[1] Her Nisei mother, the daughter of a Japanese picture bride and her father Kanaka 'Oiwi were both born and spent their entire lives in Hawaiʻi.
[3] In 2017, she left her position as a professor in the Sociology Department at UH and joined the University of Washingon School of Social Work as Assistant Dean for Field Education.
Professor Kanuha teaches courses on qualitative research, focusing on grounded theory methods, sexual and domestic violence, and historical and cultural trauma.
She is considered among the founding members of the first battered women's coalitions based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which also opened Women's Advocates in St. Paul, considered the first dedicated shelter for domestic violence survivors and their children in the U.S. [5] She is the first Asian-Pacific Islander-Native Hawaiian lesbian of color anti-violence movement advocates in the U.S. and is still the only Indigenous lesbian feminist scholar and practitioner whose research, practice, and activism have focused on intimate violence.
Professor Kanuha was the first woman of color to speak, write, and publish on same-sex domestic violence in lesbian relationships addressing the intersection of race and gender.