Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Daylenn Pua

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, I am profiling one Asian or Pacific Islander MP for every day of the month of May. Today’s case is Daylenn Pua, an 18-year-old boy of Native Hawaiian descent who disappeared from Oahu, Hawaii on February 26, 2015. I found his Facebook page, and his final post was on that very day:

daylenn

“The hike” was Daylenn’s planned trip up the Haiku Stairs, aka the Stairway to Heaven. This is a trail in Oahu’s Koʻolau Mountain Range whose stunning views attract hikers on a near-daily basis, despite the fact that it’s so incredibly dangerous that it’s been closed to the public for over twenty years. Neither the threat of death nor the threat of a trespassing charge and a fine of up to $1,000 has deterred people from making the trek.

Daylenn was last heard from at 11:00 a.m. the day of his disappearance, when he took selfies on the Haiku Stairs and texted them to his loved ones. He never finished his hike and is presumed to be one of the trail’s victims.

This hasn’t stopped other theories from popping up on Reddit and elsewhere, though.