‘Ihilani Chu

Executive Administrator

ʻIhilani joined NHLC in 2012. As Executive Assistant, she provides executive and administrative support to the Executive Director, Management Team, and Finance Director and malama the office and staff with aloha. She has over 20 years extensive administrative experience in the field of law, human resources, and accounting: a legal secretary at various law firms, an office manager for The Native Hawaiian Advisory Council, Khlopin Financial Services and Hālau Kū Māna Public Charter School. She is also a Notary Public in the State of Hawaiʻi since 2006. She joined NHLC because she supports and believes in the Native Hawaiian rights work it does and its mission. As a Hawaiian, she strongly and wholeheartedly supports NHLC helping our kanaka ʻōiwi and protecting our ʻāina, wai, and kūpuna. She also enjoys sharing traditional Hawaiian culture with the staff.

ʻIhilani ʻūniki in 2003 under Kahuna Nui/Kumu Hula John Keola Lake and has been a cultural practitioner for over 50 years. She has been trained in hula, oli, protocol, canoe paddling and crafts by respected cultural experts, her kupuna and ʻohana. Under Hālau Hula ʻIhilani O Nuʻuanu, she teaches hula kahiko and hula ʻauana to keiki, ʻōpio and adults since 2007. She was a Hawaiian Studies kumu in various Oʻahu Elementary Schools teaching Hawaiian culture to grades K-5. ʻIhilani has spent 20 years caring for the ancestors of Hawaiʻi as a member of Hui Mālama I Nā Kūpuna O Hawaiʻi Nei. She was trained and educated in all the aspects of taking care of nā iwi kūpuna and is well versed in ceremonial protocols relating to the treatment and reburial of iwi kūpuna. She and her kāne have a nonprofit organization called The Hawaiian Church of Hawaiʻi Nei (HCHN) whose mission is to strengthen and empower Hawaiian spirituality through traditional Hawaiian ceremonies & protocols and whose current projects provides the opportunity for the lāhui to make the sacred items to mālama nā iwi kupuna and it also provides sacred items and traditional cultural protocol to nā kanaka paʻahao (Hawaiian incarcerated men). The wahi pana of Niʻuliʻi, Kohala and its ʻāina is in ʻIhilani’s ʻiewe, koko and naʻau.