Aloha State: Maryknoll Sisters in Hawaii refer to the United States as “the mainland,” and within Maryknoll, they're part of the Central Pacific Ocean region. Maryknoll Sisters went to Hawaii in 1927, 32 years before Hawaii became the fiftieth state. And it was from Hawaii that Maryknoll Sisters were sent to other Pacific Islands, such as Likiep, Majuro, Yap and American Samoa.

Invited by Bishop Alencastre, who wanted parochial schools, ten Maryknoll Sisters arrived on Sept. 5, 1927. Some of them helped found the Maryknoll School at Sacred Heart Parish in Punahou, which was staffed by Maryknoll Fathers. Four served at a lay-run elementary school in St. Ann’s Parish, Heeia.

Eventually, they staffed seven elementary schools and three high schools on Oahu and Maui. In 1944, Bishop James J. Sweeney asked the Maryknoll Sisters to set up a Catholic-run social services agency, and four Sisters responded. It was the first time women religious from the United States had ever worked as professional caseworkers. At one time, the Maryknoll Sisters had 18 professional social workers living in one convent!

In 1945, two Maryknoll Sisters were sent to open a diocesan CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) office, an inter-island program to train parish catechists. At their peak, in the early 1960s, Maryknoll had 165 Sisters in Hawaii. A total of 399 Maryknoll Sisters have worked in the ethnically diverse Hawaiian Islands at one time or another in diverse ministries.

Earlier, Los Angeles, CA, and Seattle, WA, claimed the fame of being the Maryknoll Sisters' first worldwide missions in response to invitations from the bishops in both dioceses for missioners to work among the Japanese. The Sisters administered orphanages, elementary schools, and performed social work and pastoral functions in these Japanese communities.

In 1942, after World War II hit American shores, 100,000 Japanese-American citizens were unjustly evacuated to internment camps. Maryknoll Sisters of American and Japanese descent lived with the internees in the Manzanar and Minidoka camps.

Founded in 1912 by Mary Josephine Rogers, a Smith College graduate from Boston, MA, the Maryknoll Sisters were the first community of Catholic Sisters in the United States devoted exclusively to the worldwide mission of the Church. From its earliest days, our membership has been international and multicultural.

In 2012, the Maryknoll Sisters will celebrate 100 years as missioners. Based near Ossining, NY, our mission center once housed Mary Rogers College, which served Maryknollers as well as other students until it closed in the 1970s.

The Maryknoll Mission Institute, an educational ministry sponsored by the Maryknoll Sisters for continuing education, provides programs for missioners and others engaged in cross-cultural ministries in their local churches. Maryknoll Sisters have had novitiates in New York; Valley Park, MO; Topsfield, MA; and Chicago, IL, the present site of our Orientation program.

In 1932, the Maryknoll Sisters Contemplative Community was established in New York, dedicating their lives in mission in the specific style of a contemplative community life. The program eventually opened a second house among the Navaho in Gallup, NM. 

In 1930, a tuberculosis sanatorium for Japanese patients was opened in Monrovia, CA; today it serves as a retirement house for Maryknoll Sisters. Starting in1938, the Sisters did catechetical and educational work in the California missions of San Juan Bautista, Guadalupe, and San Juan Capistrano; lived and worked among African-American communities in St. Louis, MO; Bronx, NY; Walterboro, SC; Roxbury, MA; and Carthage, MS.

We taught and did social-pastoral work with the "Chinatowns" in New York, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. In 1955, Maryknoll Sisters opened and administered Queen of the World Hospital in Kansas City, established to ensure an integration of black and white staff and patients.

Maryknoll Sisters also lived with Latin-American communities in many states. In Stockton, CA, we set up catechetical programs and worked in the diocesan social services agency there and in San Francisco.

We served, as well, with the Navajo in New Mexico and the Chippewa in Minnesota. With all these groups and many others, Maryknoll Sisters have learned the beauty and richness of the many cultures that make up the immigrant nation of the United States. Today, they continue in multiple ministries.