worldview

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I have a Black father from North Carolina and Japanese mother from Tokyo. My parents mixed-race marriage was illegal in most states in the United States.  Inter-racial marriage finally became legal with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1967, when I was 11 years old.  

When I was in 4th grade my father had to go to war in Vietnam. We were living in Vallejo, California. My Dad wanted to move his family to a nearby housing area so we could still walk to our elementary school. This complex refused to rent to my Dad because he was a negro.  This housing area had about a hundred white families, two Asians, but no colored families.  This was 30 miles from liberal San Francisco.  California in 1966 had housing discrimination. 

I learned at a young age, your race defines you in America. Living on the continent is stressful if you are not white. It is much easier to be a kid in Hawaii. Many of my Hawaii friends are mixed-race and being hapa was normal. 

I'm grateful my parents decided it would be best to raise their children in Hawaii. The respect for different cultures could not be found anyplace else in the world. Our inter-racial family was happier living in Hawaii. 

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

I attended Waipahu Elementary, Aliamanu Intermediate and graduated from Radford High School in 1974.

When I was at Waipahu Elementary, I remember the ashes floating in the air in our playground when sugar cane was burned. Our school was near the Waipahu Mill. My first mumu was bought at Arakawa plantation store. In the 1960s, Waipahu was mostly Japanese families who then moved to new development in Pearl City and Mililani. Waipahu  then welcomed Filipinos in the 1980s. 

I attended Aliamanu Intermediate at the peak of the Vietnam war. Our school had to make room for military kids by expanding  with portable classrooms. About half of the kids at Aliamanu and Radford were local and half were military.  The locals were Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, Hawaiian, Samoan. The military kids were mostly white, with a small number of black students. Our school campus was a wonderful mixture of diversity.

In 2007, when my daughter Imiloa was 5, we enrolled in Halau O'Aulani in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Virginia.  The Halau was founded by Kamehameha School alumni Ku'ulei Stockman and other Native Hawaiians living in the DC metro area.  The Halau was under the direction of Kumu Hula Keith Awai and his brother Kumu Hula Kimo Awai, who both studied under the late Aunty Nona Beamer.     www.Halauoaulani.org

After hearing Kumu Kimo say "Hula is the heartbeat of Hawaii" I was inspired to learn Hula in the Kupuna class. It was amazing to see Hawaiian traditions being practiced and preserved at this East coast Halau located more than 4,000 miles from Hawaii nei.