Daughters of the Islands Blog

Talking story is an old, gentle art in Hawai‘i. It is more than just conversation, though it is also that. Talking story is a way of connecting, of sharing wisdom across generations, of teaching without lecturing, of caring and healing without prescriptions. It is how we listen, not just with our ears, but with our hearts. Through talking story, we weave the threads of those who’ve gone before us into the fabric of our lives, ensuring their voices are never lost. This book is

In the tense hours and days after Pearl Harbor, young nurse Chiyoko Kasai—born to Japanese immigrants—watched the Japanese Hospital of Honolulu become the only hospital and nursing school in the United States placed under military occupation. She never forgot what followed. "Soon after the bombs started, the head nurse came around and said, ‘Girls, go to each room, talk to the patients. Tell them not to worry, that everything’s going to be all right.’ So that’s what we did. W

At the start of her three‑year diploma training, Genevieve Lehuanani OʻKilauea Freitas—Kanaka Maoli and a new “probie”—found herself facing a senior apprentice, a notorious “probie chaser,” after mixing up orders. She braced for the worst. “I remember my first fundamentals of nursing class in 1951 with Miss Byres. As soon as it finished, I headed to the hospital floor. Oh boy, that turned out to be the worst day of my life—or at least, that’s how it felt to the young me. The

At nineteen, Eleanor Silva—born to Madeiran immigrants and newly trained as a practical nurse—found herself caring for Hansen’s Disease patients at the Kalaupapa settlement. Here is part of her story. “Even though I’d grown up on Molokaʻi, the settlement was a ghost to us. It was five square miles of isolation, a tongue of land licked by the Pacific and guarded by the highest sea cliffs in the world. Kapu—forbidden. That’s what we were told. Ever since the King established it

Faith Hisako Miyabara, six months into her training, tending to burn victims brought from Pearl Harbor — offering morphine, comfort, and the last human presence many would ever know. A glimpse into her journey awaits below. “There was a captain, a doctor. He gave the instructions. My first task was to prepare the morphine. We were where the worst of them were brought in—the ones with the deepest burns. The captain looked at me and said, ‘The ones here are all going to die any

Rosie Kim Chang, the daughter of Korean immigrants, quieted the friction of the past with the grace of “dinner diplomacy,” securing a future where a nurse’s mind was valued as much as her hands. “The way we nurses were trained back then, in hospital programs, was excellent—hands-on and very thorough. But nursing was more than a trade. We needed a broader education to prepare nurses to be leaders in hospitals, public health, and beyond.” Her hands clasped as if once again anch