In 1881 -- less than a week after King David Kalakaua left Hawaii for a yearlong tour around the world -- a ship arrived in Honolulu carrying laborers sick with smallpox. The decisions that Hawaii’s future queen made to keep people safe – and the pushback she received from angry citizens and frustrated business owners […]
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How do you practice Hawaiian culture when you’re thousands of miles from Hawaii? And what happens when Hawaiians abroad finally get a chance to go home?
Nearly half of all Native Hawaiians now live outside of Hawaii. And while many have cited Hawaii’s high cost of living as the main reason for leaving, it’s really just a piece of a much larger story.
After the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893, hundreds of disenfranchised Hawaiian musicians would journey to the continental U.S. in search of fame, fortune, or just a chance to make a decent living. Some would die in poverty and obscurity.
Two decades after Hawaiians helped build a fort for John Sutter in California, another group of Hawaiians would find themselves stranded in Massachusetts. And take up arms in America’s bloodiest war.
This is the story of a group of Hawaiians who ended up in California more than 160 years ago — back when Hawaii was an independent nation. And how their descendents are still connected to the islands in unexpected ways.
Nearly half of all Native Hawaiians now live outside of Hawaii. It’s a staggering number that raises questions about what Hawaii will be like in coming years, and how Native Hawaiians will carry their islands with them to far flung places.
This season, Offshore is taking a deep dive into the Hawaiian diaspora. Join journalist Kuʻu Kauanoe, as she digs into what is driving Hawaiians from the islands today. And tells some amazing stories about Hawaiians who left long ago.
The Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is one of the most remote places on Earth. Now, it’s threatened by climate change, pollution and politics.
When we started reporting this season, we expected it to be a story about troubling adoptions that happened in the 1990s. But it quickly became clear that issues with Marshallese adoptions were never fully resolved, they simply moved. To new counties.
There’s an entire generation of Marshallese adoptees like London Lewis asking questions about who they are and where they come from. And there are plenty of parents searching for the children they gave up, too. These reunions aren’t always easy.
London Lewis had to get back to work in Florida, so we’re continuing the search on his behalf — journeying to the Marshall Islands to where his story began, to try and find his birth father and his siblings.
We started reporting for this season of Offshore last June, but we’re still chasing down leads and new developments. It’s been a busy few weeks for us. Which means we’re going to be publishing Episode 6 on Monday, May 18. In the meantime,
London Lewis’ biggest worry when he arrived in Springdale was how he would be received. Would other Marshallese people recognize him? Accept him?
In Springdale, London Lewis begins to experience Marshallese culture for the first time. He’s going to meet people he’s only read about in World War II textbooks. Hear a language he’s never heard except for on YouTube.
The biggest population of Marshallese in the U.S. isn’t in Hawaii. Or even a coastal state. It’s in Springdale, Arkansas - a small, unassuming midwest town that 12,000 Marshallese now call home. London Lewis doesn’t have the time or the means to go to ...
Susette Lewis was excited when she arrived in Honolulu in 1992. And like most new moms, nervous. Uncertain of what to expect. She didn’t know that picking up her adopted son would be an alarming experience.
Adopted as an infant from the Marshall Islands, London’s journey home would begin with a Facebook post.
A young man on a quest to find his birth family. An adoption market that rocked an island nation. A culture in danger of disappearing — and the desperate fight to save it. Join Offshore for an unforgettable eight-episode season this spring. www.
Hawaii’s false nuclear alarm scare sends Offshore reporters on a trip back in time to 1962, when Hawaii had a very different kind of brush with nuclear weapons. Just a few months before the Cuban Missile Crisis,