 Yeah, welcome back to Think Tech. This is Community Matters. I'm Jay Fidel and our topic today is the 19th century, and it still lives. It lives in Oahu right now. It lives in Oahu cemetery right now. And the fellow who is the curator of public programs such as the Pupu Dinner, which is organized, I guess, on an annual basis, but it repeats itself a number of times in that year. This is Mike Smoller. Welcome to the show, Mike. Aloha. Thanks for having me, Jay. This is a fabulous show. I've been to it a number of times. And in a word, what happens is, as a guest of the show after you have your Pupus, you wander through a Oahu cemetery, and you sit under canopies, and you watch actors depict parrots out of the development of Hawaii in the 19th century, who are buried right there where they are sitting in Oahu cemetery. What a brilliant idea to bring it home to you, to put you in that community, to put you in the 19th century, to be surrounded with the events that shaped our state. That was your idea, Mike, wasn't it? Well, yeah, myself and Dr. Tom Woods, who's our former executive director at Hawaii Mission Houses, decided to do this starting about 11 years ago, actually. And your role these days is to make it happen and make it accurate, and to research what was happening with each one of these people in the cemetery that we celebrate, and then to write a script for the actor to act. And this is an incredible experience, then. How do you like your work, Mike? Oh, I love my work. I mean, every time we pick a new theme, I get to research something different, and I get to research some different people, which is really neat. For me, it kind of gets me out of my sort of Hawaiian Mission Houses mode and, you know, just 19th century missionary stuff allows me to explore other areas of Hawaiian history. It's super neat researching each person, going through the primary document research, but I do send that off to a scriptwriter or a higher scriptwriter to do that for us. So what kind of materials do you look at in terms of, you know, finding the facts and developing, you know, biological information about each of the people that are celebrated? Yeah, so I usually look at if there is journals in existence, letters written by them and to them. I look at newspaper stories of the time period. And if I'm lucky, I get a chance to have a look at their private papers, which are sometimes held in different archives, including the Hawaiian Mission Houses archive. So that's the type of stuff I'm usually looking at, as far as primary document research. And you talked about themes and I always always found your choice of themes very interesting, because it was always a sort of a different perspective about the period about the people who lived in the period about the kinds of things they did. So can you give us some examples of the themes you've selected? I mean, not only this year, but in recent years and why? Right. So this past year, our theme was Hawaii 1822, because we had a lot of bicentenials going on to celebrate the arrival of Tehish and Christian missionaries here in Hawaii. The first printing in Olalo, Hawaii, and as well as begins kind of the beginnings of Bible translation work and things like that. We've also done environmental history. We had a show a few years ago called Footprints on the Land, about different people involved in various aspects of the environmental movement and environmental history here in the islands. We've done public and government service. We've done medicine. We've done education. We've done the arts. So we try to touch on a lot of different aspects. It also makes the show fresh every year. Absolutely. It is fresh every year. By the way, what qualifies you to do this research, to do this analysis, to select these themes, and these particular people out of the Walnut Cemetery? So I have a bachelor's degree in history from Michigan State University. I also have a graduate certification in museum studies also from Michigan State. And I've been here at the Mission House is 14 years now, this August 1. And I've been the curator of programs for about 11 of those years now. That would mean the entire period of the Mission House poo poo dinner then. That's correct. Yeah. So it's, I mean, I've been doing a lot of my own research for a number of years. I, and it's really interesting being able to find all that stuff and having the knowledge of where to look is a really important aspect of that. Well, I wanted to look, look over this from the, from the data 50,000 foot level, and see what it means in, you know, the year 2022 to look back at not only the 19th century but the early 19th century. Of course, there are points of interest and appeal, simply on the basis of the history, but it goes beyond that. I mean, you're, you're, you're sitting next to a grave of some person who lived. And you're looking at an actor who is trying really hard and really well to depict the life of that person. And it draws you in like like Bruce through the keyhole into an nostalgic experience, where you can see, you know, the outlines of all the details. And so, so, and that's very historically, what do you want to call it, historically connecting. It connects you this experience to go through the Mission House Museum, Mission Houses Museum program connects you with the history of Hawaii. And maybe as you've never been connected before actually, a lot of people I'm sure who come to the program don't know that much about Hawaiian history in the 19th century, especially the early 19th century, and they are sponges. They learn about this and how do I know that because I always attend your Q&A session. Anyway, so then it goes beyond that, because you're touching points that reflect the development of Hawaii as a place where the missionaries came as a place where the monarchy learned from them and where the whole state grew. And of course, as I have learned from watching your programs, the state of Hawaii, the territory of Hawaii, the kingdom of Hawaii grew in astronomical steps in the 19th century, and you capture that it's actually much more much more accelerated than we thought right. Absolutely. I mean, one of the neat things about this, this program or Cemetery Pupu Theater program is that we kind of get a little lens through individual eye into the things going on. A lot of people do know the sort of broad strokes of Hawaiian history and, and some of the errors that we depict and talk about. But I think getting the lens from a single person's perspective is something that allows us to illuminate a lot of detail and a lot of nuance. In that history that you might not get from an academic article or some other source about history. And I think, and that also allows us to depict multiple perspective around the same events or the same time period as well. And I think, and I think being in the cemetery is a, is a unique part of the experience. I mean, in the 19th century, in the early 20th century, cemeteries were kind of the public parks of the period. And people go and visit their, their family members and, you know, have picnics there and talk about family stories. And that is that it's the same kind of idea except on a more museum professional level, I guess. So it's funny to say that I was, I was going to tell you that I remember that particular phenomenon from first time I attended the program. And when my wife and I came to the program a few weeks ago. We're really charmed to see that there were people, attendees, who were out in the cemetery, having their dinner by the gravestones. And it reminded me reminded me of exactly what you were talking about. It's a place for a picnic. It's a place to celebrate. It's a place to enjoy, you know, your ancestors and Hawaiian history. And it was happening even today. It's infectious is what it was. It's really neat. And I've noticed that here in Hawaii that people still do that sort of thing. Absolutely. And I think that's something that's super neat also is to be able to tap into that aspect of local culture here. And, and, and bring it in a different way, while still kind of getting at that same idea of the picnic in the, in the cemetery. Yeah. So how do you choose the people for each production. I mean, they're, you know, the cemetery is filled with people. And there are what I would say hundreds of thousands there. A lot of those names are very familiar to us, because they were part of Hawaii history. They were part of the development of the monarchy and the state later. And they, they count they all count. You have a wealth of possibilities. How do you select the ones that you are going to dwell on. Right. So the first part of that is the theme. Right. And then who is involved with that theme that's buried at the Wahoo cemetery. The other thing I get drawn to a lot of times is undertold story. And so, or stories that are not very well known. And so if I can find someone that has, I think that has an undertold or never told story or untold story, I get drawn to that as well. So picking those folks is really centered around the theme. And then who had the biggest impact on that theme or who, once I start the basic research on it, who has a really interesting story. Sometimes you come across a story that is so amazing. It's like, I can't, I can't not tell this. So, you know, this is a story that everyone should should really know about. And so the other part of that is determining if there's enough research material to, to develop one of these 20 minute monologues, and see if there's enough, if there's a there there. Because sometimes you find somebody who's really neat, or super involved in the theme, but there's not enough extant research material to really build a 20 minute script around. Yeah. So, so that's that's really how we get down the other part I have to take into account is for the live program at Wahoo cemetery is how close the graves are together. So that we make sure that there isn't sound bleed between the actors and, and things like that. So that's kind of the basic process of how to whittle it down to the five people we do every year. Yeah, they're not that close together and the attendees have to walk a bit, or take a golf cart necessary from one to the other and, and while you're walking that's still another experience because you know you're looking at the graves you're feeling, you know, the, the community if you will of the cemetery. And so you get to know the nature of this cemetery why this cemetery is different and why it's a kind of treasure. And who anyone who cares about history in, in a while in in Hawaii. And I was going to ask you to how it's really a kick by the way to see the person is always the same. The person has his back to the audience, and is situated on a chair, right next to the gravestone. Kind of, you know, what is this going to be like. Who is this person, why do I care about this person. And in this case, I noticed that you include points of reference. You know, it's never in a vacuum. You always know something about the project even legacy of the individual who is talking to you. And so you can connect that up to your own, perhaps limited understanding of 19th century history. But I was going to ask you this, you know, can you give us some example of some of the characters that you portrayed this year, for example, with interesting stories. One of the ones that I was particularly drawn to this year was the story of Tao, the Dehesion Christian teacher who was a largely responsible for the conversion of Queen Kail Pualani to Christianity. And he was kind of her personal chaplain and Christian teacher. The role of the Dehesion Christians here in Hawaii is something that's just come to, you know, kind of been pushed to the forefront in the last five to 10 years in the academic literature, and the important role of indigenous peoples from other places. And their place and role here in Hawaiian histories, I think that's something that's just coming to light something that's certainly undertold. And I think it's important to bring those stories to light as well. That was one of my favorite one. Reverend William Ellis is a before you go further to Reverend William Ellis and I just want to say that was my favorite one also. As I recall the native Hawaiian actor played that role. He's someone by background, but yeah, he has Polynesian. Yes, he was he was great. He was so captivating and relating unto the audience. I just love listening to him. And so much so that I went up to him afterward, and as he reseeded himself for the next rotation of the audience. And I went over to him and I complimented him I told him how great he was. And it really it brightened him up for me to tell him that I always do that you know when they're really good I go and talk to them. I want to know how the audience feels about it. Right. Yeah, Albert well get Tony is the actor who portrayed tell us for us for us this year. And this is his fourth or fifth portrayal of different portrayal he's done for us over the years. He's an amazing actor and a wonderful person to work with. Yeah, so I like them all though and I sure like the stories and the stories are always disparate you know there's, they're not the same kinds of people necessarily but they may know each other. And I can recall one one year you're really really captivated me because you had one member, one, one distinct on one side the cemetery. And he was talking about his business relationship with another guy who was buried in the far side of the cemetery. And he was saying things like that bug he cheated me. He took my money. I stood him and he stood me and we hated each other. Okay. And then you walk a few feet to the other side of the cemetery, and you talk to that very same guy that he was talking about. Yeah, that bugger on the other side of the cemetery. He cheated me and we had litigation and he was all wrong. It was really really interesting to see them talk about each other I thought that was brilliant. The connection is not necessarily with iconic things that you may know about you know from your life today in Hawaii. It's iconic things between the individuals who are buried right there in the cemetery. Anyway, you can talk about Ellison now. Yeah, so I mean, but I think that's a really important things that we have. You know, depending upon the theme some of these people knew each other, you know, in real life at the time. And I think that's also something important to bring out in the scripts that these people, you know, these aren't these people are not the vacuum. They live their lives amongst other people and many times that they know they knew the other people involved in their, you know, field or under the theme, you know, the aspect of that aspect of the theme. And so I think it's really especially if they did have a conflict, you know, every, every story has three sides, one side the other side in the truth, you know. So, to be able to present those perspectives is really important. Robert William Ellis is another one that gap debated as well because he was, he was a printer in at the mission at the London Mission in Tahiti, the British mission there. And then he comes here to Hawaii, he was supposed to go to the Marquesas gets blown off course ends up here in Hawaii ends up spending over two years of his life here in Hawaii. And really playing a really important role with Bible translation writing the first hymns in Hawaiian, preaching the first one of the first sermons in the Hawaiian language, because this Hawaiian was so similar to Tahitian, they was able to do that relatively Plus his stories about his trip to the volcano in 1823 24 is is really fascinating. It's quite an extensive account in his published works about his trip to the volcano. During that period. So it was, it's an exciting story. So I'm a rate year to year about, you know, the various stories and themes, what you get, and I'm, I'm, I may be imperfect in my understanding here what you get is the story of how the missionaries came here, the traders the missionaries came here and had this this lovely connection with the people who accepted them, who were willing to, you know, engage and listen to them. It wasn't perfect but it was, it was unique in terms of these missionaries and their travels around the world, and Hawaii was a great place for them because they could find, they could find some understanding here some, some social connection and into marriage, I should add, and the people learned English, they learned religion, and things dramatically changed all within a decade or two before you know it, there are libraries and newspapers and religious conversions and large numbers and it affected the monarchy and the monarchy became global and worldly and it built the state from very very little from a primitive civilization. And sorry I said that, to a modern 19th century late 19th century civilization that was capable of understanding things around the world from a monarchy that, you know, that didn't have any idea what was going on to a monarchy that knew everything that was going on. It was the, I don't want to say the Americanization of Hawaii but certainly it was the development of an advanced society in Hawaii, all within less than 100 years. How, how right am I how wrong am I in that analysis. I mean, I mean, Hawaiian certainly has sophisticated culture and, you know, agriculture and aquaculture systems and had their own, you know, societal and governmental structures, but the Hawaiian kingdom faced new challenges and beginning in the early 19th, late 18th and early 19th century countries that face new challenges of how to deal with other powers, other countries how do you deal with them in a way that's constructive and helpful to yourself, and your country. And I think that's something that the monarchy and that Hawaiians general and certainly the ones that the monarch sent out as diplomats and ambassadors, certainly picked up very quickly. And they had made that adjustment pretty quickly to the point where, yeah, in the 1850s and 60s there's consulates all over the world. You know, of course King Kalakau takes us around the world trip. He sends envoys to the, to the, you know, Queen Victoria's Jubilee to the crowning of the King of Serbia and the, and the Russians are and, you know, and are, you know, negotiating immigration and trade agreements and things like that. And that's as a result of, you know, the, like I said the challenges they had to meet to maintain their independence, their sovereignty, and also to navigate this wider world around them. And they certainly did an amazing job with that and certainly some of that can be chalked up to the, to the, to the instruction of the missionaries and the help that the elite requested of the missionaries. And, but a lot of it is the elite themselves, you know, learning themselves and learning how to deal with all of this, and making some some really hard decision. To change about how to change government structures and change cultural norms and change what how Hawaiians present themselves to the world. Yeah, what a what an interesting time. So many things were happening all at the same time and you portray that. And these actors portray that. And there's a sort of a common denominator of improvement of optimism of, you know, the connection with international matters. And so it's, by and large, a very positive time and a positive experience. Of course, there were problems through there was disease. There were, you know, of course, if you have any growth and change in a given community, there are always issues and you cover those things too. But you know what, what I, what I come away with though is that you cannot understand Hawaii. It's a good thing. And unless you understand the 19th century of Hawaii, it's all around us. It's everywhere. And that's why this is such a valuable contribution to the public public awareness and, and the public conversation. Are you think you think you're going to run out of gas someday Mike, you think you're going to run out of interesting stories. You think you're going to run out of public interest. I don't think so. There's there's no sign of that. I don't, I don't think I'm going to lose interest. Personally, I'm certainly a mission house is not going to lose interest in what really has become a signature program for us. I mean, we just took this took three of our actors to Maui for four day for four shows, two in Lahaina and two in Makawa. And we had over over 200 people attend those programs over the course of four days. And I don't think with with a lot of cemetery are wonderful partners at the Wahoo cemetery. And the fact that you know that cemetery dates back to 1844. And I don't I don't think there's a chance of running out of stories, or people to portray, even some of the ones that we've done several times you always focus on some different aspects of their lives. For example, in this year's show we had john poppy. I think this is the fifth script, we've gotten out of his life. And, you know, this time we focused on his learning literacy early and his Bible translation work with Reverend Bingham, which is something we had not touched upon in depth in pre in the four previous trips that we did of john poppy. And it was also really interesting to portray him as a young man. We've generally portrayed him as an older man, kind of looking back on his life. This one is a younger man sort of going through the experience as he's telling you about it. There's no connection with the Ilani Palace isn't there some of your, your characters are there in Ilani Palace then commemorated there. You know, I remember one, one really interesting story and an actor, a couple years ago, was a young woman who portrayed a nurse in the late, I guess the late 19th century and there were a lot of medical issues, including, you know, infectious diseases in Hawaii in 19th century, brought by the holidays and all that. But she was she really opened my eyes as to why the monarchy, why the state, the territory felt that public health was so important. And she was this was a very fine career she was engaged in. You remember that one I'm sure you do. So I believe you're talking about Mabel smite, who's considered the source Florence nightingale of Hawaii she did a lot of work with Paloma settlement, especially in the aftermath of the Chinatown fires, during the bubonic plague outbreak, you're at that period. Um, yeah, I mean, it's, she's, I mean, sienna axon was a wonderful actress. But her story is again something that, you know, Paloma settlement was kind of founded in the tradition of like whole house or some of the other more famous settlement houses that, you know, worked with disadvantaged populations and and in public health. I mean, her story is just so amazing. And again, something that's relatively under told, we all go drive past Paloma settlement on vineyard there and don't give it two thoughts, but it was a really important place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are so many stories like that we can spend hours going through some of the incredible characters that you have researched and portrayed. But I want, you know, when I ask you this, you know, there was a movie, George Clooney was in the movie called the descendants. And there was a, it was a Hawaii story. And my recollection my reaction to that movie was that, why did Hollywood have to do that. We know more about the rule against perpetuities and, and the hidden valleys and Kawai, you know, than they do. And there are as, as, as you know, there are dozens hundreds hundreds over 11 years hundreds of stories that are so captivating about what happened in Hawaii, leading up to the overthrow, maybe after the overthrow. And, and we need to, we need to commemorate that we need to memorialize that. And I wonder if you see, you know, you're, you're close to the research and the script writing and, and the performance and production, you and you and will how I'm, I'm wondering if there's going to come a time when we, we put all this into a movie. The likes of which the world has never really seen in terms of its accuracy and, and it's the import for the state and for anyone looking for lessons from the state. What do you think have you talked about that when you talk about that. Well, I mean, there are several theater companies and folks involved in the movie industry who are doing exactly that. People like Moses Good and Taisanga and some of the others who have done released independent films or have or have acted in them that are telling those stories and from a native Hawaiian perspective. And I think that's something that's only going to grow. You know, I mean, Hollywood has its place, especially in terms of reach and exposure and, and sort of getting those, you know, some of the basics of those stories out. But I think that there's a wonderful film community here in Hawaii, and they're very talented and very eager to tell our stories ourselves. And I hope that they get a find more success and find more reach than they have have so far. I hope they do. I hope they do because it's a, it's a ripe pomegranate is what it is. And there's so much material there and it's of such great interest not only locally but everywhere because Hawaii is so well known and so unique that we really need to do that over time and I hope, I hope that happens. So going, going forward, do you think you'll be doing neighbor island trips like this and, and getting the word out to other communities outside of a while. Yeah, we certainly do we have we we've started video recording these performances. So that schools and other community organization kind of rent the video and do a Q&A session just like we do at a wahoo cemetery with me over something like zoom like we are today. We have done neighbor island trip since 2018. So we did. We always go to Maui twice we go to Maui twice a year. In 2019 we did went to Hawaii Island, we went to Hawaii and Maui. In 2019 we even did the month long tour of New England with with. About the story of Henry. And his time and so we did the month long tour in New England with our theater and cultural program there. So, hopefully, in a post COVID world that's so reliant on virtual technology hopefully our reach only expand. So we go to Yale where all these missionaries came from, you know, it was interesting I was in Yale a couple weeks ago and I kept thinking of you. All these of all these missionaries because he was so dedicated to missionaries and why did they, why were they so fascinated with Hawaii why did they contribute all these missionaries. And really, they, it's really because of a book a hi and his story and the, you know, he did speaking tours and, you know, you know, wrote letters and told people about Hawaii. Before a book a hi, some of the missionaries that came in that first company in 1820 were slated to be going elsewhere like places like Sri Lanka, for example. The book a hi and his life story and his the way he approached wanting to bring it bring Christianity to the island. That really brought folks here without a book a hi these missionaries certainly wouldn't have come when they did. If they would if they came at all. And it's very, very interesting in a historical sense which I'm sure you appreciate sometimes one person, just one person with a creative idea changes the course of history. And, and with him, of course, out of Yale, but also, you know, within Hawaii in in the characters that you memorialize. Those people had a huge effect on the history that followed. They changed the world, if not locally then globally. And I find that always an interesting study about history and, and certainly here because you can track it back. And, you know, your performances in the cemetery help us track back some of the cultural and institutional development points of Hawaii to one person. Well, let me let me ask let me ask you this is a Q&A part which I, as you know, I always enjoy and always ask your questions. You learn a lot about who is there about who comes, who attends the programs and their level of interest and so forth. And you can tell a lot from what happens in the Q&A. So query who is coming. Who are the people who are in the room who are the people who sign up and attend and, and have the dinner and attend the theater. Right, so I probably say 90 to 95% of our audience are local here. We even get descendants of some of the people we portrayed in the audience that happens relatively frequently. And then we do get a sometimes you get the occasional visitor as well. I'm not sure if you were there that night J but we had a couple from Washington DC. That came to our cemetery later. And they kind of heard about it they saw it on a website and they went, well this looks different. Let's do that. And so, and they they learned, you know, as much if not more than that than everyone else as well. And that's the again the unique part about being able to focus on individual people. Yeah, it is totally unique. So, what was you like. I know that you're usually maxed out on, you know, tickets for this. But to the extent that somebody wants to sign up now or later here or neighbor island. How do they find you where they go when they look. What we do is to go to mission houses.org the mission houses website and look at our events page. We do cemetery poo poo through the theater every June, the last three weekends in June. The other thing you could do is to get on our email newsletter list. And so you can email info at mission houses.org and get our mailing list to find out about all the other different things that we do as well. And suppose they had an idea for a theme. Suppose they are related to somebody in the cemetery. Suppose they would like you to celebrate their relative. How can they make them themselves known to you. Sometimes they'll come up to me themselves and say, you know, I'm related to so and so, who's right over here. He has a really fat, he or she has a really fascinating story. And it all depends upon the themes we choose every year. I have taken some of those suggestions before. And when the theme came up, I went, Hey, there was that one guy who told me about so and so and let's go find them in the cemetery and see if this will work. I haven't really done that before. I get lots of people who ask, can you do my relative next. It's just all it all depends upon the theme we want to focus on for the year. And there's certainly people where I go oh yeah I'm familiar with that person's, you know, kind of basic story and, and life and history and yeah that would be super interesting. But it all depends on how we package the whole show together. What message, if any, would you like to leave with our audience today, what would you have them think about going forward. Well, I mean there's an old Hawaiian proverb about in order to move forward you need to look back. And I think this program allows you to do that. And also think about how we can move forward together and how we can move forward constructively as a society and as individual people as well. And always take time to learn about the place you're in. Absolutely. And I've been to a number of the productions and I must say that I learned so much, and it connects me so much and it's a unique experience, and I will continue to do that forever. And I think there are a lot of people in the same boat. Anyway, thank you very much for for organizing this for doing it to research and the choices you make it's a tremendous contribution to the public conversation about Hawaii history and what do I say thank you for your service Mike. Oh, thank you and thanks for having me here today Jay, it's a pleasure to be on think tank. Here at the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives, we are honored to be stewards of this historic space and to create programming that fosters community engagement and discussion of a rich history from multiple perspectives, which impacts us all today. The Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives was founded in 1820 by Protestant missionaries from New England as the Sandwich Islands Mission. Today, we are a national historic landmark and accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Thousands of visitors are hosted each year with engaging programs, significant archival collections and site tours. History Theater is our signature and award winning program, which presents an intimate look at Hawaii's history through historical portrayals of people who have impacted our community. I belong to the first generation of Hawaiians to learn the pala pala, how to read and write. Through the pala pala, we were able to share our thoughts and ideas swiftly between districts across islands from Hawaii to America to England. As the ships sails filled, I felt a chill despite the warm kiss of the Hawaiian sun above. It was not uncommon for us to be apart for a few months at a time, but this seemed different. It was the last time I looked on my husband's face. On Friday, May 13, 1853, a Kanaka came trembling to Marshall Park's office. He brought with him grave news. Two Hawaiians were sick with eruptions on their skin at Mauna Kea Street. Excellent. You played the perfect pupils. I felt my missionary years come rushing back. My name is Betsy Stockton, and I spent 40 years of my life as a teacher and a servant of Christ, educating both children and adults. Me, a colored woman, a former slave. Join me in a toast to the health of Kamehameha III and an independent Hawaii. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. 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