First,
thank you for your interest in the Polynesian Cultural
Center. Over 32 million people have visited our world-famous
cultural theme park and enjoyed our unique introduction
to the people and cultures of Polynesia. Providing visitors
with an unforgettable experience is certainly one of our
objectives, but the PCC also has a higher purpose:
In
addition to helping preserve and showcase South Pacific
island cultures, the Polynesian Cultural Center is a nonprofit
institution founded by The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (whose members are sometimes
popularly called the Mormons or LDS) and dedicated to helping
provide educational opportunities for students at the adjoining
Brigham Young University Hawaii. Since the Center opened
on October 12, 1963, nearly 15,000 students have financed
their studies at BYU-Hawaii by working at PCC.
The
story of the PCC and BYU-Hawaii, which are also inextricably
linked with the community of Laie and the Laie Hawaii Temple,
actually goes back much further . . .
History:
Laie
has been a special place for a very long time. With the
world-famous Polynesian Cultural Center, Brigham
Young University Hawaii as an international focal point of education
and the LDS Hawaii Temple as
a spiritual apex, our community encompasses a unique confluence
of Latter-day Saint heritage
and potential. Whether here for an afternoon, a few years,
or a lifetime, modern Latter-day Saint prophets, leaders
of nations, thousands of students and millions of visitors
have recognized that a special spirit permeates this small
community and radiates far beyond our wave-swept beaches.
For
example, a former BYU-Hawaii student from the U.S. mainland,
who worked at the PCC, wrote of her experience here:
Some
of the best years of my life were spent at BYU-Hawaii.
While the education I received was incredible, the spiritual
education that accompanied it was priceless. The diversity,
the generosity, and aloha spirit I experienced have gone
unmatched anywhere else I've lived. I still tell people
that Laie is the hometown of my heart.
Similar
reactions are common. Indeed, Laie has a history of affecting
people in special ways extending back a thousand years,
when ancient Hawaiians fled to this designated place of
refuge for sanctuary. The Hawaiians called such places pu'uhonua,
where they could find protection from warring factions
or absolution for breaking kapu or taboos. Although
the best-known pu'uhonua today is the so-called
City of Refuge in Napo'opo'o near Kailua-Kona, they existed in other
places throughout the islands, including Laie.
From
its beginnings in 1830 until today, The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints has been missionary oriented. Church founder Joseph Smith
Jr. first asked a party of men living in Nauvoo, Illinois,
in 1843 to serve as missionaries in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii).
It took them nine months to make their way from the banks of the Mississippi River to Boston and then
around Cape Horn by ship before finally reaching Tahiti, where
they decided to stay. As they do to this day, the LDS missionaries
lived among the people and learned their language and customs.
Other
LDS missionaries finally arrived in Honolulu on December 12,
1850, and soon found success among the Hawaiians. One
of those early LDS missionaries was Joseph F. Smith, the 15-year-old
orphaned nephew of the first Latter-day Saint prophet, who
came back to Hawaii on several other occasions.
By
1865 the LDS Church purchased an approximately 6,000-acre plantation in Laie
and
began building a community and a plantation. Within 10 years,
Laie became a favorite visiting place for King Kalakaua and
Queen Kapiolani, who were especially delighted in the number
of Hawaiian children thriving in the community. It was said
that more than anywhere else in the kingdom, the Hawaiian Latter-day
Saints had overcome the traumas of western contact. King Kalakaua
even contributed to building the community chapel, named I
Hemolele, and participated in laying the corner stones
and in its dedication ceremonies.
A
Pacific temple: Over the ensuing years the community
and plantation grew. Dependable water supplies were developed,
and Laie slowly slowly turned into a typical Hawaiian community,
until a rather remarkable event on June 1, 1915: On that
day Joseph F. Smith — the same man who had first
served as a missionary in Hawaii in 1854 — returned
as President of the LDS Church, and launched a new era
of spirituality for Laie when he dedicated the site of
the Hawaii Temple. President Smith's successor, Heber J.
Grant, dedicated the Laie Temple on Thanksgiving Day 1919.
Today
the LDS Church maintains over 120 temples worldwide (including
another Hawaii temple in Kailua-Kona), but the Laie Temple
was only the fifth one to be built, and was the first one constructed
outside North America. Until the LDS Church built a temple
in New Zealand in 1956, the Laie Temple served all the devout
members in Asia and the Pacific islands in the intervening
decades; and some international members — especially
Samoans — started moving to Laie to be closer to the
Temple.
The
flag-raising and international education: Two years
after the Laie Hawaii Temple was dedicated, Elder David
O. McKay, a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles, set Laie's educational milestone in place when
he visited the small town during a worldwide tour of LDS missions.
While here on February 7, 1921, he observed the multiethnic
children in the mission school raising the U.S. flag.,
and recorded the following in his journal:
The
next day, while on Maui, Elder McKay re-emphasized his feelings
to his companions and told them he was impressed that a college
should some day be built in Laie for the benefit of the young
people. Today, the flag-raising scene President McKay witnessed
in 1921 is reproduced in a spectacular mosaic mural above the
main entrance to the BYU-Hawaii McKay Building.
The
Hukilau: In 1940 workers using a blowtorch to strip
paint from the historic I Hemolele chapel in Laie
accidentally burned down the building. It wasn't until
after World War II that the residents of Laie, who all
belonged to one ward (similar to a parish) at the time, decided
to stage a hukilau fishing program, with Polynesian
entertainment and a luau, to raise funds to rebuild the
chapel.
