Hawaiian Youths Abroad Exhibit

January 13, 2025 Kawena Komeiji
A view of some of the materials on the large library counter near the Library's entrance, with materials from our Hawaii Pacific Collection related to the Hawaiian Youths Abroad exhibit.

Now through March 7, 2025, the James and Abigail Campbell Library is hosting the “Hawaiian Youths Abroad” exhibit on loan from the Native Hawaiian Student Services Office at UH Mānoa.

Between 1880 and 1887, 18 Hawaiians were selected and funded by the Hawaiian Kingdom government to participate in the Hawaiian Youths Abroad program, arguably one of the earliest study abroad programs in the world. The young scholars studied in six different countries around the world: Italy, England, Scotland, China, Japan, and the United States. The 17 young men and 1 young woman were selected by King Kalākaua to become future leaders of an independent and progressive nation, the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Native Hawaiian Student Services (NHSS) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa “restarted” the spirit of the Hawaiian Youths Abroad (HYA) program in Summer 2018, after a 126-year hiatus. With a similar intent to the original program, the NHSS Hawaiian Youths Abroad program provides similar and appropriate points of examination by exploring both the Hawaiian Kingdom educational and international diplomacy prowess in the 19th century while critically examining the illegal attempts that have attempted to exterminate such progress.

The exhibit is the final research posters of the 2019 cohort, who traveled to Paris and London to follow in the footsteps of some of the original Hawaiian Youths Abroad students who studied in England, as well as many aliʻi and diplomatic journeys of Hawaiians to Europe in the 19th century.

A view of some of the panels of the Hawaiian Youths Abroad exhibit at UH West Oahu, as well as some resources from the library's Hawaii Pacific collection that relate to the exhibit themes.

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