The Global Hawaiian Ohana

Hawaiian is Hawaiian no matter what....meaning that you do not have to go there to get that feeling of Aloha...all you need are some Hawaiians in your life, no matter where you are on the planet. Wherever we are, Hawaii is also there.

This photo is of a group of young activists in Hawaii.

There is a whole lot about Hawaii and Hawaiian people that the rest of the world still does not have even a tiny clue about. I mean, there is more of a clue had lately but, not as much as there ought to be. I figured since people have decided that they can or ought to visit Hawaii right now, they ought to also have a clue about what to expect over there, especially when it comes to sacred places.

And especially places like Mauna Kea.

If you are not aware of what is going on in Hawaii, regarding that dormant volcano, then you might want to start doing a web search before you start your bargain travel search.

No.

Seriously.

Look it up.

Hawaii is not the Hawaii that you have been told it is by the airlines or by Hawaiiʻs tourism industry. Their Hawaii looks like their brochures.

Our Hawaii?

Yes... OURS

Do a web search.

Google "KŪ KIAʻI MAUNA" and see what you find.

You wonʻt find people having a lovely time in the surf and you wonʻt find couples getting married on the beach, and you will NOT find any Hawaiian local dressed in anything OTHER than a pair of shorts, a tank top, slippahs, and shades.

You also WILL NOT FIND ANY HULA DANCERS IN GRASS SKIRTS. We actually wear clothes all year round, and some of us actually own winter time clothes, because we are not all in Hawaii.

Our Maoli souls are there, even though physically, we are all over the planet.

And if you want to get around the island?

To hell with anyone in tourism, because they are GOING TO send you to the places in the brochures.

Just trust me on that one.

If you want to see actual Hawaii...do your homework -be kind and ask an actual local person because they are VERY GLAD to talk to you and tell you the truth of the place that I have always referred to as being this countryʻs timeshare - it ainʻt exactly owned, but, they ainʻt about to give the keys back to the Kingdom.

You donʻt have to believe me.

We are living it, watching it, have been watching it all of our Hawaiian lives, the way that people believe that Hawaii is just like every place else in this country, and it is not. If it were, people would not want to go there in droves.

The thing is, there are other places to visit - you can get to the beach anywhere along the west coast, and you can get on a plane to other tropical places on the planet...you do NOT have to go to Hawaii. The tourism industry there has actually totally WRECKED THE PLACE over time.

Every Hawaiian, every Kanaka Maoli person all over the planet has our eyes towards Hawaii. Our souls are already there because our souls were born there.

All we want you to do is please - e hoʻo lohemai - PLEASE PAY ATTENTION and respect that you are not traveling to a destination on your travel itinerary. You are going to what was once a Kingdom, and one that was taken by force. You can believe all you want to about what you read in YOUR history books, OR, you can ask an actual Hawaiian person why they get so angry when people go to Hawaii and disrespect the culture and the people who you are all so damned curious about.

Some will not like the answer that any of us gives you. When you go there, remember that RESPECT IS KEY and no one really cares what country you are part of - Hawaii, as I just stated, WAS A KINGDOM and last I checked?

This Kingdom one was headed by a woman - Queen Liliuokalani Paki, which made it very easy for bullying businessmen in those days to bully a woman and get away with it.

They succeeded in bullying a queen right out of her kingdom.

No, seriously - ASK A LOCAL...hell, ask ANY HAWAIIAN, HERE IN THE STATES OR THERE IN THE ʻAINA how our kingdom was taken. It is a story we all know and one we have all told. We are trying to make it so that our children can tell a different, better story - about how our Kupuna, our elders, to this day, are refusing to allow the world to continue forgetting that PEOPLE LIVE THERE AND THERE IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT AND BEAUTIFUL CULTURE THERE that no one seems to give a shit about for real (except us Hawaiian people).

It seems that all you care about are the now less than pristine beaches, insane poverty and homelessness and most of it being Hawaiians - you know...in HAWAII? Where at one time they might have at least lived in an apartment, but they keep getting priced out of the market? Because people keep coming over there and buying up the land as though no one ever lived there before it became a place where the natives are dying? Because they are without what basic things they need?

You mean that Hawaii?

Of course not.

You mean the one that you see on the brochures and the one that you can get a "two-fer" and take your bestie with you and go sit and drink on the beach and not worry about why those people next to you seem to be living there.

Because they ARE living there.

...and no, they were not all and are not all on drugs because I know, personally, that ending up homeless is not always because you were an addict.

Abuse also happens there, and in this case it is the government and tourism industry interests that have caused what can only be believed as being the killing of and the dying off of Hawaiians, our culture and our land.

All so people can have a danged pink drink with an umbrella whilst roasting themselves in a swimsuit that is crying for relief (if only the straps would break, yes? Please pay attention to the tag inside - if it is not your size please DONʻT FORCE IT...I said it so deal with it) and take selfies of being someplace where the actual people who have actual lives there, actual history there, actual ANCESTRAL STUFF GOING ON THERE cannot afford to eat, let alone do what lots of people just think they ought to be entitled to.

You know..that thing called a vacation - not all of us gets to do that.

Some of us are working, serving you drinks, and cleaning up your opala (trash is NOT going to just get itself into the trashcan itself, people), listening to you whine about how many homeless people there are and that there ought to be something done about it.

Here is an idea to try - STAY YOUR ASS ON THE MAINLAND. We have LOTS of beaches here you can visit.

Mauna Kea

They gathered, and still gather, at Mauna Kea, all the time, for all of the reasons that Hawaiians have gathered over the course of our peoplesʻ history. It is not different today. This is why there are people there and still at the mountain, people called Kiaʻi. That is what those people in the photo are called - Kiaʻi - protectors.

There are species of plants and animals which are native ONLY to Hawaii, and ONLY to that mountain. Some people here on this side of the ocean want to put another telescope on top of Mauna Kea - construction, for now, has been halted.

That it is halted for now is one thing.

That we still have to protect the mountain -Mauna Kea - is quite another story.

Protection of Mauna Kea is ongoing. It has always been - there need not be one more "thing" put on top of that mountain OTHER THAN footprints placed there by the people who that place means the very most to - KANAKA MAOLI .....meaning All Us Guys called Hawaiians.

There are still protectors at the mountain. There are still the multitudes of Hawaiians as well as the rest of the people of the Polynesian islands the world over with our hearts, and minds, and Maoli souls still, always and will remain to be gathered at the mountain.

Even from way over here.

If you are Hawaiian, you are Hawaiian wherever you are. If you know Hawaiians, wherever you are - you do not need to go to Hawaii because it is sitting there with you in your friend who thinks of you as their family.

This is my actual family.

Wherever there are Hawaiian people, Hawaii is also there. Hawaii is our Ancestral homeland.

Being Keiki O Kaʻaina - A child of the land, means that we carry Aloha with us wherever we go - NOT just the Spirit of Aloha, but the real deal. You cannot buy it. It is not for sale, for any price.

Including the ability to make all of the ono kine food made over there in all of those little roadside eateries and food trucks that dot Oahuʻs Kam Hwy.

We make those things, too.

Because of this, wherever we, on the mainland, go, Hawaii is there, too.

Not all Hawaiians catch wave - some catch ea (air), because we do not all live at the beach. Besides...you do not always need to vacation at the beach.

Again...lots of beaches here in California.

These are a few of my specific Hawaiians

Everywhere that we are, we bring Aloha with us.

Our gardens are massive and our families are huge, and every single one of us has a cousin, an aunty, a daughter, or we, ourselves, have danced hula from the time that we barely learned how to walk.

Our uncles play music. Our aunties make lots of food. Our families get together to string leis for graduations, weddings, baby luaus and memorials, to cook food for the same reason.

Every single one of us has at least two pairs of "slippah" - one pair for everyday, and one to wear to special occasions. And we do not wear them because we are lazy and do not like to tie our shoes. We wear them because of the fact that when there is sand everywhere that you live, it tends to stick to the bottoms of sneakers, but you can leave your slippahs outside.

Which brings me to the fact that for MANY MORE reasons than JUST avoiding plenty of sand all over the floors will you be expected to take your shoes off before going into anyoneʻs house, and perhaps even some Temples of Worship. Lots of people believe in the energies that surround us, and we are not different. Wearing shoes into the house could bring some sort of spiritual nastiness.

Nobody wants or needs that.

If you read the sign, no matter where you go, and it says to remove your shoes before going in, just take your shoes off.

I cannot imagine, anyway, why anyone would want to wear actual shoes in Hawaii as is.

We grow things here that our families in Hawaii grow there. People are amazed at the things that we make come to life in a small patch of earth, are amazed that some of us pattern the watering time to mirror that of the original way that the rain fell on the plant the cuttings were had from.

And in at least our yard, no matter where that yard was, there was always magic, always brightly colored plumeria and sweet smelling pikake, ginger growing in a mad array of orange and yellow, ti leaf groves and taro patches in places roses wonʻt grow - but always, those Hawaiian plants grew, and grow, not because plants just grow in dirt and sunlight, but, because Hawaiian plants and Hawaiian people have always had a bond, have always taken care of each other, have always known each otherʻs place in that circle called Life.

You would not go to your friendʻs house and just make yourself right at home, would you?

Okay so some of us have a friend or two who does treat us like family enough that we could walk right on into their house and they would not even have a problem with it. I am not talking about those friends, even though it seems, at times, that those friends are the ones who barge right on into the Land of Aloha and into the everyday lives of the people who live there for real.

The truth is that no you would not. You would not go and act like somehow you own the place and they can go jump in a lake if they donʻt like it -you have landed in Hawaii and this means that on some level you believe you have arrived and not only just literally.

Rather than going there and having an "epic time, bruh," go there with the thought in your head that people live there and that those people are daily fighting for their rights as natives in their native land.

I wonʻt ever say that you will go there and for sure have an issue with a local. I will always say that when you get there, do not be shocked if those local people treat you like you do not belong there.

It happens, and more often than not, it is because some damned tourist ...well, was being a damned tourist. I live in Southern California. I know about the damned tourists.

Some might even be very loud about expressing their displeasure at the idea that there is a huge thing going on all over the world right now called a pandemic and that it might be a good idea, if you feel you must travel, to travel within your own state.

It is a teeny tiny place, Hawaii is.

People can get sick very easily.

I realize that it is 2021 and there are advances in medicine that make it easier to survive things like a global pandemic, but, this does not mean that humans are anymore willing to think about someone elseʻs wellness. The only wellness that matters is their own, and since they took care of what they needed to, everyone else can go to hell - you are going on vacation, damnit - and those people wherever you land better not have a problem with it.

Lots of people think mainly about their need to get away from their lives once or twice a year, and go to other places and some of them actually feel entitled to it.

So much so that this sense of entitlement is what many walk around the island with, speaking to the locals as though the locals are just going to take your crap.

They are not.

What they might do is become very angry at the idea that a lot of people over the course of generations have gone there and pretty much wrecked the place for the people who live there.

Kind of like going to that same friendʻs house and taking a big greasy dump without flushing it, leaving the newspaper that you read and left on the floor and the empty toilet paper roll on the roller -fully well knowing that you ought to pick up after yourself. But, you donʻt, and you wonʻt, because there are some people who actually live by the idea that since they are a guest, it is up to you, as the host, to handle their every whim and need.

That, and plenty of people wonʻt even know this but at one time there was a Leper colony on the island of Molkaʻi, where a Catholic Priest whose name was Father Damien who became Saint Damien of Molokaʻi and is a Hawaiian Island rock star in the Catholic church.

He served the sick when the Island of was turned into a Leper colony and the unofficial "government officials" exiled (mainly Hawaiian) people there to die.

Meaning that every Hawaiian who was a descendant of those Hawaiians on Molokaʻi have cellular memory that was passed down from those people. They would be the ones who I have to imagine are most terrified right now, because the fear and historical genetic remembrance of those times is still in their cells - and causing people to be hyper vigilant about people from other places in the world - because their selves as souls recall the pain of exile due to illness.

I am asked a whole lot if I ever would move there.

It is not something that I have really thought about, for the simple fact that I have a life here.

I was born here - on the wrong side of the water, so to speak.

I will stay here, on my side of the ocean, NOT because I do not love Hawaii, but, in fact, because I love Hawaii and everyone there so very dearly much.

Except for that Ige guy....someone needs to feed him to Pele, like yesterday.

He sucks. Just know that much.

When I do think about it, I think about how much there is already so much environmental damage, most of it irreversible. The strangest part is that lots of these places have been closed to the public for a very long time. It is the public that ignores the danger and it is the public which does not give a damn about what damage it does.

People just love being able to say that they did something, even and namely if it is illegal - and desecrating land for the purpose of being able to say that you have done something "just once" is a cop out.

And, it is WAY selfish.

One of those places is a popular hiking "trail" which has gone by the name Haʻiku Stairs also known as Hawaiiʻs Stairway to Heaven. It is extremely dangerous for both people and the plants and animals that live along that "stairway."

(Not to mention kind of lolo, too, to climb all the way up there and forget about those tradewinds....hahahahaaa yeah - smart you are, yes?)

No one cares that you spent a bunch of money to see all of the sights.

Have some common sense and learn to follow the rules.

Just because you want to do something it does not mean that you ought to just break the law, "just this once," so that you can have a pretty picture. Thereʻs lots of them already in existence. You do not need to take your silly ass to lots of places simply because you could die trying to.

More than that, there are plenty of island people who would be offended by the idea that you would sooner and further desecrate someoneʻs home than you would to just stop and smell the flowers without stealing them, not touch the sea turtles because they are endangered (you WILL go to jail if you do), clean up after yourselves (because no one there is your mommy), and more than much else - when in doubt ASK A LOCAL.

Most of them will APPRECIATE you just following the laws and the rules of good and decent behavior, and most of all THE LAND - it is called Malama ʻaina, and you will actually need to do it there, instead of just talking about environmental issues on the plane next to that cute blonde from CSUSD (or USCB, or CPSLO or CPP - yeah, California, I am SO talkinʻ to a lot of you who live here in the land of botched botox).

No seriously

Do something different.

Follow rules.

Obey laws.

Donʻt be an ass.

Simple as that.

Oh yeah - for real, donʻt take the lava rocks from any of those islands. You do not have to believe me when I say that you will not be okay until they are returned.

But you ainʻt gotta listen to any Hawaiian person.

Haha gʻhead....f*ck around and find out.