This has meant that with my current fellowship, I am living and working in Salem for the first time. Adjusting to the weather has definitely been a bit of a challenge, as in Hawaiʻi we like to say that the temperature “drops” into the 60s, but so far so good!

While I didn’t have to adjust to the weather over the summer, the short-term fellowship brought with it quite a few challenges, namely the time difference. With daylight savings time, Hawaiʻi was six hours behind Eastern Standard Time and midday meetings for one of my supervisors translated into early morning meetings for me. However, the early mornings were worth it, as we met with many PEM staff members, museum professionals and former NAF alumni. It was eye-opening to speak with and ask questions to the former NAF alumni, who often told us how the NAF program prepared them for their current careers and gave us advice for entering the museum field. My mentors over the summer also helped me to talk with a few different conservators to get an understanding of how they understood the field, and even possibly what conservation program I might want to attend in the future.

Working on my projects for the summer, I faced the challenge of building a relationship with a collection I had never seen in person and was only able to “know” through images and catalog cards. During the weeklong visit to Salem in early August, I had one brief chance to dive into the collection and see the barkcloth that I had researched and wrote about over the course of my summer fellowship. It was important for me to hold these pieces in my hands and see them with my eyes and not through the lenses of others. And the experience was everything I imagined it would be. The opportunity to truly connect with these mea makamae (precious things) over these past few weeks has been wonderful. Learning about these individual pieces has made me think about all the ways Hawaiʻi and Massachusetts are historically connected.

And yet these connections are not just historical. My first introduction to PEM was around 2007 through the Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations (ECHO) program, which used storytelling traditions to build connections and educate the public about cultural exchange, and culture and traditions of Alaska Natives, Kanaka ʻOiwi (Native Hawaiians) and Indigenous peoples of what is now Massachusetts and Mississippi.

This made my meeting with Kū, a 200-year-old temple image from Hawaiʻi Island located in PEM’s light-filled new wing, a reunion after more than 10 years. You can read more about Kū on this blog in a post by Kamuela Werner (Kanaka ‘Ōiwi), a kind friend and alumnus of the Native American Fellowship program.

I spent five semesters at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa as a biochemistry major before suddenly deciding to switch to anthropology in my junior year. During those last three semesters, I took a few classes from Ty Kawika Tengan, an associate professor teaching anthropology and ethnic studies, and began to seriously consider working at museums. In my last semester, I interned in the ethnology department at Bishop Museum with mentors Kamalu du Preez and Marques Hanalei Marzan, where I worked on rehousing kapa (Hawaiian barkcloth) samples.

Through this internship, I found a deep joy in being able to provide care for objects that are so loved by both their home communities and the communities of people who are able to meet them away from home. It provides a chance for building relationships and learning about one another. Because my parents have both been closely involved in the repatriation of iwi kūpuna (ancestral remains), I also strongly believe that museums are not the final destination for culturally-significant objects, so for those people who are caring for cultural collections, part of our goal is to ensure that such objects are given the best care until it is time for their transition to the next stage.

Together, we sort through piles of barkcloth pieces and identify what treatments each piece will need. She is both a wonderful teacher and friend, and, in addition to everything else, has been helping me to build a portfolio for conservation school and providing me with advice about the different conservation programs. There are not many conservation programs and they’re all quite competitive, so I need all the advice she can give me. Additionally, there are no Kanaka ‘Ōiwi conservators and there are few Pacific Islander conservators, so I hope to change this in the future.

I am finding that another teacher in this project are the barkcloth pieces themselves, bearing the evidence of previous museum practices that were deemed safe, once upon a time. Today, museum professionals no longer deem it acceptable to use harmful inks to write on objects or cut up barkcloth. In the past, many institutions cut up large pieces of barkcloth into smaller “samples” and either gifted these samples to researchers or traded with other institutions. The result of this practice is that some institutions have large pieces with holes of varying sizes, while others have barkcloth samples of the oddest shapes. I have often imagined what an exhibit might look like if it featured a few large barkcloth pieces that had been cut up and matched them up with their corresponding samples to see just how many institutions one piece can connect.

The NEH project is focused first and foremost on the physical state of the collection. PEM’s additional goal is to augment our records with additional information such as patterns, dyes and provenance. Through working to increase the accuracy of the information we have available through research, consistent data entry and photography, we are better informed about our collections and are able to pass on that knowledge. The physical conservation of the barkcloth involves removing the pieces from their previous storage and providing the necessary conservation work so that they may ultimately be rehoused into custom-size flat drawers.