It is difficult to overstate the loss suffered by people across the nation, and especially Native Hawaiians, when downtown Lahaina was devastated by fire last August. Most tragic of all, lives were lost and families were forever changed. The fire also took a toll on Lahaina’s rich Native Hawaiian history and heritage, destroying centuries-old buildings and significant cultural sites.
Lahaina will be rebuilt. The community’s resilience and the heroic recovery efforts already underway ensure that. The key question is: Can Lahaina be rebuilt in a way that honors and restores the Native Hawaiian history and heritage reflected in its destroyed sites and buildings? After meeting with local, state and federal officials as Chair of the Federal Historic Preservation Advisory Commission, I firmly believe that it can and must be.
Even before the fire, much of Lahaina’s history had already been erased. The county government filled in fish ponds and waterways, including the Loko o Mokuhinia fishpond that carried fish to the royal palace and surrounded King Kamehameha III’s estate, and created softball fields and tennis courts. Prominent homes and sacred sites were lost to disinvestment and redevelopment. Taro fields near the water’s edge, one of many places where traditional agriculture had blended with urban life, were paved over. The county even trampled on traditional Native Hawaiian street names, including Alanui Moi (King’s Road), replacing them with Americanized ones.
Current reconstruction efforts cannot undo the damage done, but they can ensure that it does not happen again.
The federal government must do all it can to help restore and rebuild lost sites. For example, the Advisory Committee has begun implementing its recent policy statement on Indigenous knowledge and historic preservation, which specifically calls for the regulatory review processes we oversee to recognize the deep insights that can be gained from the collective information and beliefs of Indigenous peoples, including Native Hawaiians.
In accordance with this statement, I have proposed to exempt from this process any site restoration activities led or managed by Native Hawaiian organizations. This means that the restoration or reconstruction of fishponds, waterways, taro fields, buildings, and sacred sites associated with Native Hawaiian history can be carried out without delay or additional cost. Native Hawaiian consultation and public engagement on this proposal is ongoing, and I hope that the exemption will be approved promptly.
Prioritizing the reconstruction of lost sites means a departure from mainstream preservation methods. Preservationists have long disliked reconstruction. To some, reconstruction using historical techniques and new materials is akin to “faking history” or creating something that is not authentic.
A daughter holds a vase she found while searching through the rubble of her mother’s home after it burned in a wildfire, in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Oct. 9, 2023. A daughter holds a vase she found while searching through the rubble of her mother’s home after it burned in a wildfire, in Lahaina, Hawaii, on Oct. 9, 2023. Mario Tama/Getty Images
I don’t think so. In rebuilding after World War II, many bombed-out cities rebuilt their centuries-old structures following the same plans that were used when they were first built. The war and the lives lost are never forgotten, but in some ways the rebuilding fostered healing. Urban historians and planners point out that Warsaw, among other cities, actually re-emerged stronger than before.
Lahaina has used this technique in the past: Waiola Church, originally built in 1823 and adjacent to the final resting place and cemetery of Hawaiian royalty, has already been rebuilt twice and its current incarnation is included in a National Historic Landmark District, and on a recent visit to Maui, former ACHP tribal member Reno Franklin and I met cultural monitors who had painstakingly excavated a several-block stretch of waterway along the historic route.
Lahaina has suffered great loss, and by placing history and heritage at the center of our recovery efforts, we can build a new kind of recovery, one that can heal in some small way from the layers of loss, both from the fire and from earlier attempts at erasure.
Sarah C. Bronin is chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, an independent federal agency that promotes the preservation of our nation’s diverse historic resources and advises the President and Congress on national historic preservation policy.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
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