Barry Nakamura
Barry Nakamura was an assistant anthropologist at Bishop Museum who conducted research on the H-3 sites as a cultural historian. On March 23, 1992, at a press conference sponsored by Hawaii’s Thousand Friends, he accused Bishop Museum officials of suppressing information about two sites in Hālawa Valley that he said were a luakini and hale o Papa heiau complex. Bishop Museum subsequently fired Nakamura for violating the confidentiality terms of the museum’s contract with the state to conduct archaeological investigations because he revealed tentative research results. His firing led to a protest at Bishop Museum on April 5, 1992, which was followed by a sit-in at the heiau site by Native Hawaiian protesters. The firing of Nakamura gave Bishop Museum a black eye and public opinion was generally sympathetic to Nakamura.
Nakamura subsequently provided testimony and documentation to support his claims at a hearing held on April 10, 1992 by the state Senate committees on Culture, Arts and Historic Preservation; Housing and Hawaiian Programs; and Transportation and Intergovernmental Relations. In his testimony, he stated that although Bishop Museum archaeologists were aware of the heiau complex, H-3 project principal investigator Jane Allen prohibited them from discussing it. He claimed that Bishop Museum maintained an atmosphere of fear and intimidation to prevent employees from publishing conclusions that contradicted what the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation Highways Division wanted to hear.
Later in 1992 and 1993, Nakamura wrote letters to the Federal Highway Administration to alert officials that a religious complex would be destroyed by the construction of H-3. He repeated his accusations of malfeasance by Bishop Museum and faulted the State Historic Preservation Division for failing to require Bishop Museum to comply with requests for information and the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation for not recognizing or acknowledging that the museum’s work on H-3 was poorly executed.
Nakamura later became an instructor at Leeward Community College.