Koa Luke’s birth sands are in Waiawa in Keawalauopuʻuloa (original name of Pearl Harbor, meaning “the many channels of the long hills”). His background is political science with an emphasis on Hawaiian politics. Seeing how important archival research and repositories are to the Hawaiian community and other marginalized peoples, he became an archivist to better serve his community. Koa earned his master’s degree from the Library and Information Science Program at UH Mānoa in 2014.  Koa works as the assistant archivist/cataloger at ʻUluʻulu: The Henry Kuʻualoha Giugni Moving Image Archive of Hawaiʻi where he is implementing Hawaiian culture/practice into cataloging the content at ʻUluʻulu. Koa’s interests are archives, Hawaiian ‘ike (knowledge) and culture, and cataloging in a way that better reflects indigenous knowledge systems

“When one of our treasured elders dies, a library is locked forever.” Aunty Nona Beamer

photography by Robert Omura