Matt Hamabata, recently retired as Kohala Center director, has had a life of scholarship and community service that began in idyllic, rural Kaua'i. “My friends and I would spend weekends way up in the valley. We actually had hukilau back then and you'd jump in and come home with fish for the family. You didn't have a lot of things but you had nature to play in,” Hamabata says.
Hamabata’s paternal grandparents left Kilauea Plantation on Kaua'i and moved to Honolulu and eventually Matt followed when he was enrolled at Mid Pacific Institute. “When you're in the seventh or eighth grade, a few kids would take an exam and then they would be sent to boarding school at Mid Pac. We were given the opportunity for an old fashioned college prep education,” Hamabata says.
After graduation, Hamabata spent the next 20 years on the East Coast. “Local kids get sent off to New England, and one thing leads to another, you end up building your career back there,” Hamabata says. He earned a Bachelors of Sociology from Cornell University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology and East Asian Studies from Harvard University. Hamabata then went on to teach at Yale University, later becoming the Dean of Haverford College in Philadelphia. But his heart still belonged to Hawaii. “I missed how connected people were to each other and to the environment,” Hamabata says.
Hamabata eventually made his way to Los Angeles and was a senior staff member for the California Endowment. “Our mission at that time was to improve the health of all Californians. We used funding and worked as community organizers to build political capacity. We were concerned with projects that were environmentally problematic,” Hamabata says.
Hamabata found his way home to the islands when he was hired to consult with a Waimea leadership group led by Earl Bakken, who were puzzling over responses to a community survey that became the basis for the Kohala Center, began in 2000. “People didn’t ask for more social services, they asked for social change. Diversity, meaningful work that pays living wages and educational opportunities,” says Hamabata.
By the end of the consultancy, Hamabata was on his way home for a life changing experience. “Once moving home to Hawaiʽi and looking at those surveys, it became clear to me that I knew nothing,” Hamabata says.
Wondering how to proceed, he was fortunate to have Kekuhi Kanakaʽole Kanahele and Noe Noe Wong-Wilson as guides. The first grant monies were used to create a think tank of university administrators and scientists. “Kekuhi, Noe Noe and I agreed early on that we would always first orient any partners to Hawai'iʽs cultural and spiritual landscape as well as its natural landscape. We got them up before dawn and then we went up to Puʽu Huluhulu junction (Mauna Kea summit road). We began with Kekuhi chanting and the sun coming up. And as the sun came up, the mist turned pink and the clouds parted and Mauna Kea appeared. Stunning. And when she finished, Mauna Kea disappeared. And then Kekuhi said to them, 'I'd like to introduce you to my community.' All these folks were wheeling around, looking for a village and then it dawned on everyone that what she meant were the mists, the pu'u, lava, the birds, the ferns and it was a dramatic shift in world view,” Hamabata says.
That shift has lived on in Hamabata’s heart and informs all of the Kohala Center’s projects. Over the last 15 years, Hamabata, “an administrator at heart”, has left a solid infrastructure, his legacy to our evolving island community.
Hamabata’s paternal grandparents left Kilauea Plantation on Kaua'i and moved to Honolulu and eventually Matt followed when he was enrolled at Mid Pacific Institute. “When you're in the seventh or eighth grade, a few kids would take an exam and then they would be sent to boarding school at Mid Pac. We were given the opportunity for an old fashioned college prep education,” Hamabata says.
After graduation, Hamabata spent the next 20 years on the East Coast. “Local kids get sent off to New England, and one thing leads to another, you end up building your career back there,” Hamabata says. He earned a Bachelors of Sociology from Cornell University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology and East Asian Studies from Harvard University. Hamabata then went on to teach at Yale University, later becoming the Dean of Haverford College in Philadelphia. But his heart still belonged to Hawaii. “I missed how connected people were to each other and to the environment,” Hamabata says.
Hamabata eventually made his way to Los Angeles and was a senior staff member for the California Endowment. “Our mission at that time was to improve the health of all Californians. We used funding and worked as community organizers to build political capacity. We were concerned with projects that were environmentally problematic,” Hamabata says.
Hamabata found his way home to the islands when he was hired to consult with a Waimea leadership group led by Earl Bakken, who were puzzling over responses to a community survey that became the basis for the Kohala Center, began in 2000. “People didn’t ask for more social services, they asked for social change. Diversity, meaningful work that pays living wages and educational opportunities,” says Hamabata.
By the end of the consultancy, Hamabata was on his way home for a life changing experience. “Once moving home to Hawaiʽi and looking at those surveys, it became clear to me that I knew nothing,” Hamabata says.
Wondering how to proceed, he was fortunate to have Kekuhi Kanakaʽole Kanahele and Noe Noe Wong-Wilson as guides. The first grant monies were used to create a think tank of university administrators and scientists. “Kekuhi, Noe Noe and I agreed early on that we would always first orient any partners to Hawai'iʽs cultural and spiritual landscape as well as its natural landscape. We got them up before dawn and then we went up to Puʽu Huluhulu junction (Mauna Kea summit road). We began with Kekuhi chanting and the sun coming up. And as the sun came up, the mist turned pink and the clouds parted and Mauna Kea appeared. Stunning. And when she finished, Mauna Kea disappeared. And then Kekuhi said to them, 'I'd like to introduce you to my community.' All these folks were wheeling around, looking for a village and then it dawned on everyone that what she meant were the mists, the pu'u, lava, the birds, the ferns and it was a dramatic shift in world view,” Hamabata says.
That shift has lived on in Hamabata’s heart and informs all of the Kohala Center’s projects. Over the last 15 years, Hamabata, “an administrator at heart”, has left a solid infrastructure, his legacy to our evolving island community.
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