Born in Manila, Raised in Waimea, Bound for Jeju: Alliah Punzalan Is Representing Kauaʻi This March
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Alliah Khaye Punzalan
School: Waimea High School
Grade: 10th
Home Community: Waimea, Kauaʻi
Delegation: Jeju Island
Travel Dates: March 14–25, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: Tennis, HOSA (Historian), PAAC Club (Vice President), volunteers for available committees, photography; traveled to Nashville for HOSA ILC; attended PAAC LEAD Summit; studying Japanese; watches Korean and Chinese dramas; loves cooking and making new friends
Career Aspirations: Her goals center on cultural learning, community bridge-building, and encouraging peers to pursue international opportunities
Why They Were Selected
Alliah brings a perspective that only comes from living between two worlds. Born in Manila and raised in Waimea, she knows what it means to belong somewhere while still carrying another place inside you — she learned that viscerally when she visited the Philippines last summer and stood in floodwater she'd only ever seen on a screen. Her essay shows a student who isn't just curious about other cultures; she's already doing the quiet, daily work of bridging them in her own community.
What They're Excited About
Experiencing Jeju's scenery and history firsthand; meeting fellow student travelers; knowing this trip is something she can pass down to her younger brother and cousins as proof that travel is possible even without family resources
She Didn't Understand the Floods Until She Was Standing in Them. Now Alliah Is Taking That Lesson to Jeju.
Alliah Punzalan grew up hearing about the floods in Manila. Her family talked about them, the news covered them — but it wasn't until she visited the Philippines last summer and felt the water rising around her feet that she understood what it actually meant to know a place. That moment, she says, is exactly why she believes in learning things in person. This March, the Waimea High School sophomore will carry that belief all the way to Jeju Island, South Korea.
Born in Manila Valenzuela and raised in Waimea since she was three years old, Alliah is the kind of student who moves through the world with her eyes wide open. She's the Vice President of her school's PAAC Club, a HOSA Historian, a tennis player, and someone who spends her free time studying Japanese, watching Korean dramas, and cooking — building connections to cultures she hasn't reached yet. She attended the PAAC LEAD Summit and came home with something she hadn't expected: a new way of seeing the other island kids around her, and a fresh understanding of what they all share.
Alliah was selected because she doesn't just want to learn about the world — she wants to bring it back to Waimea in a form her community can actually use. She knows firsthand what it's like to grow up in a place where people stay close to home not by choice but by circumstance. For Alliah, this program — and its $500 accessible price point — represents something larger than a plane ticket.
"Even if they can't afford to travel as a family, you can still take opportunities like this to experience and grow so much." — Alliah Khaye Punzalan, Waimea High School, Class of 2028
When Alliah comes home from Jeju, she plans to share what she learned with every student in Waimea who's ever felt like the world was just a little too far away. That's not a small thing on an island where, as she puts it, some kids grow up believing the only experiences available to them are the ones right here on Kauaʻi. She's going to show them otherwise.
Alliah is a constituent of House District [#] and Senate District [#], represented by [Legislator Name] in the Hawaiʻi State Legislature. ([VERIFY WITH DISTRICT LOOKUP])
