Supporting culture & students for 70 years

In the heat of the war … ignited by Pearl Harbor, many drastic measures were initiated … The wartime policy or plan to exterminate Japanese language schools … was being implemented … I was confronted with the prospect of losing all property of the Japanese Central Institute of Hawai‘i … I therefore sought the advice and counsel of responsible persons … After prolonged consultation and deliberation, the consensus was to [create] a suspicion- free organization … Thus the Hawai‘i Veterans Memorial Fund was … organized for the avowed purpose of soliciting and receiving donations of language school assets which otherwise were destined to be taken by the Alien Property Custodian. The Charter specifically provided for scholarship grants … to youths seeking higher education. —Robert Murakami, 1975 speech

In the midst of World War II, attorney Robert Kiyoichi Murakami proposed a brilliant and unprecedented course of action that eventually established the Hawai‘i Veterans Memorial Fund (HVMF).

After the start of the war, the 121 private Japanese language schools in Hawai‘i were mandated to disband. As president of the CHUO GAKUIN (Japanese Central Institute), then Hawai‘i’s oldest and largest Japanese language school, Murakami resisted losing his school’s property. He organized a non-profit corporation, to which he invited all the schools to donate their assets.

George Wright, editor of the Hawaii Herald, noted that Murakami brought together a group of HVFM charter members that were “some of the best legal minds in the Territory – whose integrity, community leadership and tolerance are on a high standard … whose outright stands for fair play have won them nationwide reputations as truly democratic Americans” – J. Frank McLaughlin, J. Garner Anthony, Robert L. Shivers, Mitsuyuki Kido, Charles R. Hemenway, James T. Nishi, Farrant L. Turner and Murakami himself.

Then-Governor Ingram M. Stainback endorsed the plan and actively involved himself in its implementation in 1945.

HVMF’s purposes were to render aid to Hawai‘i veterans of World War II and their families; advance the ideals of racial and religious tolerance; promote good will and understanding among the people of Hawai‘i; and grant scholarships, loans and other assistance to men and women of promise in obtaining higher education in Hawai‘i or on the mainland.

Responding to this vision, HVMF received valuable donations that enabled it to assist thousands of Hawai‘i students of diverse ethnicities to attend colleges of their choice.

Since 1997, when a large portion of the fund was earmarked for University of Hawai‘i students, more than 2,700 students attending all 10 UH campuses statewide have benefitted from the Hawai‘i Veterans Memorial Scholarship, and countless students prior to that. These scholarships have made the promise of a better future possible for past and future generations.

Murakami will be remembered as a prominent and respected community leader in Hawai‘i. His stalwart actions helped Hawai‘i become a better place. His legacy of fairness and justice for all continues to touch the lives of all citizens in Hawai‘i today. His intrepid actions and values are ours to embrace, treasure and model.