Centered on the first mission houses built in the 1800s, what was formerly known as the Mission Houses Museum has undergone a rebranding. Possibly it’s because missionaries have been cast as the bad white guys who eradicated native Hawaiian culture. Now, instead of depicting early American missionary life exclusively, the expanded focus includes collaborations between Hawaiians and missionaries, which resulted in successes like the printed Hawaiian language and widespread literacy (by the 1860s, Hawaii had the highest literacy rate of any nation). Through a series of programs, such as the evolution of Hawaiian music, and exhibits in the cellar of the 1821 Mission House (saloon pilot crackers and 19th-century bone-saw reproduction, anyone?), the plan is to encourage “emotional learning.” Missionaries, it turns out, were people, too.

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