Playlist:  Hawaiian History: From the Perspective of Native Hawaiians by Jenna Makowski, Alexander Street Press

This hour-long documentary is a provocative look at a historical event of which few Americans are aware. In mid-January, 1893, armed troops from the U.S.S. Boston landed at Honolulu in support of a treasonous coup d'etat against the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen Lili'uokalani. The event was described by U.S. President Grover Cleveland as "an act of war." Stylized re-enactments, archival photos and film, political cartoons, historic quotes, and presentations by Hawaiian scholars tell Hawaiian history through Hawaiian eyes.

This is the story of three extraordinary Hawaiian women who helped revive Hawaiian culture when it was perilously close to being lost. It was a time when the monarchy had been overthrown, the Hawaiian language banned from public places and schools, and the Hawaiian heartbeat of hula forced underground. Mary Kawena Pukui, ‘lolani Luahine and Edith Kanaka’ole combined commitment to Hawaiian history with art and aloha, to reignite the flame of tradition. Each planted seeds of the Hawaiian cultural renaissance. Kawena as a history and language expert, teacher and author, ‘lolani as a chanter, cultural icon and ‘high priestess of hula’ and Edith as a songwriter, teacher and founder of the traditional school of hula, Halau O Kekuhi. The lives of these three great women are described through heartfelt interviews with people who knew and were influenced by them, along with wonderful archival footage collected throughout the years.

More than half a million native Hawaiians were living in the islands at the time of European contact in 1778. Within 50 years, that population was cut in half as Western diseases claimed thousands of lives. A litany of events followed: American missionaries preached unfamiliar ideas and customs; sugarcane and pineapple plantations absorbed individual farmlands; waves of immigrant workers arrived, making Hawaiians a minority in their own land; and WWII brought a lasting military presence. University of Hawai'i sociologists estimate that the extinction of full-blooded Hawaiians could come within the next 45 years. To millions of travelers the world over, Hawai'i is an alluring picture postcard paradise. But to its Native Hawaiian people, nothing could be further from the truth. Their compelling story, of a race displaced and now on the verge of extinction, is brilliantly told in this award-winning documentary created by the great-granddaughter of Hawaiian high chiefs and English seafarers.