{"id":15978,"date":"2025-08-22T13:20:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=15978"},"modified":"2025-08-22T15:44:35","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T15:44:35","slug":"historical-narrative-in-reported-memoir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2025\/08\/22\/historical-narrative-in-reported-memoir\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting the historical narrative in a reported memoir"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Sign up for the Nieman Storyboard newsletter,<\/em><\/a> delivered every Friday in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Dear Storyboard community, <\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I am away this week, so it seems like a perfect moment to hand the reins over to one of our Storyboard contributors. Here’s a special guest post from acclaimed author, journalist, and recent Nieman Storyboard podcast guest<\/a> Erika Hayasaki<\/a>. \u2014Mark<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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As is the case for many journalists, Sara Kehaulani Goo<\/a>\u2019s decades-long career led her to far-flung places and new cities. She\u2019s worked as a senior news executive who has helped lead media organizations such as Axios, NPR, and The Washington Post, <\/em>where she was recently named President of the Creator Network<\/a>. But for years, even while working with reporters covering the world\u2019s biggest news stories, Goo felt pulled to return to tell a story of her family\u2019s homeland on Maui. She long believed the dominant narrative about Hawaii needed to be corrected. But how would she begin to tell that story?<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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In 2019, the narrative thread found her. Goo learned that her family was at risk of losing its ancestral land, given to them by King Kamehameha III in 1848. \u201cAs a journalist, I was trained to keep myself out of the story,\u201d Goo told me<\/a>. \u201cIt took time and, honestly, life circumstances, to realize my family\u2019s story was worth telling in my own voice, and that it could resonate beyond just me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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There is a special kind of literary power and authority when a writer weaves their personal insights into a deeply reported story about a place they\u2019re from or know intimately. Goo\u2019s new book, \u201cKuleana: A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai’i<\/a>,\u201d invites readers to understand Hawaii\u2019s broader, overlooked history through her family\u2019s journey. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Goo\u2019s braided book is one of several new narrative nonfiction releases I\u2019ve enjoyed reading recently, written by journalists investigating larger historical stories in their own childhood backyards, including \u201cBlessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama<\/a>,\u201d by Alexis Okeowo<\/a>, and \u201cNothing More of This Land: Community, Power, and the Search for Indigenous Identity<\/a>,\u201d by Joseph Lee<\/a>, about Martha\u2019s Vineyard.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Here are some key questions and tips that Goo shared with Nieman Storyboard for journalists to consider if they are thinking about writing a book that revisits a place from their past:<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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