When labor and social rights advocate Ah Quon McElrath is honored Sunday, it will be a low-key and somewhat humble affair.

It will be held at the Kapi'olani Community College cafeteria, not a lavish Waikiki banquet hall or even the UH-Manoa Campus Center Ballroom. Lunch will be served rather than dinner.

Then again, it's somewhat befitting for the 90-year-old with the diminutive body and powerful voice who helped shape the history of labor and social justice of Hawai'i.

The luncheon is a fund-raiser for the newly established Ah Quon McElrath Fund for Social Change and Justice, which will provide for an annual guest speaker at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa Ethnic Studies Program and, organizers hope, other projects.

McElrath, credited as among those responsible for the birth of the Ethnic Studies Program, agreed to have her name attached to the fund only after she was convinced that it would bolster the program's standing.

Ethnic studies is crucial in Hawai'i, with its mish-mash of different cultures, she said.

"Those of us who want to live here in the Islands and make it a good place in which to live need to understand all of the contributions that other peoples have brought to the Islands," she said.

It's been a busy year for McElrath. She was named one of the top 50 icons in the state by Hawaii Business magazine, an honor that was followed by her inclusion in the Honolulu 100, a list of notable people who have made contributions to the city over the past 100 years.

The daughter of Chinese immigrants, McElrath graduated from the University of Hawai'i in 1938 and soon became a key figure with Local 152 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Through the 1950s, the ILWU united sugar and dock workers of different ethnicities in an effort to fight for higher wages and work conditions.

McElrath took on the job as the union's social worker, initially as a volunteer. She worked alongside two other ILWU legends who have since died, longtime regional director Jack Hall and information director Bob McElrath, whom she married in 1941.

Bill Puette, director of UH-West O'ahu's Center for Labor Education and Research, described McElrath as "the Mother Jones of Hawai'i's labor history," a reference to Mary Harris Jones, the almost mythical advocate of coal miners and other laborers.

The vast scope of McElrath's experiences alone makes her a valuable resource, said Dean Alegado, UH ethnic studies chairman.

"She has the continuity," Alegado said. "Individuals like her make the history real to the students. It's not just these empty, dead letters in the textbooks."

Her work extended beyond ILWU causes. In her "retirement years," McElrath has been known to prowl the halls of the Legislature lobbying for a wide range of causes including woman's rights, healthcare and occupational safety concerns, educational opportunities, unemployment and disability insurance, gun control and physician-assisted suicide.

Former Gov. Ben Cayetano, who appointed McElrath to the UH Board of Regents, said that as much as anything, he admires her unwavering and seemingly inexhaustible focus in fighting for the oppressed and disadvantaged.

"What amazes me about Ah Quon is that her passion for the causes she's fought for more than 40 years remains the same," Cayetano said. "I believe she will be remembered as one of Hawai'i's great women leaders for social and political equality for all. They don't make them like her anymore."

Bill Hoshijo, executive director of the state Civil Rights Commission, said, "More than anything else, her life teaches us a simple universal lesson: Be principled in advocacy for righteous causes, and over time, even those who oppose you will have to respect you."

Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.