Somewhere in the University of Hawaiʻi’s digital archives, a 91-year-old woman’s voice lingers. She describes arriving as a picture bride in 1910 — stepping off a train into the vast Waipahu canefields, the sun going down, no familiar face in sight. “Is Hawaiʻi a place like this?” she wondered. Decades later, her answer was simple: “Life is good here.”
That story — and more than 1,200 others like it — is why the Center for Oral History (COH) in the College of Social Sciences exists.
For 50 years, the COH has done the quiet, essential work of making sure voices like Tsuru Yamauchi’s are never lost. Established in 1976 by the Hawaiʻi State Legislature as the Ethnic Studies Oral History Project, the Center has grown into one of the most significant community archives in the Pacific — collecting, documenting and preserving the living testimonies of Hawaiʻi’s people across generations, languages and cultures.
In October 2026, COH celebrates a half-century milestone with a reunion of the people who built it: founding director Chad Taniguchi; longest-serving director Warren Nishimoto and associate researcher Michiko Kodama-Nishimoto; professor emeritus and former director Davianna Pōmaikaʻi McGregor; and the Center’s current leadership. At the heart of the celebration will be the kūpuna and elders who entrusted COH with their most personal memories – and whose stories now belong to us all.
But the anniversary isn’t only a moment to look back. It’s a call to action. COH has launched the Warren Nishimoto and Michi Kodama-Nishimoto Endowment Fund — named for the couple who dedicated decades of their lives to the Center — to ensure this work continues long into the future. More than $250,000 has already been raised. The goal is $1 million by year’s end.
“We’re truly honored to celebrate COH’s 50th anniversary,” said current Director Mary Kunmi Yu Danico. “This endowment will allow us to continue the important work of humanizing history through storytelling and shared memory – and to make sure the voices of Hawaiʻi are never silenced by a lack of resources.”
That mission has never been more urgent — or more evident — than in the range of stories the archive already holds.
In November 2021, Maui infectious disease specialist Dr. Scott Dallas Hoskinson sat down with COH researchers for the “Hawaiʻi in the Time of COVID-19” series. He described watching a distant outbreak become a local emergency in real time:
“We were all aware at the end of December 2019 that there was a new virus in the Wuhan province of China. We didn’t think much about it — it seemed very far away. But when significant numbers of people in California were becoming sick, I began to worry. Hawaiʻi receives thousands of visitors from around the world on any given day. I thought: We have no idea what’s really going on. We don’t have good testing. We don’t know how many people actually have this virus or how widespread it truly is.”
Dr. Hoskinson’s words, recorded just months after the worst of the pandemic, now read as history. That is exactly the point.
Today, COH is led by Director Danico and Associate Director Micah Mizukami, supported by community partners, faculty and dozens of undergraduate and graduate students who carry forward the painstaking work of interviewing, transcribing and preserving.
Mizukami, who has been part of COH as both a student and staff member for eight years, reflected on what the anniversary means to him personally.
“It is truly special to celebrate this milestone and to look back on 50 years of the Center for Oral History. The stories in our archives still resonate — and I can only imagine how the oral histories we are gathering today will be received 50 years from now,” he said.
With more than 1 million downloads and views of transcripts on ScholarSpace, the appetite for these stories is clear. The question now is whether the resources exist to keep collecting them.
Support the voices of Hawaiʻi – past, present and future. Contribute to the UH Foundation fund benefiting COH at https://give.uhfoundation.org/campaigns/67727/donations/new?designation_id=21045203&
