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Hawaiian Studies Professor George Terry Kanalu Young passed away on Aug. 31, leaving the UHM and Hawaiian community in mourning.
"It's the feeling of kaumaha, of heaviness," said Hawaiian Studies Professor Haunani-Kay Trask of the effect of Young's loss in the department.
Young, 54, asked to be removed from life support. He was suffering complications due to his quadriplegia, a paralysis he developed when he dove into the ocean at 15.
Despite his many physical obstacles, Young went on to receive his doctorate in history and eventually became chair of the graduate program in Hawaiian Studies.
"He made us aware that if he could persevere, so would we," said Trask.
Along with Osorio, Trask and Lilikala Kame‘eleihiwa, Young was part of the founding faculty of Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.
As a professor, Young wrote extensively on the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, as well as the struggle of other Pacific Islanders with colonization and decolonization.
Trask describes Young's passing as the changing of an era, when Hawaiians no longer have to fight for the right for their history to be legitimized, thanks to the work of people like Young.
When Young first became a professor in 1991, his family was so grateful that the school was willing to hire a disabled person, Trask said.
"He was Hawaiian and he had a Ph.D. Why wouldn't we want someone like that?" said Trask. "We didn't hire him as a favor."
"I never thought of him as disabled," said Osorio. "Anyone who ever met him could not doubt their own ability to succeed in academia."
And succeed he did, creating the curriculum of the Hawaiian Studies graduate program and writing articles that are now in use by schools across the nation.
"He wanted to take his mind to the farthest of possibilities," said Trask.
His accomplishments were amazing, said Maenette Benham, Dean of the School of Hawaiian Knowledge.
"When you can't write and have to construct your work by talking into a machine, you have to compose it all in your mind beforehand," Benham said.
In addition to his brilliant mind, friends said they will remember Young for his humor and generosity of spirit.
"Kanalu was the kind of person who spoke up for people. He believed that knowledge was available to everyone-it didn't matter if a person what Native Hawaiian or not," said Osorio.
Believing his strength came from God and his ancestors, Young loved his job and continued to move forward, even after the death of his wife.
"He represents what longevity means-that you go on with your life," said Trask.
Perhaps Young's life story is most eloquently told by himself.
In a short story he wrote for "Chicken Soup for the Soul of Hawai‘i", Young wrote about how he overcame his disability and came to terms with the ocean.
"I realized the ocean had given me an entirely different perspective of life because of the accident," he wrote. "It had been just another turn in life's mysterious and endlessly winding path. It had not been the ride I expected, but what a ride."
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