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Nate newton rig rundoiwn4/13/2024 ![]() ![]() She was the subject of the feature documentary film Kumu Hina, directed by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson. ![]() Kumu Hina is currently a cultural advisor and leader in many community affairs and civic activities, and she is in her 11th year of service to the community in her role as Chairperson and Kona moku representative for the O'ahu Island Burial Council, which oversees the management of Native Hawaiian burial sites and ancestral remains. She has also taught Hawaiian language at Leeward Community College and currently devotes her time to teaching Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander men in incarceration in Hawaii. In 2014, Hina announced her bid for a position on the board of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, one of the first transgender candidates to run for statewide political office in the United States. She was the cultural director of Halau Lokahi Public Charter School for 13 years, dedicated to using native Hawaiian culture, history, and education as tools for developing and empowering the next generation of warrior scholars. One of three pioneer transgender women, Kumu Hina was a founder of the Kulia Na Mamo transgender health project in 2001, focusing on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Education in Hawai'i. She attended Kamehameha School (1990) and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (2004), where she began her activism career. She has been hailed as "a cultural icon," and has earned the respect and love of many by persevering in her efforts to always be a role model and earnest representative of the people of Hawai'i. She is a fluent speaker of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi as well as several other Polynesian languages, including Tongan, Samoan, and Tahitian. She is known for her work as a kumu hula, a filmmaker, an artist, an activist, and a community leader in the preservation and protection of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and Kānaka Maoli culture. Kumu Hina is a Kānaka Maoli māhū– a traditional third-gender person who occupies "a place in the middle" between male and female – as well as a modern transgender woman. Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, known locally simply as Kumu Hina.
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