Hōkūlani Haila Hi‘ileiali‘i Holt
Kumu Hula of Pau O Hiiaka
Director of Kahokuala, Hawaiian Cultural Arts
Institute at University of Hawaii Maui College
“I want every Hawaiian child to know how important it is for them to be Hawaiian. There is great reason to be proud of their ancestors that got them here over 3,000 miles of ocean.
They come from people who are brave, people who are resilient — people who were creative in order to land in a place they knew nothing about and to flourish to 800,000 people at the time of Western contact — completely able to live and flourish off of their own land.
We want our children to carry forward the best Hawaiian values, outlooks and behaviors. If the best part of your life was going to your grandmother’s house and always being welcome, always having your favorite food and always being surrounded by cousins — that was the best part of your life.
Share that with your children: having family around, having an open household so people can find comfort in your home. If you continue those best things of your life, when you were growing up, that is the best way to share Hawaiian outlooks and values.
I was raised by my maternal grandparents on Maui from when I was a baby until I was 5. And then the agreement with my parents is that I would go back to them, and they would educate me.
My maternal grandparents lived a Hawaiian lifestyle. They didn’t go, OK, Hoku, today we’re gonna learn about aloha.’ No, I lived with people who exhibited, lived, shared aloha.
If you were to look up ‘aloha’ in the Hawaiian language dictionary there are more than 12 definitions before you get to ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ Hello and goodbye is at the end of all the definitions — things like ‘love’ and ‘compassion and ‘charity’ and all those words are before ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’
Words like ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ are not a Hawaiian concept. You knew everybody around you, so you didn’t say ‘hello.’ You say, ‘I’m so glad you came to see me,’ or ‘So happy to see you in my home.’ That is how they would have interacted with one another.
I always wonder why people are so enraptured by Hawaii and Hawaiian culture when there are so many other cultures in the world. I think it’s what we automatically do and we automatically are — when you think of the word ‘aloha,’ for us, it is a deep-seated feeling and behavior.
It’s also because we share freely without any real thought of payback. We have the concept of reciprocity — absolutely, we have reciprocity. Let’s say I help somebody. I know that if I ask them later, they will help me back. But if I ask them and they say, ‘Oh, not this time,’ I don’t worry about it, because maybe their children will be helpful to my children. Maybe their grandchildren will be helpful to my grandchildren. And that’s it.
When my grandparents raised me, my grandfather had already retired from the government, and my grandmother was always a stay-at-home mom. We never went without, but I had a humble upbringing. We had a farm. We raise pigs. We raise goats. We raise ducks and chickens.
You know people who come from farm upbringing, they understand that kind of upbringing. Family was close; neighbors were close. We give that freely to everyone. We give that experience of welcoming and inclusion freely to all. All we ask of those that come to Hawaii is you respond in like form: You are open. You are giving. You are welcoming.
We all can tell if people are genuine or not. We always welcome genuine. It really is how you approach your life. You approach your life with joy and with wanting to be inclusive and becoming a part of the community? We will suck you right in just like everybody else!”
