Moloka'i

by Alan Brennert

Young Rachel Kalama, growing up in idyllic Honolulu in the 1890s, is part of a big, loving Hawaiian family, and dreams of seeing the far-off lands that her father, a merchant seaman, often visits. But at the age of seven, Rachel and her dreams are shattered by the discovery that she has leprosy. Forcibly removed from her family, she is sent to Kalaupapa, the isolated leper colony on the island of Moloka'i. In her exile she finds a family of friends to replace the family she's lost: a native healer, Haleola, who becomes her adopted "auntie" and makes Rachel aware of the rich culture and mythology of her people; Sister Mary Catherine Voorhies, one of the Franciscan sisters who care for young girls at Kalaupapa; and the beautiful, worldly Leilani, who harbors a surprising secret. At Kalaupapa she also meets the man she will one day marry. True to historical accounts, "Moloka'i" is the story of an extraordinary human drama, the full scope and pathos of which has never been told before in fiction. But Rachel's life, though shadowed by disease, isolation, and tragedy, is also one of joy, courage, and dignity. This is a story about life, not death; hope, not despair. It is not about the failings of flesh, but the strength of the human spirit.

• ISBN10: 031230434X
• ISBN13: 9780312304348
• Publish Date: 21 October 2003
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 13 December 2008
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[nannah]

On one hand, Moloka'i is one of the most beautiful historical novels I've ever read, but on the other hand, it has treated a trans woman so poorly that I can't imagine myself ever reading it again . . .

Book content warnings:
- transphobia
- transmisogyny
- abuse
- lots and lots of (sometimes violent) ableism

In 1892, seven-year-old Rachel Kalama from Honolulu has a mark on her leg that won't go away. It's the first sign of leprosy, and when her sister accidentally spills her secret, Rachel's forced away from her family and sent to Moloka'i, a quarantined island. Her own mom won't even write to her anymore, and she thinks her life is over. But life on Moloka'i isn't the death sentence it seems to be, and her life--with all its heartache, joys, love, and everything in between--has just begun.

Rachel Kalama is the perfect main character for this book. She's spirited and full of life in a place that sometimes is painfully short of it. I never grow tired of hearing out her thoughts and dreams and hopes. It's also probably due to the book's emotionally gripping prose itself, even though at times it can be a bit stilted and pass over important parts of the narrative to later summarize over them (such as Rachel's father passing away).

I also loved learning about this part of history I'd never learned about before but really should have. It really wasn't that long ago that any of this happened. I even talked about this to one of my friends, and she was so surprised that any of this happened in the early 1900s because she'd been so sure that leprosy was one of those things that happened sooooo long ago! Again, the stuff in this book is something people like us really should have heard about before but didn't.

About halfway the book included a māhū, a third-gendered person in traditional Hawaii, and from what I understand . . . a trans woman by today's standards and to Hawaii today? In any case, I was thrilled for there to be a trans woman of color included in this important historical novel! Until . . . she was treated like shit. The way she was """revealed""" to be a māhū was by the all-contemptible shock factor method. AKA, have her genitals revealed to the main character before the trans person was allowed to "come out", so to say. And here, a violent reaction is combined! Leilani, the māhū, was beaten beforehand by a man who was "embarrassed" to have liked her, a trans woman.

All in all, yuck yuck yuck. If the author had done any research at all on trans people's feelings at all on the subject, he'd realize that wow! This is the most unfeeling way to go about introducing a trans person, especially a trans woman, who today are faced with the most violence and hate!

And then Rachel feels deceived and cheated. Later in the scene she comes around, to later refer to a group of girls and Leilani as "girls", whatever that means. And when Leilani dies about halfway through the book (her appearance in the novel as a whole is fleeting, unfortunately), Rachel makes a mention in her mind about she or Leilani not having revealed her "true gender" to everyone. ?? Again, whatever that means . . . except I know what it means. Alan Brennert doesn't consider trans women to be women.

There's a middle ground here, which is the māhū, the third gender of traditional Hawaii, but Leilani as a character always said she wanted to be a woman. Said she had always wanted to be a woman since she was a small girl! If you're an author, you need to remember who your audience is, and what many are going to take away from this is that "trans woman = 'not a girl' when Rachel says "girls" and 'not a girl' when Rachel says "true gender" ", which cannot be allowed.

I'm mad that this happened, because this novel is achingly beautiful, and I loved so much of it. As Rachel ages, Moloka'i and her community/town of Kalaupapa ages with her. And at the end, in 1970, a very important statement is made. One of the patients of Kalaupapa invites a tourist and others to the town, saying how the State of Hawaii is trying to turn Kalaupapa and Moloka'i into a resort because Moloka'i's land is too valuable. He says,

"To them it's just real estate, but to us it's a lot more. The government forced us to come here, and now that it's the only place we know, now that it's home, they want us to give it up? . . . We won't go without a fight, though. Not this time."

As of 2015, six patients still live in Kalaupapa. When they die, there's a plan to erect a monument dedicated to the 8,000 patients who lived there. The National Park Service currently has four proposals for the land:
1). Make no changes
2). Maintain the status quo, but develop a strategy to manage the area when the Department of Health operations end after the last patient dies
3). Open the park to visitors, allowing unrestricted access
4). Establish an entry-pass system and require orientation for anyone who travels to Kalaupapa. Under this proposal, which the NPS prefers, supervised visitation would also be expanded

[ibeforem]

When we first meet Rachel, it’s 1891 and she’s a seven-year-old helping her mother make poi. At this point, none of them have an idea of the changes their family will go through. It begins with her uncle being tracked down and taken away because he has the “separating sickness”. It is leprosy, and it is taken very seriously, because Hawaiians are particularly susceptible. When Rachel’s mother discovers a red spot on Rachel’s leg with no feeling, she knows what is going to happen. She tries to hide it, but her efforts are in vain as Rachel is taken away to be evaluated. They’ll never be together again.

I thought this was a fascinating book. Not only do you get a bit of Hawaiian history before Hawaii was part of the U.S., you get to see a really unusual side of it. I had no idea that leprosy was such a problem in Hawaii, nor did I know the lengths the government went through to prevent its spread. They took the sick, young and old alike, and isolated them in an island community stuck in time. Not only are they not allowed physical contact with any of the non-infected (other than the nuns caring for them), their families are often shunned as “unclean” and forced to make difficult decisions. The lepers are assigned a place to live and then expected to make a life for themselves — however long it may be.

The book is wonderfully written, showing us Rachel’s story from multiple points of view. Rachel is relatively lucky. Her form of the disease is the less disfiguring one, so she is able to build some semblance of a normal life. So normal, in fact, that I often wondered how the book would be different if she had the more severe form. Not that she didn’t suffer; in fact, she probably suffered more than most, because she had to lose so many close friends. Brennert shows us a full range of emotion, from anger, to acceptance, to guilt, to hope, to happiness, and despair.

And, in a way, we also get a history of leprosy. During Rachel’s lifetime there are many medical breakthroughs, some more successful than others. We see not only what the treatments are, but how they affected people.

For me, there’s one thing more than anything else that tells me I’ve read a great piece of historical fiction: I go straight to Wikipedia to read about what really happened. Some characters in the book are based on real people, but Rachel is an amalgam. Moloka’i is a real place, and in fact, the parts of the island where the lepers were housed are now a National Historic Park. It is still an active leper colony, and you can visit by arranging for a guided tour. The only way into these parts is on the back of a donkey.

I highly recommend Moloka’i. Can ya tell?