The Harvard School of Public Health just released some national Avian Flu polling results, conducted as part of the HSPH’s Project on the Public and Biological Security. There’s some interesting data in there, including the expected general level of unease about the disease:

More than half of Americans (57%) report that they are concerned about the potential spread of bird flu in the United States. However, only 15% are very concerned at the moment. A higher proportion of African Americans report that they are concerned about this than whites (70% versus 54%). Similarly, the majority of Americans are not currently concerned that they or a family member will get avian flu within the next twelve months; only one in five (21%) people are worried about this possibility. Six in ten people are concerned about a pandemic outbreak of avian flu, that is, an outbreak in many countries (62%), but only 20% are very concerned.

But check out these stunning figures regarding quarantine:

Most Americans are supportive of quarantine measures. Ninety-six percent of respondents said that they would agree to be quarantined for two to three weeks if they had avian flu. Over four out of five people said that they would also agree to be quarantined even if they might have the disease (83%).

So, four out of five Americans would submit to quarantine even if only suspected of having the disease. Perhaps those numbers would drop if the government decided, as they once did, that the most ideal quarantine site was an isolated island prison—and that the quarantine was meant to be permanent.

As I mentioned, I’ve been receiving an abundance of e-mails and letters from people with a personal connection to the colony. Some want help in finding lost relatives, others want to know if I have more details on their ancestor, and many write simply to tell me their story. And again, I’m happy to share my research. Just send me an e-mail.

Dear Mr. Tayman,
I just finished reading your book and found it one of the most extraordinary and best written stories I have ever read. I thought you wrote this history with great sensitivity and thoroughness. I do have a question that I would appreciate your help if it is possible. My aunt, Alice Wickman, worked at the Colony as a teacher or a nurse for several years, I believe in the 1930’s, before she contracted tuberculosis and sent back to the mainland. My question is there some kind of registry of nonpatient workers and if so where is it located? I would like to inscribe her history in the book so our family does not forget her dedication. Again, congratulations on writing such a terrific book.

Dear Mr. Tayman,
Thank you for writing the book. It is of extreme interest to me because my aunt’s sister Mary Teresa, from New York, worked at the colony for about 30 years. In my meeting with her, which was only twice, and when I was very young, she told me only about the goodness of the people that lived there. She was a nurse and worked mostly with the girls in the girl’s orphanage. I had no idea of what the place was even about. Her name was Katherine, Aunt Kitty to her family. Thank you so very much.

At my reading in Denver some relatives of a man who had been exiled to Kalaupapa came forward, seeking details of his life. This has been happening with increasing frequency, and it underscores what I came to realize in writing the book: that this “deep injustice,” as the New York Times put it in their review of the book, continues to haunt families. I’ve received dozens of e-mails from people hunting ancestors who vanished in the colony, and letters from others whose relatives appear in the book and who now want to know more–or share more–about those lost family members. As the letters accumulate, I’ll post a few on this site. And, of course, I’ll be happy to open my research to anyone hunting details on a loved one, or a lost ancestor. Just send me an e-mail.

This is an appropriate day to launch this blog, because it was on this date exactly 140 years ago that nine men and three women were taken by armed guards and placed aboard a shabby schooner, sailed to an island 2,500 miles off the coast of California, and abandoned there to die. A year earlier, acting on the advice of Dr. William Hillebrand, a white physician at Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu, King Kamehameha V signed into law the “Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy” and determined that a semi-barren, naturally isolated peninsula on the northern side of the Hawaiian island of Molokai would be used as a prison. The law gave the government the right to arrest and imprison any person suspected of having the disease, regardless of nationality, and the rolls soon included not only Hawaiians and Americans, but citizens of Japan, Great Britain, Australia, China, France, and many others. Sheriffs and their deputies were instructed to comb the islands for suspects, and doctors, schoolteachers, neighbors, and even family members were encouraged to report cases. A bounty was offered. Because of the difficulty at the time of diagnosing the disease (leprosy has a years-long incubation period, and the disfigurement commonly associated with the disease doesn’t manifest itself in every instance), a significant number of healthy people were mistakenly exiled.

By criminalizing a disease, the law prompted what would prove to be one of the most extraordinary chapters in American history. It also marked the start of an almost unbelievable story of survival. I’ve attempted to tell that tale in The Colony. (But then, if you’ve found this site, you already know that.) In the coming days I’ll be posting additional details and episodes from the book, as well as historical documents, images, and anecdotes that I uncovered during my research—or have stumbled across more recently. Check back often.