Eight years have passed since Dr. Richard Kekuni Awana Blaisdell died in February 2016 at the age of 90. This column is a remembrance of the truly remarkable and admirable person he was, who set an extraordinary example by sharing his genuine aloha with all those he met.

Before turning to that topic, I will briefly note just a few of Blaisdell’s many professional contributions and achievements as a professor at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine and as a highly respected leader of the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement. 

After graduating from the Kamehameha Schools and the University of Redlands, Blaisdell earned a medical degree from the University of Chicago School of Medicine. He later joined its faculty and returned to Hawaii in 1966 when the medical school was started.

Blaisdell staunchly advocated for the health needs of Native Hawaiians in the pivotal 1985 “E Ola Mau” assessment report. He testified several times before Congress in support of the Native Hawaiian Health Care Act of 1988, which specifies that traditional Hawaiian medicinal practices should be followed together with Western methods.

As a sovereignty leader, Blaisdell was an early and strong supporter of independence for Hawaii and Kanaka Maoli, well before that goal was more widely established. He will long be remembered for convening Ka Hookolokolonui Kanaka Maoli — an international tribunal of human rights experts and advocates — in 1993, which put the U.S. on symbolic trial for violations against the Native Hawaiian people and the Hawaiian kingdom. 

As for myself, I first met him in 1987 shortly after I had returned to Hawaii from teaching in the Philippines. A year and a half later when I started working at UH Manoa, my office was in Moore Hall on the same floor as the Center for Hawaiian Studies.

Besides his faculty position at the medical school, Blaisdell was interim director of the center, so I saw him regularly at Moore Hall and we soon developed a friendship. This was very easy because I, and I’m sure many others, found him an extremely likable person upon first meeting him.

Blaisdell mentioned several times to me that he had adopted an orphaned baby in 1959 while he was doing medical research on survivors in Nagasaki and Hiroshima as a member of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. I found it an incredible story because he was unmarried at that time, and it reveals so much about the kind of compassionate and committed person he was. 

In 1961, Blaisdell returned to the University of Chicago medical school with his 4-year-old son Mitsunori (known as Mitch) for a teaching position. As a single parent, while he was at work, he had an African American woman from the surrounding community babysit his son. 

Only later did he marry Irene Saito, a nurse from Waimanalo, whom he met at the university hospital where she was employed. They would have a daughter, Nalani, who followed her father and became a medical doctor.

A computer specialist, Mitch Blaisdell is the chief information officer for ABC Stores. When I asked him, he kindly shared his remembrances of his father.

“One of the consistent memories I have of Papa was how he interacted with staff at Kuakini and St. Francis (hospitals). I was fortunate to have been employed for a time at both facilities, and Papa would visit, and we would walk and get lunch when we had a chance. My memories of the aloha he shared with everyone there and the genuine interest he took in everyone’s life always bring a smile to my face, whenever I feel stressed or down,” he recalled.

One of the things I am grateful to Blaisdell for is that my daughter developed her own friendship with him and continues to be inspired by his example. While she was an undergraduate student at the University of California, Davis, he accepted her invitation to speak on the sovereignty movement at a campus forum.

John Rosa, associate professor in history at UH Manoa, also had a close relationship with Blaisdell for many years, even asking for permission to use Kekuni as the middle name of Rosa’s son. He told me about how he first met Blaisdell in the mid-1990s at the Kapakaukau roundtable discussions on sovereignty that Kekuni hosted at his home on Thursday evenings for many years.

“He welcomed me along with two or three dozen people who came to discuss contemporary issues facing Native Hawaiians and other local residents. The attendees came from a variety of groups that ranged the spectrum of political views on sovereignty and the path forward. I remember the kind and gentle way he’d listen to everyone, politely disagreeing at times, but always willing to hear someone out, regardless of who they were,” Rosa said.

“There was so much that Kekuni taught me subject-wise about Hawaii but, above all else, I learned the importance of listening carefully and respectfully,” he added.

Similarly, in a tribute to Kekuni published in 2019, Jonathan Kamakawiwoole Osorio, dean of the UH Hawaiinuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, wrote that Kekuni “recognized the beauty and the value of the people he was seeing, even for the very first time. While he spoke often about independence from America, I don’t remember ever hearing him insult people or organizations that were pursuing federal recognition.” 

Blaisdell could somehow rise above those kinds of critical political disagreements and find a way to relate to everyone, including non-Kanaka.

Before retiring from UH Manoa, I used to have a framed picture of a smiling and lei-bedecked Kekuni on my desk in my office, which is now in my living room. I once explained to a friend that the photo is in my office as a daily reminder about how I should treat others with sincere aloha, as Kekuni consistently did.

He set a very high bar for all of us to follow. Please join me in sharing your thoughts and memories of Kekuni.