The devastating wildfires that swept through Lahaina, Maui, in the late summer of 2023 serve as a stark reminder of the precarity of Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage in a world made ever more fragile by the climate crisis. Gone are architectural gems that once were tangible reminders of Indigenous Kānaka Maoli place making and waves of migration and settlement from Asia, including the 1933 Lahaina Hongwanji Mission and the historic streetscape of Front Street. The nearly one hundred confirmed deaths and more than 2,000 scorched acres make vivid the imperative to protect AAPI heritage as a simple matter of justice.1
More than three decades of efforts to document AAPI buildings and landscapes in Hawaii, California, and the Pacific Northwest have revealed a wide array of cultural resources associated with at least three AAPI groups: Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans. In recent years, the focus has extended to...
University of California Press