Blog #25: Lessons from Maui
Peaceful beach in Kapalua.
It’s 11am in the morning and I’m laying peacefully on the beach. The hot Hawaiian sun is activating the melanin in my skin and reminding me of my beautiful brownness. Beads of sweat start to roll off my body, cooling me off from the inside out. Every once in a while, the misty sea spray or a passing cloud offers me a brief moment of relief from the sun. I look out across the big ocean to see the deepest hues of blue filling my senses. The sound of crashing waves lull me to sleep. I breathe deeply into the ocean air. I dig my heels deep into the silky soft sand. I feel the contours of the beach shape to my body and embrace me with open arms. I reflect on the fact that I am just one earthly soul, existing on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I thank the creator of the universe for allowing me to exist here. A part of me wants to cry, but I can’t seem to bring myself to fully emote. Something holds me back each time.
This island holds the heavenly powers of sacred beauty and spiritual renewal, but there is a dark history that looms over like a thick fog, even though many people specifically come here to avoid it. I feel a pit in my stomach and a sadness in my heart each time I think about how this island used to be, before foreigners came and changed it forever. I ask myself the painful questions: Am I a foreigner? Should I feel guilty for existing on this island?
The mystical mountains at Waihe’e.
This is my third time on Hawaii, yet it feels starkly different from the last two. For starters, I discovered that I actually have family on the island! My uncle Jesse and his two children, Jazzy and Jack. When my dad and my aunt were teenagers living in San Francisco, Jesse’s father was dating their mom (my grandmother). Jesse was born on the Hawaiian islands, but he spent about 5 years of his childhood living in the city under the care of my grandma and my aunt. Although my grandma did not stay together with Jesse’s father, Jesse was indoctrinated as family forever. It has been one of life’s greatest blessings to finally reconnect our familial ties during this trip to Maui.
The day after Matthew and I arrived on Maui, we met with Jesse and asked him to take us to his favorite local spots. He was gracious to meet us where we were staying at a friend’s house in Kapalua, the northwest part of Maui. Upon meeting him for the first time, we knew we were in the presence of family. It was just easy. Uncle Jesse felt like home.
He told us that it was a real treat to come out to Kapalua, because it’s a part of the island that he doesn’t frequent often. There was a time when the entire area was only occupied by Native Hawaiians, but wealthy developers have gradually bought up the land and pushed the Natives so far out that they can no longer claim legal rights to their own home. Their forced migration was to make room for golf courses, hotels, multi-million dollar homes, and swaths of tourists. Rich people own this land on paper, but Native Hawaiians preserve the historic and undeniable right to the entire island.
Labyrinth in Kapalua.
Kapalua is a very special place, not only for its breathtaking views and healing beaches, but it happens to be the area of land where Jesse’s seventh great grandmother ruled as Ali’i (chief) many years ago. She was once the overseer of Kapalua as we know it, from the tip of the mountain to the edge of the sea. Jesse honored this part of his ancestry and wanted to share it with us, by taking us to his great grandmother’s sacred burial ground by the sea.
Only minutes away from my friend’s house, at the very edge of Ritz Carlton property, lies a burial ground for the island’s sacred ancestors. Matthew and I were utterly shocked. It’s a strange dichotomy to see a ritzy resort sharing intimate space with the bones of fallen ancestors. Jesse informed us that when developers first dug into the grounds at Kapalua, they found an abundance of bones. Fully understanding that this was a burial site, they still decided to dig. They dug and dug until they gathered all the bones, then dropped them into a pit at the edge of the property. They threw a patch of grass on top of the grounds, closed the area off with a perimeter of hedges, erected a statue and a few plaques, then called it a day. Jesse told us that the site is often disrespected by tourists, who drunkenly piss on the graves or have hideaway sex. Matthew and I were truly appalled to understand the severity of the tourist epidemic and ancestral displacement.
Jesse made it abundantly clear to us how colonizers (now the modern tourism industry) have scoured this land of its beauty and resources. How they continue to take from the Native Hawaiians without remorse. How they sowed the seeds of invasive tree species that choke the land and kill the native wildlife. How they have convinced the world that tourism is the only thing keeping the economy alive, when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Before colonizers arrived on the islands, the Native Hawaiians had a rich and self-sustaining culture. The land gave them everything they needed, so there was nothing left to be desired. Colonizers did not improve the lives of Native Hawaiians in any way. The only success they had was stripping the land of its sacred culture and introducing an unrelenting wave of people who have no respect and trash the island. The Native Hawaiian community is not silent about these injustices. They speak their truth loudly. They are, and have always been, fierce protectors of the land.
Statue honoring Native Hawaiian ancestors buried in Kapalua.
Jesse’s daughter, Jazzy, taught us the term haole to describe a foreigner, but it’s often used as a derogatory term to express Native Hawaiians’ disdain for disrespectful white people on their land. The term haole goes so far as to translate to “those without the same breath.” When she made that distinction, I felt it cut deep. Native Hawaiians are a generous, hospitable and loving people, but when they experienced the wrath of the colonizers, they understood that the haole’s spirits did not come from the same place. Colonizers come from a mindset where everything about their own culture is better than the residents of the land they are conquering. It’s a sickening thought, to always believe you are objectively better than someone else, and that your subordinates are in need of your saving. This is the same place where “white supremacy” and “cultural genocide” are born. At the core, the injustices done to the Native Hawaiian people are rooted in racism, power, and greed.
Reflecting on the lessons from Maui made me draw similarities to my own Filipino culture, which is also victim to centuries of colonization (including by the United States). Hundreds of years of colonization have resulted in a loss of self, cultural amnesia of sorts. Who would I be if colonizers never touched our lands? Would I cease to exist on this Earth? Will I always be a “foreigner” until I occupy the exact place where my ancestors originate? While I am predominantly “Filipino”, I am mixed with so much more than I know. In which case, where is home??? I have often convinced myself that tracing my ancestry back to my indigenous Filipino roots would be futile, since my recorded family tree only goes back three generations. Even so, I know that we have been around for much longer than that. I am determined to dig deeper to learn where I come from, so I can remember and feel connected to the culture and land that my soul belongs to.
My time on Maui is a powerful reminder of what it means to be my own home. Wherever I go, I arrive with the good intentions to learn, love, and leave a place better than how I find it. In practice, that includes asking Uncle Jesse about the exploration of his Hawaiian ancestry and spiritual connection to the island, relaying those lessons to the people I care about, hugging and personally thanking the local food truck owner who made the most delectable poi mochi to ever bless my taste buds(!!), tipping the locals as much as I can afford and acknowledging their sacrifice of service, picking up trash on the island wherever I see it, expressing gratitude, acknowledging my privilege, and most of all, challenging myself to ask the hard questions which help me to evaluate and expand my own identity wherever I choose to exist.
Thank you Maui, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me rediscover the home that is me.
Floating by Twin Falls in Haiku.
