page_title: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu
hierarchical_section_title: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu
caption_attribution_description: English: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu at the Kamehameha Day Lei Draping on June 10, 2016
context_page_description: Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, also known as Kumu Hina, is a Native Hawaiian māhū – a traditional third gender person who occupies "a place in the middle" between male and female – as well as a modern transgender woman. She is known for her work as a kumu hula, as a filmmaker, and as a community leader in the field of Kanaka Maoli language and cultural preservation. She teaches Kanaka Maoli philosophy and traditions and promotes cross-cultural alliances throughout the Pacific Islands. Described as a "powerful performer with a clear, strong voice", she has been hailed as "a cultural icon".
  Wong-Kalu was born in the Nuʻuanu district of Oʻahu. She attended Kamehameha School and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa where she began her activism. She was a founder of the Kulia Na Mamo transgender health project, cultural director of a Hawaiian public charter school, and candidate for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, one of the first transgender candidates for statewide political office in the United States. She also served as the Chair of the Oʻahu Island Burial Council, which oversees the management of Native Hawaiian burial sites and ancestral remains.
context_section_description: Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, also known as Kumu Hina, is a Native Hawaiian māhū – a traditional third gender person who occupies "a place in the middle" between male and female – as well as a modern transgender woman. She is known for her work as a kumu hula ("hula teacher"), as a filmmaker, and as a community leader in the field of Kanaka Maoli language and cultural preservation. She teaches Kanaka Maoli philosophy and traditions and promotes cross-cultural alliances throughout the Pacific Islands.  Described as a "powerful performer with a clear, strong voice", she has been hailed as "a cultural icon".
  Wong-Kalu was born in the Nuʻuanu district of Oʻahu. She attended Kamehameha School (1990) and the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (1996–2004) where she began her activism. She was a founder of the Kulia Na Mamo transgender health project, cultural director of a Hawaiian public charter school, and candidate for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, one of the first transgender candidates for statewide political office in the United States. She also served as the Chair of the Oʻahu Island Burial Council, which oversees the management of Native Hawaiian burial sites and ancestral remains. She is a recipient of the National Education Association Ellison Onizuka Human and Civil Rights Award, Native Hawaiian Community Educator of the year, and a White House Champion of Change.  USA Today named Wong-Kalu one of ten Women of the Century from Hawai'i
  Wong-Kalu was the subject of the feature documentary film Kumu Hina, directed by Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson. Kumu Hina premiered as the closing night film in the Hawaii International Film Festival in 2014 and won several awards including best documentary at the Frameline Film Festival and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Documentary. It was nationally broadcast on PBS in 2015 where it won the Independent Lens Audience Award. Wong-Kalu wrote an educational children's version of the film, A Place in the Middle, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival for Kids and is featured on PBS learning media.  Switching to the other side of the lens, Wong-Kalu co-directed and produced the short film, Lady Eva and feature documentary Leitis in Waiting about the struggle of the Indigenous transgender community in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga.  Her films on this subject screened and won awards at AFI Docs and the LA, Margaret Mead, FIFO and Commonwealth film festivals and are being broadcast on PBS/Pacific Heartbeat,  ARTE, Maori TV, TV France and NITV. In 2020, Wong-Kalu directed, produced and narrated Kapaemahu, an animated short film based on the Hawaiian story of four legendary mahu who brought the healing arts from Tahiti to Hawai'i and imbued their powers on giant boulders that still stand on Waikiki Beach.  Narrated in the rare Niihau dialect of Hawaiian, the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and qualified for the Oscars at Animayo.
caption: Kumu Hula Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu at the 2016 Kamehameha Day Lei Draping
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D5300", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2017:04:07 18:48:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "240", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "908", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1022", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9635", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:06:10 05:16:31", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:06:10 05:16:31", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "37/10", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode, return light detected", "EXIF FocalLength": "20", "EXIF SubSecTime": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "80", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "80", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1262", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2031", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "876", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "30", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Portrait", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}