I would like to invite the people of this tribe to give me their input and if they can and wish to their guidance. The following as a paste from my blog, I find my self in a conflicted place and would like to hear what others feel.
Mahalo a hau'oli makahiki hou
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Well, 2007 is behind us and 2008 is all around us. My wife is to deliver our first child any day now, she was due on 12.31.07 - though it is very common for first time mothers to carry past their projected due date. By January 8th we should have our little girl in our arms, one Mia Kekai. I am sure that anyone who has children can attest to this; the whole process, the whole notion, the reality, it changes you.
I am a firm believer that where individuals come from, the cultures and places in which they are raised in have a profound impact on the development of who they become in life as either an acceptance or rebellion. Not so much what they do, perhaps that is to a lesser extent but most certainly on who they become. I believe the orientation of what I have come to refer to as their moral compass or their system of values is, to a large degree determined by where they came from and the experiences they had. A healthy dose of nurture with perhaps a pinch of nature.
For me this is true. The place and culture in which I was raised has calibrated my moral compass and guides me through my life, though admittedly there have been times when I was too clouded to listen. While not Hawai'ian by ancestry, Hawai'i is where I am from and where (by and large) I was raised. Nearly all of my living memories of growing up are there with the land and with the people; kanaka maoli, kama'aina, ha'ole, all of them. I have lived on the mainland since 1996 and the longer I am away from Hawai'i the more I find myself looking back and in doing so, learning just how important Hawai'i is to me as a priceless and powerful land and and how important Hawai'ian culture (both modern and traditional) was to the development of me as an individual.
Now that I am to be a father there is a strengthening in my desire to pick up where I left off in Hawai'i. To continue learning what being part of Hawai'i was teaching me as a young boy and struggling teenager so that I may pass this on to our little one, because these things are too important to loose. How to live with the land as steward to the land, the Hawai'ian language, Hawi'ian legend, myth and history, song, music and dance. This is an obligation I feel because I feel it is the right thing to do, to give to someone else what was given to me. Our parent's, our child's grandparent still live in Hawai'i and most likely always will. We will always go home to Hawai'i. But unlike me it is not likely our children will be raised there. I am concerned that in absence of guidance our child or children will take Hawai'i for granted as a pretty place where grandma and grandpa live that they get to visit, and that it will mean nothing more to them. The idea of this makes my heart recoil.
As with most things in life there is a duality here. At the moment this is creating a conflict within me I am struggling to resolve and just as much as I wish to give guidance and knowledge to my child, I am in need of guidance myself. Growing up, in school we learn that Queen Lili'uokulani was overthrown by the American business interests in Hawai'i and that in 1959 Hawai'i joined the Union as the 50th state. This is the white washed version of history written as history most often is in school, by the victor. The truth of the matter is that Hawai'i is not a state but rather an occupied nation. There is a political and cultural struggle going on for Hawai'ians to reclaim what they have lost in terms of land and ways of life. My own values have me siding with the sovereignty activists, because they are right. Hawai'i from a legal stand point never was state and this needs to be recognized beyond former President Clinton's 1993 paper based Apology Resolution. Sovereignty activists come in many varieties from extreme to moderate, from native to non-native residents and even non-native, non-residents who have never lived there and have no family there. Having moved to O'ahu from Alaska I was about as ha'ole as ha'ole could be so the "ha'ole go home" mentality is not new to me and does not surprise me. Most Hawai'ians are, in my experience moderate and look at people's heart, beyond their skin. As the sovereignty movement and awareness grows, I find myself trying to reconcile what is pono (right); the recognition and restoration of the Hawai'ian Nation, and the practical pragmatic fact that many non native Hawai'ians call Hawai'i their home and some of these non-native Hawai'ians have a deep rooted love for the land and culture.
I sure I am not the only kama'aina, ha'ole, or foreigner to struggle with this and in conclusion I invite and ask for the input of others, native or not. I want to go home. I want to raise my family in Hawai'i. Should financial prosperity allow it I want to buy our home and live the rest of my life there, be close to our family and the land and ocean I love. Allow my children to grow up in the same culture I did, have a Kapuna and a halau. But that would mean that I as a non-native would be buying land or a home which sits on lease held land that does not rightfully belong to the person selling it. I grew up there, as far as I am concerned I am from there, it is my home in my heart, but it is truly someone else's and I was never more than a guest. I seek guidance on the matter. Mahalo.
Mahalo a hau'oli makahiki hou
******************
Well, 2007 is behind us and 2008 is all around us. My wife is to deliver our first child any day now, she was due on 12.31.07 - though it is very common for first time mothers to carry past their projected due date. By January 8th we should have our little girl in our arms, one Mia Kekai. I am sure that anyone who has children can attest to this; the whole process, the whole notion, the reality, it changes you.
I am a firm believer that where individuals come from, the cultures and places in which they are raised in have a profound impact on the development of who they become in life as either an acceptance or rebellion. Not so much what they do, perhaps that is to a lesser extent but most certainly on who they become. I believe the orientation of what I have come to refer to as their moral compass or their system of values is, to a large degree determined by where they came from and the experiences they had. A healthy dose of nurture with perhaps a pinch of nature.
For me this is true. The place and culture in which I was raised has calibrated my moral compass and guides me through my life, though admittedly there have been times when I was too clouded to listen. While not Hawai'ian by ancestry, Hawai'i is where I am from and where (by and large) I was raised. Nearly all of my living memories of growing up are there with the land and with the people; kanaka maoli, kama'aina, ha'ole, all of them. I have lived on the mainland since 1996 and the longer I am away from Hawai'i the more I find myself looking back and in doing so, learning just how important Hawai'i is to me as a priceless and powerful land and and how important Hawai'ian culture (both modern and traditional) was to the development of me as an individual.
Now that I am to be a father there is a strengthening in my desire to pick up where I left off in Hawai'i. To continue learning what being part of Hawai'i was teaching me as a young boy and struggling teenager so that I may pass this on to our little one, because these things are too important to loose. How to live with the land as steward to the land, the Hawai'ian language, Hawi'ian legend, myth and history, song, music and dance. This is an obligation I feel because I feel it is the right thing to do, to give to someone else what was given to me. Our parent's, our child's grandparent still live in Hawai'i and most likely always will. We will always go home to Hawai'i. But unlike me it is not likely our children will be raised there. I am concerned that in absence of guidance our child or children will take Hawai'i for granted as a pretty place where grandma and grandpa live that they get to visit, and that it will mean nothing more to them. The idea of this makes my heart recoil.
As with most things in life there is a duality here. At the moment this is creating a conflict within me I am struggling to resolve and just as much as I wish to give guidance and knowledge to my child, I am in need of guidance myself. Growing up, in school we learn that Queen Lili'uokulani was overthrown by the American business interests in Hawai'i and that in 1959 Hawai'i joined the Union as the 50th state. This is the white washed version of history written as history most often is in school, by the victor. The truth of the matter is that Hawai'i is not a state but rather an occupied nation. There is a political and cultural struggle going on for Hawai'ians to reclaim what they have lost in terms of land and ways of life. My own values have me siding with the sovereignty activists, because they are right. Hawai'i from a legal stand point never was state and this needs to be recognized beyond former President Clinton's 1993 paper based Apology Resolution. Sovereignty activists come in many varieties from extreme to moderate, from native to non-native residents and even non-native, non-residents who have never lived there and have no family there. Having moved to O'ahu from Alaska I was about as ha'ole as ha'ole could be so the "ha'ole go home" mentality is not new to me and does not surprise me. Most Hawai'ians are, in my experience moderate and look at people's heart, beyond their skin. As the sovereignty movement and awareness grows, I find myself trying to reconcile what is pono (right); the recognition and restoration of the Hawai'ian Nation, and the practical pragmatic fact that many non native Hawai'ians call Hawai'i their home and some of these non-native Hawai'ians have a deep rooted love for the land and culture.
I sure I am not the only kama'aina, ha'ole, or foreigner to struggle with this and in conclusion I invite and ask for the input of others, native or not. I want to go home. I want to raise my family in Hawai'i. Should financial prosperity allow it I want to buy our home and live the rest of my life there, be close to our family and the land and ocean I love. Allow my children to grow up in the same culture I did, have a Kapuna and a halau. But that would mean that I as a non-native would be buying land or a home which sits on lease held land that does not rightfully belong to the person selling it. I grew up there, as far as I am concerned I am from there, it is my home in my heart, but it is truly someone else's and I was never more than a guest. I seek guidance on the matter. Mahalo.
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Re: Input and Guidance
Wed, January 2, 2008 - 1:19 PMIt sounds to me like you're looking for permission to go home. As a native Hawaiian, and one that is forced to live in exile in California, it may be strange for you to hear that I too grapple with the same question you're asking, only from the other side. Sometimes I feel so angry about what has happened in Hawaii, and especially that my family has been forced to abandon their home just to survive, that I honestly get it in my mind that I want Hawaii to be only for native Hawaiians and that everyone else should leave. Such thoughts do not last long under my own scrutiny however. I can only claim that as MY scrutiny, though.
It's strange that the last few posts keep degenerating into one topic - race. That seems to be the central theme here again. This really speaks to the racial oppression that is found in Hawaii. I clearly remember when I was home last summer how almost every conversation I was in had something to do with race. People would tell me a story and always identify what race everyone was in the story. They say in Hawaii there are people there from so many races and that it is therefore a greatest success of the "American melting pot." I think it's quite the opposite. There are so many races of people in Hawaii, and a history of racism and the oppression suffered by these people simply due to race and culture, causes race to be a prominent source of discontent.
I can not speak to what all Hawaiians would say about you going home and buying land. I can speak for myself and some other Hawaiians that feel the way I do. I love Hawaii because I'm dedicated to the land which I am forever homesick for and I feel every day that it is my responsibility to go home and take care of it. I'm dedicated to the Hawaiian people, which to me, is not a race of people, but the members of MY FAMILY. I am dedicated to our culture which to me is part of the life of our people which sustains us.
So - all of this is to say, I personally have my dedications to what I believe is truly important in Hawaii. These are the most important things to me in the world and if they were the most important things in someone else's life, no matter what their race, I couldn't imagine not wanting them to go home. I could only see them being in Hawaii as something strengthening us rather than defeating us.
On the grander scale, and a view which seems to escape many people's sight is the greater universal plight of people around the world who are barely clinging to survival. I know I wrote in some other post about the historical struggles of people around the world and how that struggle is all interconnected and how ALL the people of Hawaii are just another cog in the great wheel. To repeat some of that here, but please understand the enormity of that topic, the world is going to hell in a handbag, and Hawaii's place in that is that of any other third world country being plundered of all their natural resources and human labor in order to make a few people in this world rich. Many of these third world countries are suffering from violence and disease and chronic poverty. This is what is already being experienced by the Hawaiian people, although not ALWAYS on the scale of some of the most worst off places. The violence and disease and poverty is increasing in Hawaii, however, and I would argue that our people and way of life are far more in danger than anyone is willing to imagine these days.
The United States is meanwhile devolving into chaos as this country is becoming more and more imperialistic and extending itself too far beyond its borders. People living and growing up here are completely losing their connection to anything good and sustaining in life. I too have a small son that I am raising here and have recently moved to the city to be closer to my university and it pains me deeply to see what this world is turning into. My son can barely go play outside because this place has become so morally dejected. I find myself telling my son stories of what ‘nature’ used to be like, as I was raised in the rolling hills of Northern California. Now we find ourselves in a world where I can’t find a tree that planted itself there on its own accord and strangers look at me angrily when I feed the wild geese who are trying to share our little parks with us.
What all of this is to say is that the people of Hawaii have something very precious to protect and at the same time we have the weight on the world bearing down on us. It will take many people and many talents to protect such things. If you are yet another number among our ranks that loves all the things about Hawaii that are real things like the connection to the land and our culture which sustains us, then go home. If you love these things, REALLY LOVE THESE THINGS, then GO HOME BECAUSE HAWAII NEEDS YOU!!! Go fight for that little place in the world so that it can be freed from oppression and so that our people can rise up and declare sovereignty, not just from the United States, but from this failing international system of plunder. It doesn’t matter what race you are. What matters is that you love the land and the people and the culture and whether or not you’d be willing to give your life to such things. Don’t dismay at our oppressed people telling you to leave because of your skin color. You KNOW why they act that way. If you love Hawaii the way I do – then don’t ever turn your back on it or allow people’s words to dissuade you from protecting it.
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Re: Input and Guidance
Thu, January 3, 2008 - 7:01 AMAs with the rest of the posts of yours which I have read, the time and thought placed in them is appreciated. Native or non-native Hawai'ian I think many of feel varying degrees of conflict and confusion regarding this subject. Being geographically isolated from the islands right now, I am grateful for the internet and this tribe as a means to foster communication between the people affected and to take steps towards sorting this all out. Mahalo. -
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Re: Input and Guidance
Sat, May 3, 2008 - 8:53 PMAloha kakou,
Here it is, many months since I've been on tribe, and it's wonderful to come back and find flourishing topics here! Especially the thoughtful exchanges in this and other threads. Yes, it's been a few months since someone posted here, but where are you all now in your thinking?
The recent reclaiming of Iolani Palace is very thrilling, and many other actions as well. People are rising up all over, and solidarity should be something we seek. We're all in this together, many of us against the giant devouring industrial/imperialistic juggernauts that want to take it all away from everyone -- mainly from people of color and those seen as more defenseless and "less deserving" but really, from everyone who doesn't toe the line.
It's good to be back here.
Malama pono.
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