond the Islands. They've been so busy running the business that they haven't had time to build the brand around it."

[{"type":"text","text":"James says that's where Mana Up can \"really move the needle for them.\""}]

"We're not telling them how to make their product — they've got that down," she says. "We're helping them tell their story to a wider audience, get their packaging and online presence up to where their product quality already is, and build the systems — inventory, fulfillment, wholesale relationships — that let them grow without losing what made them special in the first place.

"The foundation is already there — great products, loyal customers, and decades of trust. What they're looking for is a roadmap for growth."

Since its start in 2018, Mana Up has worked with more than 105 Hawai‘i-based businesses, James noted. Its alumni now generate more than $135 million in total in annual revenue and have created more than 1,100 jobs across the Islands.

"At its core, Mana Up exists because we wanted to address something pretty specific: Hawaiʻi has incredible entrepreneurs and incredible products, but historically, there hasn't been a clear path for a local business to grow beyond a farmers market or a single retail shelf without either burning out the founder or having to leave the state to find the resources to scale," James says. "We wanted to build that path here."

According to James, nearly three-quarters of Mana Up alumni manufacture their products in Hawai‘i and more than 60% source their ingredients locally.

So when these businesses grow, that growth stays in Hawaiʻi — it's not just one founder's success, it's local jobs, local suppliers, local manufacturing capacity.

"The honest truth is that doing business here is hard, and a lot of that comes down to something we can't change — we're geographically isolated. But layered on top of that is everything else: shipping costs, the cost of goods, the cost of labor, the cost of just operating day to day," she says. "Part of what Mana Up does is help founders get a handle on those operational realities — the supply chain, the logistics, the unit economics — so they're not constantly fighting just to break even.

"But the other, maybe more important part, is that we band together to open up revenue opportunities these founders couldn't access on their own. That means building relationships with partners like Hawaiian Airlines, hotel properties, and buyers in Japan and on the mainland — places where these products can reach new customers and bring new revenue back into the state."

James says that today, nearly 43% of Mana Up alumni's revenue comes from outside of Hawai‘i.

That's important because it means we're bringing new dollars into Hawaiʻi's economy rather than simply competing for the same local spending."

(ICYMI: James previously spoke with ASD about the role of small businesses in Hawai‘i. Read 

For the latest news of Hawai‘i, sign up 

Mana up cohort 11 0626

<title>Mana Up saw record applicants for Cohort 11</title>

There were 258 applicants for the business accelerator's newest cohort — 11 were selected from across the Islands. Aloha State Daily caught up with Mana Up co-founder Meli James to learn more about Mana Up's work, impact and entrepreneurship in Hawai‘i.

Mana Up saw record applicants for Cohort 11

Katie Helland Headshot

Katie Helland

Arts & Entertainment

Today, U.S. Army Sgt. Isaac Atkins joined his platoon for a watch party for the next episode of Season 21 of “America’s Got Talent,” where Atkins is one of the featured contestants. 

In the episode, Judge Melanie Janine Brown hit 

, sending him straight to the live shows.

Atkins, who is stationed on Oʻahu, is one of several contestants, including Bruno Mars’ nephews — the North Shore-based brothers 

 — competing in the current season of “America’s Got Talent.”

“I’m having a watch party with my soldiers on base,” Atkins told Aloha State Daily 

the day before the show aired on television

. “Obviously, it's just a platoon internal thing, where my soldiers — the soldiers that I'm in charge of — we're gonna ... watch the show and have a good time.”

, when the episode streams on Peacock at 

 New this season is the judges’ callbacks round, where select acts, including Atkins, are asked to perform again, and the final remaining live show spots are on the line.

 but Atkins has not been able to talk much about it prior to airing. While in California, he made sure to visit a food spot, which is not currently in Hawaiʻi.

“I wanted Chipotle," he said. "I got off the plane at LAX, and I took a Lyft to the hotel, but I asked my driver to stop at Chipotle first, so that's the very first thing I did.”

For Atkins, the “America’s Got Talent” stage is the largest of his musical career so far. His previous performances include one in high school, where he had a solo with his choir, he said, but this was different.

“It was crazy because when I was up on the stage, I had the earpieces in, but I could still hear the audience — how loud they were,” he said. “It was super encouraging when I was singing to hear them cheering. It amped me up even more, even though I was still extremely nervous, because who wouldn't be? I’m not an experienced performer. I'm just some guy.”

Atkins grew up influenced by his father’s music, which included classics such as The Temptations, The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Smokey Robinson and Motown.

“I grew up on all that music,” he said. “That's really the kind of music that inspired me to sing because it's just classic. It's never going to go out of style, and I still listen to that to this day.”

, where he posts videos of himself singing in the car.

“It was never really my intention to take it to this level,” Atkins said. “But I was doing the car singing thing — and I started getting a lot of traction on TikTok and whatnot and getting the likes and getting comments. That kind of motivated me to take it that step further. And to be able to venture out into doing something this big like ʻAmerica’s Got Talent.’”

Isaac Atkins

These North Shore brothers will be featured in Season 21 of “America’s Got Talent.” Tune in Tuesday, June 9, to catch their performance.

Nyjah Music and Zyah Rhythm

'America’s Got Talent' has Hawaiʻi contestants

<title>UPDATE: Hawaiʻi contestant gets golden buzzer on ʻAmerica’s Got Talent’</title>

This Army sergeant got his musical break when he recorded himself singing in a car. Now, Oʻahu resident Isaac Atkins is reflecting on the “America’s Got Talent” auditions that recently took him to California.

UPDATE: Hawaiʻi contestant gets golden buzzer on ʻAmerica’s Got Talent’

A debate over whether elephants are “people,” legally speaking, will go to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court.

In 2023, the Nonhuman Rights Project — a Florida-based nonprofit dedicated to challenging the legal status of animals — filed a petition in the First Circuit Court in Honolulu on behalf of two elephants at the Honolulu Zoo, Mari and Vaigai.

That petition was a writ of habeas corpus, a legal mechanism calling for a court to review and overturn a person’s potentially unlawful imprisonment. Even non-human animals like elephants, the petition argued, have a right by common law to bodily liberty, and the petition requested that the court order that Mari and Vaigai be released to an elephant sanctuary.

Whether Mari and Vaigai can legally be considered people became the central issue in the ensuing court case, which has been appealed up to the state’s highest court: the state Supreme Court accepted a petition to hear the case last week.

This wasn’t the first time the Nonhuman Rights Project has argued that habeas corpus applies to non-human animals in general or elephants in particular: the New York Court of Appeals heard a habeas corpus petition by the Nonhuman Rights Project on behalf of an elephant, Happy, who was kept at the Bronx Zoo.

While the New York court ultimately ruled against the Nonhuman Rights Project, that they heard the case at all “refuted the irrational and arbitrary notion that only members of the species Homo sapiens may invoke the protections of the Great Writ,” the Honolulu petition read.

“As societal norms and knowledge about nonhuman animals evolve, so too must common law,” the petition went on.

That additional knowledge about elephants made up a substantial portion of the Honolulu petition, going into detail about the animals’ sophisticated cognitive abilities and potential for self-awareness.

Mari, 50, and Vaigai, 40, were born in the wild, but were respectively gifted to the Honolulu Zoo 44 and 34 years ago as gifts by the prime ministers of India at the time. Since then, they have lived apart from any other animals of their species, something the petition called “undeniably cruel,” given elephants’ highly social nature.

The petition also claimed that the conditions of the Honolulu Zoo are detrimental to the elephants’ health. Both animals are obese, the petition claims, and only have access to an “impoverished environment” for stimulation.

”When the elephants are not simply standing and feeding, they can be seen walking between the front and back yards on the same path every time,” the petition read. “Mari and Vaigai’s lives are nothing but a succession of boring and frustrating days, damaging to their bodies and minds, and punctuated only by interaction with their keepers.”

While the First Circuit dismissed the petition in 2024 — arguing that habeas corpus under the common law are only available to humans — the Nonhuman Rights Project appealed the case to the state Intermediate Court of Appeals.

That court ruled in January in support of the First Circuit’s decision. By that point, the legal argument revolved around the legal definition of “person” and whether it specifically means “human” in all instances. Writing for the majority opinion, Judge Keith Hiraoka wrote that “person” and “animal” are considered separate legal categories throughout common law, for example as relating to theft of property including animals or anti-bestiality laws.

Nonetheless, the debate will continue in the Supreme Court, although future court dates have not yet been scheduled.

[{"type":"text","text":"Aloha State Daily reached out to the Honolulu Zoo for comment."}]

Honolulu zoo elephants

<title>Are elephants people? State Supreme Court to weigh in</title>

Two Honolulu Zoo elephants, Mari and Vaigai, are at the center of a Supreme Court case about the rights of non-human animals.

Are elephants people? State Supreme Court to weigh in

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros Headshot

Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros

Viewpoints

The debate between the spelling and pronunciation of Molokaʻi or Molokai (with or without the glottal stop, or ʻokina, between the “a” and “i”) has been ongoing for decades.

Shortly after Aloha State Daily launched in January 2025, we decided to use diacritics in our reporting and across our website, setting out to do so accurately and consistently. 

The house style agreed upon at the time was "Molokai," based on this article from 

We chose to use the ʻokina and kahakō because, one, because our Content Management System allowed for it (some donʻt). But mostly, to preserve the culture, history and meaning of the Native Hawaiian language, people and places we write about daily.

Among our earliest articles was ASD Reporter Stephanie Salmons' 

, a professor of Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, who is also known as “the godfather of the Hawaiian language revitalization movement” in the 1980s.

According to past reporting, Kimura also was a producer for Ka Leo Hawai‘i, a 

 show that ran from 1972 to 1988, where he interviewed native ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi speakers. Those recordings can be heard at Kaniʻāina (

). Naturally, he was one of our go-tos on the Molokai question.

“Those speakers, who were born and raised on Molokaʻi, all pronounced the name of their island as Molokaʻi with the ʻokina letter,” Kimura recently told ASD by email. “Also, all the Native Hawaiian speakers not from Molokaʻi who interacted in conversation with them pronounced Molokaʻi with the ʻokina. … It is too bad the missionary alphabet did not know how to deal with that phonetic letter for the Hawaiian spelling back then.” 

For Hawaiian references, our newsroom primarily uses this site, 

, or a physical copy of the revised Hawaiian Dictionary co-authored by Mary Kawena Puku’i and Samuel H. Elbert in 1961, along with the revised and expanded edition of “Place Names of Hawai’i” by Puku’i, Elbert and Esther T. Mookini.

Those resources list the island as “Molokaʻi,” the latter book defining it as being “38 miles long, 10 miles wide, 261 square-miles in area, and in 1970, a population of 5,261.” Today, its population is between 7,000 to 7,500 people, per the most recent census data.

Merriam-Webster cites the geographical name as "Molokai," varying as “Molokaʻi." 

 has entries both ways but lists “Molokaʻi” first and most often, followed by “Molokai,” citing the revised Hawaiian dictionary by Henry H. Parker from 1922.

Peter T. Young of local planning and consulting firm 

opined that this debate dates back to 1778 when Captain Cook visited the Hawaiian Islands and attempted to turn an oral language into a written one, using 

Morotoi, or Morokoi (Molokai). See how the early writers spelled and pronounced certain words 

What seems to be the biggest point of contention; however, is over its meaning.

Molokaʻi (pronunciation: Moh-loh-kah-ee) translates to twisting or turning (“mola”) leader (alakaʻi).

Molokai (pronunciation: Moh-loh-kye or (Moh-Kye) means “twisting waters (kai)” or "gathering of ocean waters.”

Molokai native Miki'ala Pescaia shared with the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ Ka Wai Ola magazine in June 2021: “When you put them together, what makes more sense 

 ‘Moloka'i’, the twisting leader, or ‘Molokai’, the twisting ocean waters? The late Harriet Ne 

 a historian, hula master and one of my father's teachers 

 said it should be 'Molokai,' referring to the waterspouts often seen off the island. Old maps show spelling variations, including Molokai, Morotoi and Molotoi, but they all have three syllables, not four as there would be when you say those words with an 'okina."

Current KWO Editor Puanani Akamine told ASD, “At OHA, we use the ʻokina mainly because that is how it is spelled in UH Hilo's online Hawaiian dictionary, 

. My grandmother was from Molokaʻi and a native speaker. She always pronounced it with an ʻokina, so that is my personal default, as well.”

asked Hālawa Valley resident Anakala Pilipo Solatorio to share why he uses “Molokai,” which he learned from his grandparents and ʻohana from the island. In the interview he notes, “My kūpunahine Lilia Hale also told me the same thing and went on to say that ʻMoloka'iʻ would refer to ʻAlaka'i,ʻ the Hawaiian value of leadership, which would then change the meaning ... to ‘twisted leader.’”

One Oʻahu-based Hawaiian language teacher didn't want to go on record with their thoughts for fear of backlash from the community. Some of the folks we asked from the Friendly Isle sided with “Molokai.”

 Executive Director Alice J. Ka'ahanui told ASD, “Personally, I choose to use ʻMolokaiʻ without the ʻokina because I was born and raised on Molokai and that is the way I was taught by our kūpuna. (It almost sounds like there is an 'okina because the ‘ai’ sounds like ‘eye’ with a heavy accent on ‘i’)."

She added that during the mid-to-late ’80s, that generation of college students started learning to use the ʻokina.

“I remember one person saying they learned the term ʻMolokaiʻ was incorrect because they likened the twisting and turning in the ocean to the way a toilet bowl turns. That cast a negative view of the word, and thinking back was probably used to encourage more people to pronounce it with the ʻokina.” Ka'ahanui continued. “To me, Moloka‘i just became a more contemporary pronunciation.”

“I also remember someone saying that when Mary Kawena Pukui was working on the dictionary, she didn't ask someone from Molokai for the pronunciation. It was someone on Hawaiʻi island that gave her the pronunciation.”

Kumu Pa’a Nui Lawrence Kalainia Kamani Aki of 

 is a 50th generation Hawaiian cultural practitioner, who teaches online and in-person workshops on the island.

“I live by the oral teaching of Na Kūpuna O Hālawa Valley, Molokai,” she told ASD by email. “I understand the University of Hawaiʻi standardizing the language. I have heard all the points of views of the younger generation and Na Kūpuna agreeing with the University of Hawaiʻi due to their degrees they have received from these Western education institutions.”

, also from Hālawa Valley, said that the pronunciation is not as important as the meaning, which he acknowledged references the ocean currents surrounding the island's southern shores.

pronunciations are correct and depends on which ʻohana you are speaking with.

Aloha State Daily revisits the Molokaʻi or Molokai debate over the spelling and pronunciation of the place name — with or without an ʻokina — initially for our own house style guide used across the website. Here’s what we learned from community members statewide.

Letter to the Editor: 2019 newspaper clipping confirms pronunciation of Molokai

Letters to the Editor

Representative Only

More in Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor: ʻPraise and accoladesʻ for speaking truth

Letter to the Editor: Keep the Green Fee project portfolio intact

Letter to the Editor: Mediation plays a major role

Letter to the Editor: Remembering Bob Krauss

Most read

Letter to the Editor: 2019 newspaper clipping confirms pronunciation of Molokai

Authors

Letters to the Editor

Representative Only

More in Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor: ʻPraise and accoladesʻ for speaking truth

Letter to the Editor: Keep the Green Fee project portfolio intact

Letter to the Editor: Mediation plays a major role

Letter to the Editor: Remembering Bob Krauss

Most read