The Japanese Friends of Hawaii built a memorial to honor their Japanese pioneers. Two of the original settlers, Sentaro Ishii, 94, and Hanzo Tanagawa, 89, participated in the unveiling ceremony .
Since the arrival of these pioneers, an intimate relationship has grown between Hawaii and Japan, with the increase of the Japanese
population in the Islands which number 130,000 today. We who are interested in the work of the Japanese pioneers, to keep awakened in
citizens of Japanese ancestry an appreciation of the pioneering spirit of their forefathers and a sense of obligation towards Hawaii Nei.