The Soul of Kalaupapa: Voices of Exile

The Soul of Kalaupapa: voices of exile celebrates the triumph and lives of the last remaining patients on Hawaii's former Hansen's disease settlement on the island of Molokai. Literally translated "flat leaf" or "flat plain," Kalaupapa has endured a century of pain and suffering, of obscurity and exile. Once called 'a prison fortified by nature' by poet Robert Louis Stevenson, more than 8,000 people were banned to this remote peninsula by the Hawaiian and American governments. Beginning in 1866 and for 103 years, those afflicted with Hansen's disease or leprosy were separated from their family and loved ones. When visitors are granted permission to enter Kalaupapa, even before they reach the Welcome sign, rows and rows of gravestones are lined to greet them, each one a memory of all those patients who endured isolation and suffered early deaths, because of a feared disease. Today, Kalaupapa harbors a small community, with only a few patients left to tell their story.