HILO — About 60 people braved a heat index that officially reached 91 degrees Sunday to bless the site of the future home of the Hawaii Island Portuguese Chamber of Commerce Cultural and Educational Center at the corner of Komohana and Ponahawai streets in Hilo.
It was part of a special weeklong celebration commemorating the 140th anniversary of the arrival of Hawaii’s first Portuguese immigrant families after a 116-day voyage aboard the S.S. Priscilla, a three-masted wooden sailing ship, on Sept. 30, 1878.
Local dignitaries in attendance included Mayor Harry Kim, state Sen. Kai Kahele, Reps. Chris Todd and Mark Nakashima, county Council Chairwoman Valerie Poindexter and Councilwomen Karen Eoff and Maile Medeiros-David — who revealed that Priscilla is her middle name but she didn’t realize its significance until recently.
Also present were visiting dignitaries from Portugal — Consul General Maria Joao Lopes Cardoso and Paulo Teves, regional director of communities for the Azores government.
“We have something so very special,” Kim said. “This is just one step in hanging on to something that is so very important.”
Emcee Gerald De Mello said that prior to the blessing he stopped by Homelani Memorial Park to place lei on the graves of his parents and noticed at least three headstones of Portuguese born in the 1880s.
“This connected me with how fitting it is that we honor this rich past and how fitting to tell the story of this very, very rich legacy by (building) this center,” De Mello said. “… It was the writer, (Antonio) Vieira, that said in the 17th century as we were exploring the world, “God gave the Portuguese a small country as a cradle but all the world as their grave.”
Before the diaspora that found Portuguese settling not only in Hawaii but Africa and South America, there were pioneering Portuguese navigators and explorers including Prince Henry the Navigator, Batolomeu Dias, Vasco da Gama, Pedro Alvares Cabral and Ferdinand Magellan.
“Five-hundred years ago, by need, we traveled the world,” said Lopes Cardoso. “We went everywhere. We discovered other worlds. And we mingled with other populations and other cultures. We brought them into our houses … we shared our lives with them. And we created, perhaps, the first melting pot. … This is one of the traits that makes me really proud to be Portuguese.”
De Mello, a retired University of Hawaii at Hilo social scientist and administrator, said the school’s librarian once told him students doing genealogical research and historical research of other nationalities who immigrated to Hawaii had adequate reference material, but there was a scarcity of research material on the Portuguese, despite a long history in the islands.
“I think there’s a need for a lot more ethnic material,” he said. “It is very fitting, very timely that we bless this land … to help perpetuate the stories.”
Mere moments later, Teves announced measures to help fulfill the need De Mello referred to, saying the center “will create a bridge — a new bridge between Hawaii and Portugal, and specifically the Azores.”
“The government of the Azores is going to offer a library of almost 500 books for the center, about the history of the Azores, about the diaspora, about everything,” Teves said. “Old books, new books, literature … so people who visit the center will know a little more about our country. … We are honoring our legacy, but at the same time we are preparing the future for a new generation.”
Marlene Hapai, president and interim director of the cultural and educational center-in-progress, said her great-great grandparents was part of the initial wave of Portuguese immigration to Hawaii, having arrived in 1883.
“Princess Lili‘uokalani was there to greet them. The Royal (Hawaiian) Band was playing. This wasn’t just a tattered bunch of immigrants; this was a big celebration,” she said.
Hapai, a retired University of Hawaii scientist and founding mother of the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii, thanked legislators for $1.2 million in grants-in-aid funding received for the center, and council members for grants to help fund the special commemorative week titled “Saudades: the Longing.” Events included a traveling exhibition and oral history in Kona and Pahala, a special showing of a new documentary, “Portuguese in Hawaii” and the Founders’ Ball on Friday at ‘Imiloa, and a reception at Aunty Sally Kaleohano’s Luau Hale that followed the site blessing.
“The (Portuguese) chamber was established in ’82. Twenty years later, in 2002, they formed a (nonprofit corporation) which is the cultural and education center, because they were already seeing, after 20 years, the culture was being lost. … And then, within another 10 years, Frank De Luz III gave us this beautiful piece of property. How fortunate to be overlooking Hilo Bay,” Hapai said.
“We start today with the blessing. By springtime, we should be looking at construction beginning. And, I believe that in 2020, the Sagres, a Portuguese Navy vessel, will be in Pacific waters. And we’re going to try to time it … so that when we’re celebrating the opening of the center, the ship comes in to Hilo Bay, just like our ancestors came in.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.