Molokai History:

 

(from “The Separating Sickness: Ma’i Ho’oka’awale: Interviews with Exiled Leprosy Patients at Kalaupapa, Hawaii” by Ted Gugelyk and Milton Bloombaum, Ma’i Ho’oka’awale Foundation, Honolulu, HI, 1979)
Male, Part-Hawaiian
Blind, Disfigured, Married
Age: 48
34 years at Kalaupapa

 

How did I get this disease? Well, I had eight other relatives in Kalaupapa. Four sisters, my mother and three other relatives. I also have other relatives who had this illness, but they were never discovered. They were never sent here — they escaped.

 

Me, I came in when I was fourteen. I finished the ninth grade outside. Then, after I was diagnosed as a leprosy person, I had mechanics training in Kalaupapa before I went blind. Now, you might say I am retired. I have a disability pension. Overall, I am one of the lucky ones. My family and neighbors stuck with me. They never rejected me, but I tried to avoid them after I got the illness. So, I will live the rest of my life here. Because of my condition, I don’t have too many choices.

 

Maybe the worst thing about being a leprosy patient at Kalaupapa is the isolation from real life. I tried, but I feel defeated. What can I do? I stick it out and be bored with my life. Also, I don’t have much contact with my family anymore. My family never rejected me, but my daughter from my first marriage, well, we lost contact with one another. Maybe she rejected me. You see, people don’t want to be connected with leprosy. With my first marriage (I was out in the community then), there was an automatic divorce because of my leprosy. I reactivated, and leprosy was the grounds for divorce — that was the law. After they confined me again, I couldn’t get out to see my wife and child. The Health Department would not let me out. Finally, my wife and child kind of forgot about me. So, today I have almost no contact with my daughter. Today she is twenty-six years old and we are like two strangers. My wife never let me see my daughter when she was younger, even after I became negative again. She relocated. In fact, the Health Department helped her avoid me. That social worker helped my wife divorce me and kept me from my daughter.

 

Blessings, Pule & Pono,
Fr. Brian, ss.cc.
Priest
Molokai, Topside