X-ing Out the Diseases

In the early 1800s, Hawaii became a place where diseases flourished. Foreigners came to colonize the islands and brought diseases that killed Hawaiian people every decade. Thousands of people would die from venereal diseases, typhoid, smallpox  and “Mai Pake,” which was also known as “the genuine Oriental Leprosy.” Leprosy was one of the diseases that caused Hawaii to “decide a policy of mandatory quarantine because it was the only way to stem this disease, which was falsely considered highly infectious” (The Daily Beast). This isolation led thousands of Hawaiian Leprosy patients to a 8,725 acre area. The area was a valley on the peninsula of one of the tiniest and least-populated islands, Molokai. It was called Kalaupapa.

At the time, Hawaii was still under a monarchy, and the King did not provide food for the community, and expected the patients to farm off of the land. Over 8,000 patients were taken away from their homes and families to relocate to Kalaupapa. The patients shared everything from water, to blankets and raggedy clothing. It was only until 1969 that the quarantine was lifted. It took a decade after Hawaii became a state, and it took more than two decades after drugs were developed to treat leprosy, known today has Hansen’s Disease (The Atlantic). Although they found a treatment, the experience of being exiled, and the traumatizing abandonment of these people was the ultimate problem. It was unfair to these Native Hawaiians to be treated as strangers from the rest of the community and the state.

The isolation of this indigenous community of Native Hawaiians is similar to how the people felt with AIDS in the 1980s. I believe this is a trend that we see with many stigmatized diseases. These Native Hawaiians were looked at as sick and could not be with the rest of the community, hence why they sent off thousands of the patients to be quarantined. Rather than helping these patients, it was easier to just let them slowly die off and be gone with the population.

I asked one of my fellow colleagues who is a Women Studies major here at LMU about her thoughts on AIDS in comparison to what happened in Hawaii, and she said, “I’ve noticed that it is something our society does. We have an idea in our heads to stigmatize the disease and treat these poor people differently. Everyone should be treated the same regardless.”

Because AIDS is so stigmatized, Leprosy was treated the same way. Since AIDS was looked at as a disease associated with queers, whores, drug users, or people of color, it was as if these marginalized communities deserved it. These Native Hawaiians didn’t deserve the disease and also didn’t deserve to be exiled. The way that our society works can be so disheartening. Even today, people who have such diseases are still looked down upon. It is not entirely their fault, and we as a community, and a nation, should do everything possible to help one another.