Podcasts about kanaka maoli

Before Hawaiʻi was annexed by the United States in 1898, the nation was led by a constitutional monarchy and was recognized as an independent kingdom. Before Hawai'i's last monarch, Queen Lili'uokalani, was overthrown by non-native American businessmen in 1893, the queen sent a royally-charted Hula troupe to the World's Columbian Exposition to share the culture and stories of Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiians. This is just the beginning of the community's history in Chicago. In honor of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Reset learns more about Hawaiian migration to Chicago, the legacy of Hula and reclaiming the culture with executive director of Aloha Center Chicago Lanialoha Lee, hula teacher, visual artist and co-curator of Chicago's Legacy Hula exhibit at the Field Museum Napuahinano Sumberg and education committee chair of the Ke Ali`i Victoria Ka`iulani Hawaiian Civic Club-Chicago and Associate Director for Outreach & Strategy at the Newberry Library Kahakulani Blaisdell For a full archive of Reset interviews, head over to wbez.org/reset.

A Kanaka Maoli student at Yale is working on an AI tool to help clear criminal records of fellow Native Hawaiians. A Kiowa writer and artist is developing creative pathways to address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives. And a Tohono O'odham knowledge protector is archiving recordings and pictures from her tribe. Those are among this year's young people selected as Champions for Change by the Center for Native American Youth. We'll hear from them and get their stories of inspiration.

A Kanaka Maoli student at Yale is working on an AI tool to help clear criminal records of fellow Native Hawaiians. A Kiowa writer and artist is developing creative pathways to address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives. And a Tohono O'odham knowledge protector is archiving recordings and pictures from her tribe. Those are among this year's young people selected as Champions for Change by the Center for Native American Youth. We'll hear from them and get their stories of inspiration.

A Kanaka Maoli student at Yale is working on an AI tool to help clear criminal records of fellow Native Hawaiians. A Kiowa writer and artist is developing creative pathways to address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives. And a Tohono O'odham knowledge protector is archiving recordings and pictures from her tribe. Those are among this year's young people selected as Champions for Change by the Center for Native American Youth. We'll hear from them and get their stories of inspiration. GUESTS Lily Painter Kiowa name is Brings Water (Kiowa & Winnebago), 2025 Champion for Change Lourdes Pereira (Hia-Ced O'odham and Yoeme and a citizen of the Tohono O'odham Nation), 2025 Champion for Change and community memory protector Katie Lynch (Citizen Band Potawatomi Nation), 2025 Champion for Change and PhD student at the University of Michigan Joshua Ching (Native Hawaiian), 2025 Champion for Change and student at Yale University

A Kanaka Maoli student at Yale is working on an AI tool to help clear criminal records of fellow Native Hawaiians. A Kiowa writer and artist is developing creative pathways to address Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives. And a Tohono O'odham knowledge protector is archiving recordings and pictures from her tribe. Those are among this year's young people selected as Champions for Change by the Center for Native American Youth. We'll hear from them and get their stories of inspiration.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Powerleegirls Hosts Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-Lee host and Ayame Keane-Lee edits a chat about leadership, growth and change during a time of crisis. Listen to Jalena speak with Meng Hua from Tiger Eye Astrology about her path from palm reading to artistry to bazi. Then hear Miko speak with Zen Master Norma Wong  about her new book When No Thing Works. More information about our guests: Meng Hua's Tiger Eye Astrology  Zen Master Norma Wong her new book When No Thing Works Guide to how to hold space about the book   Pathways To Humanity Show Transcript Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:00:29] Tonight on APEX Express: the PowerLeeGirls mother-daughters team. I'm the editor of tonight's show Ayame Keane-Lee joined by our hosts Jalena Keane-Lee and Miko Lee. Tune in as they interview our guests about Pathways – internal and external journeys we take to connect to humanity. First my sister Jalena speaks with Meng Yu about her journey as a full time artist and practitioner of the mantic arts. Then Mama Miko speaks with Norma Wong, the abbot of Anko-in about her latest book When No Thing Works. So listen in to APEX Express. First up is Jalena's interview with Meng Yu.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:01:08] Hello, everyone. I am here with Meng Yu, who is a Chinese astrologer from Tiger Eye Astrology. And today we're talking all about astrology and learning from the stars and other elements to help guide our life path and our decisions and choices. Thanks so much for being here, Meng.    Meng Yu: [00:01:27] Thanks so much for having me, Jalena. It's a pleasure to have this conversation with you.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:01:33] It truly is. and so I'm curious if you could just start us off talking a little bit, you know, about your practice and how you came to the work that you're doing today.    Meng Yu: [00:01:42] I have been a practitioner of the mantic arts for, over a decade and the mantic arts, include astrology, but also divination. So as part of my practice, I also do I Ching or Yijing divination. and it's a kind of circuitous way of how I ended up on this path. I'm also a, a full time artist. and you know, that's kind of how I make my bread and butter. And it's also. In a way, how I approach, Chinese astrology and divination as well, I guess to backtrack a little bit, I always like to start by honoring my teachers and their lineages. So, primarily my teacher has been Master Zongxian Wu, who is my Bazi teacher and also is the lineage holder of, four traditional schools of internal arts. and then I also have a host of daoist teachers who are also artists. their own right, visual artists, martial artists, writers who live in and embody the Dao. these include Lindsey Wei, Dengming Dao, uh, Tamara Jha, Lily Kai. And so, I also want to shout out to my group. Late sixth great aunt as well. My Leo Gupo, who when I was eight years old, she gave me my first introduction to the art of divination through. palm reading. so she actually taught me, sort of an Eastern style of palm reading at a young age. But growing up, other than that, I, was not influenced by, this, form of, wisdom traditions from my heritage. My parents are, both Chinese and they are both, of the cultural revolution generation, which was a mass genocide that occurred in China, right as they were coming of age. So they're very, survival oriented, practical people, you know, from Just historically in China, from the fall of the Qing dynasty to the rise of communism, much of the mantic arts traditions, were basically lost in the cultural landscape. So, how I came to this work, was not really so much through my upbringing as, The search for, I guess, healing in my own life experiences and coming to, sort of critical junctures, and crisis, personal crises in my life where I really sought, alternative, dimensions and ways of, reconnecting to my My purpose and just healing in my life. So I, over a decade ago found myself, in the jungles of Peru, having very close, connections to a shamanistic tradition involving plant medicine, which opened me up to really asking, you know, what are the shamanic and animistic roots. of the wisdom traditions from my own heritage. And this brought me to working with the Yijing, as well as Chinese astrology. So that's, that's kind of a mouthful. It's a bit of a long and complicated story, but that's, that's sort of the bullet notes version.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:05:18] Thank you so much for sharing that. It's perfect because my next question was going to be about, you know, your lineage of healers that you studied under, but I feel like you covered that already really well. So I'm curious, you know, you talked about Bazi and Yijing, could you kind of give us a little bit of a breakdown of these like different modalities and how you use them?    Meng Yu: [00:05:35] Sure, absolutely. so, In the readings that I do for folks, the most popular readings are actually a combination of Yijing divination and Bazi astrology. So to give a little context for both, the Yijing Translates as the book of change or the book of changes it, although it has roots and what we would call, currently ancient Siberia, ancient China, it actually dates back to Neolithic times. Really before, the formation of these nation states. So it's some of our early human ancestors. It's their recorded search for wisdom through the observation of cycles and patterns in nature over thousands of years. as the book of change, as the study of change, it's the oldest compounded record of, the study of time itself. and the Bazi astrology is a modality of Chinese astrology that really came into prominence during the Han Dynasty. the turn of the century, the common era, and, it translates as eight characters. So ba meaning eight and zi meaning character. So there is a element in animal for not only your year of birth, which is what? Folks are mostly familiar with, but also the month, day, and hour. So these are called four pillars. So sometimes the system is called the four pillars of destiny. And we get a look at, these characters that make up one's nature. And the way that I So when I see the two modalities working together, I often give people the metaphor of, you know, say you're in, the ocean of your life and you're driving a boat or a ship. The Yijing is like a weather report. The Yijing gives us an idea of the changes that we are currently in. So are we headed in a storm? is it clear blue skies ahead? What are the conditions of the wind and the waves? And the bazi chart looks at the kind of ship that you are driving. So it could be, you know, a submarine. It could be a sailboat. It could be an ocean tanker. And they all have different conditions. strengths and gifts and flavors of power, as well as certain kinds of limitations and vulnerabilities. And so the bazi chart really looks at these qualities of our nature and encourages us to embrace who we actually are so that we can learn to drive our ship better.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:08:47] Thank you so much for that breakdown and description, and in addition to offering readings, of which I loved, I absolutely loved getting a reading with you, and it was so informative and inspirational, but in addition to these readings and offerings that you have for other people, I'm curious how you use these modalities in your own life, whether it's with your art practice, or just with life choices and changes how do you, use these ways of knowing for yourself?   Meng Yu: [00:09:12] It's very important for me as an astrologer and as a daoist to, to align my life according to the times, these modalities, both the Yijing and Chinese astrology. What they point to at the foundation of their wisdom is the question of what time is it, right? This is where the roots of the tradition come from. It's from telling time, and through understanding time and studying time, we're able to divine When is a good time? what is the right time? And knowing that gives our lives profound meaning and context. so, on the more kind of mundane level, it's adjusting my calendar to observe time with this additional context of living with the seasons. there's actually 24 different seasons, according to the qi nodes of The Chinese lunar and solar calendar. There's also the lunar cycles as well. And these are not simple, mathematical markings. They have, very deep meanings behind them that help us align with the qi quality of the moment. So they give our lives meaning by showing us, is this a time to sow seeds, to be inspired and enlivened like springtime? is it a time of Growing potential, or are we entering a time where we need to, not be accumulating, in terms of harvest, but actually be engaged in shedding, by observing the patterns and cycles of nature, And following the nature of the forces that we find ourselves in, we can align ourselves to live in harmony, and to be in, better alignment with the dao. So that's one way that I see the Chinese calendar providing context for my life. The wisdom of the Yijing has been such a profound. Collaborator in my life. not only in studying and attempting to apply its wisdom, but also has been an incredible creative collaborator for me as an artist. So, one of my favorite things to do is to divine with the Yijing to help make creative choices in my work, and to really treat the Oracle as a collaborator. So I really enjoyed using it in this creative way and as a practice for listening and channeling, which I think is useful for any artist to engage in a meditative practice where, it's not a sense of creativity coming necessarily from you, but actually through you. and that's something that the Yijing through working with it for so many years has really taught me to embody.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:12:19] I love that so much. have you noticed any changes in your life, your energy levels, or your art practice since kind of aligning your life with these forces?    Meng Yu: [00:12:30] Yeah, you know, I would love to say, Oh, everything's just gotten better and better. Now I just live like the perfect artist life. It's that would, that's really not, nothing could be really further from the truth because I think it's really about being in the school of life. You know that this is a form of education and it's a continual form of practice, and, as I've been engaged in it, in over 10 years, every year, the lessons have, there's been more layers of depth and challenge, which I think is, , Something that unfolds sort of dependent on what you're you're ready for. There is a hexagram in the Yijing that Shows you that you are undergoing a massive transition where you're carrying the burden of a really heavy weight . And one of the things you're encouraged to see is to reflect on how, what you are experiencing now is something that would have completely overwhelmed you a year ago or a cycle ago. We are given tasks. And, asked to carry burdens, given what we are ready for. And so, although I would like to say, Oh, it's made my life so easy. I know what to do all the time now. That's not the narrative at all. I feel like there's a kind of profound, I guess maybe meditative experience where I have a little bit more distance now from things affecting me, in an immediate personal way because now I can, refer to. This collaborator, this friend, for advice or allowing me to see where I am in a cycle to reflect what I have exited from, hopefully to be prescient of what's to come, to identify familiar themes and to see, that I'm continuously revolving around, a spiral where Certain points come back that feel very familiar, but it's a couple rungs, deeper, where it's not like just a circle of things repeating, but it's a spiral where there's new layers of depth that, follow familiar themes, if that makes sense.   Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:15:06] Yeah, that does. and I know you've talked about, too, how it's like a method for communicating with your ancestors and kind of having An additional channel of communication. So I'm just curious about, yeah, that kind of practice of communication and bringing that forward in your work and how that experience has been for you.   Meng Yu: [00:15:28] Yeah. the piece about ancestors is really an interesting one, because I think what the gift of Chinese astrology to me is that it puts The self within a kind of different context where we're encouraged to see ourselves, not as some, definable thing that has innate qualities, but through Chinese astrology, where we see the elements, the animals, the the stars that indicate ancestral influences, the, unfinished business, the karma, the fate of our ancestors that have been given to us. We're encouraged to see the self as just a live kind of wiggly end of 10, 000 dead people. You know, that what makes us who we are is an enormous inheritance. And what we are here to play out in our lives is this dance between fate and freedom. It doesn't mean that we don't have access to creativity in our lives, but that freedom is inherently, explored and discovered through playing with the limitations of our fate. So for instance, in our natal charts, You can see certain hauntings or ghost energies, inherited from ancestors. So for instance, in my personal chart, I have an inheritance called hidden moaning, which shows an ancestor that has not completed grieving and grief work in their lifetime. And so it kind of. imbues my life with unexplainable bouts of sadness. sometimes this can result in, depression, grieving, this like, wailing grief and knowing this in my chart, I'm able to see that kind of sadness is not something that is just mine, meaning, you know, growing up, the question would be like, Oh, why me, or what am I doing wrong? Why do I feel like this? What's wrong with me? When we look at our lives through the context of ancestors, it becomes a lot more relational, meaning your grief, these burdens are not simply yours. They're a call for communication with your lineage and opening up that pathway, that communication itself is how we resolve the fate of our ancestors. by Listening by asking, what is it that they want, our lives are not just lived for us, but our lives are a way for our ancestors to resolve unfinished chi, that they were not able to complete in their lifetimes. So, you know, when I feel these bouts of sadness, I know that it's time for me to open up these channels, that I can sit in meditation, that I can, engage in my creative practice as a way to channel and speak to my ancestors and ask them what it is that they would like to come forth. What messages they have? That they need to share and speak.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:19:11] Wow, you just dropped so many gems and I was like taking notes. I really like that idea of, you know, this dance between fate and freedom and living out our ancestors kind of unfinished business and promises and hopes. And I'm curious also how this practice has impacted or potentially deepened your own understanding of your culture and your relationship to being Chinese or Chinese American or however you identify.   Meng Yu: [00:19:40] Yeah, it's really provided. I feel extremely honored and, you know that I've been able to work with so many amazing teachers and adepts and have been trusted to practice as well as teach these modalities. it has brought me really close to my ancestors in a very intimate way, you know, like I just talked about with hidden moaning, as well as giving me such an appreciation for the wisdom traditions of my heritage. and this really dates back really beyond, again, our understanding of the nation states of, you know, what it means to be Chinese, it actually gives me a lot of respect for what our ancient human ancestors have left behind for us, their legacy, you know, because the roots of this tradition Like I mentioned, it actually goes back 50, 70, 000 years ago to the retreat of the last ice age. And so we're really talking about nomadic hunter gatherers and their survival, how they observed nature, terrains, and sky. Over cyclical time, they survived by following migration routes of animals and celestial bodies that allowed them to engage in an animistic perspective of life, that, all landscapes, including the landscapes of the cosmos, all of nature is sentient. And this. I guess that world view of aliveness of sentience and intelligence, as well as reciprocity and resonance. You know, that all environments and us, because we are innately tied to that, we are nature. You know, that we're in this reciprocal conversation all the time with life, that I think has had the most profound influence on my life, this idea that we're not just caretakers of the environment, but we are the environment. We are all adapting to each other too. The forces around us inside of us that there's this continual movement of cycles and circulation. that I think is really this wisdom core of the tradition that has really made me feel like not just a citizen of my culture and my ethnicity, but really a citizen of this planet, of Earth. from literally, you know, the air that we breathe, down to the food that we eat down to our blood, it's the same movement of circulation that connects us all and this, you know, really informs my, my worldview and my sense of belonging, my sense of, communion with life.   Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:22:54] I feel like these messages and this kind of information about ancestors, unfinished business, purpose in life. It can be both empowering and overwhelming at times. Like, that was my experience of the reading as well. And we're living at a time where In the US for sure and also globally where there's so much going on and it is a moment that can feel empowering at times but also can feel very, very overwhelming so I'm curious if there are certain ways that you practice keeping the faith in amidst times like these or navigating things that are overwhelming but can be seen as, empowering at the same time.    Meng Yu: [00:23:32] Yeah, absolutely. That's a really fabulous question. you mentioned faith, and I think that's a really interesting concept to dig into because I actually hesitate to use the word faith. I like to use the word trust know that we can develop our existential trust through understanding. Tempo with these. modalities, like I mentioned, there's this, putting us back into time, into rhythm, not just Chinese astrology. I think all ancient calendars does this for us, that they Put us back into an earth based tempo and rhythm and helps us understand that the meaning of our lives come from the context of everything that sustains us. And that this isn't some kind of belief system that you have to be indoctrinated in. It is an observable truth that you can see through observing patterns. and cyclical time. Yin and yang is not some far fetched idea that you have to believe in. It's literally night and day, these are the basic rhythms through which our lives have delineation and tempo and when we develop our synchronicity with this type of regularity and rhythm, we develop a kind of trust. and This trust comes from confidence through observation over time, and because we don't like live outside anymore, we're not really in touch with what our ancestors, the ancients observed and recorded in their calendars. You know, the regularity of movement from observing the sun, the moon, the stars and the seasons. And when we can reunite with that, that actually provides a sense of trust. so, when we engage in these modalities, whether it's astrology or divination, we're, we're reading tempo and even with Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine takes a pulse, you know, it's reading your body as a tempo. It's indicating your rhythm, the quality of your rhythm. So even in our medicine, we are reading our bodies temporally. So this idea of time is so fundamental for me in this idea of trust in alignment with rhythm and regularity. In the Tao Te Ching, which is one of the canonical texts of Daoism, the word for trust, Ching, is used many times and it's about, trust is defined. also as a kind of power. It's defined as how beings attain their actuality, that you need trust in order to grow, that it's part of your process of becoming. And through Daoism and through Chinese astrology, which was very much, informed through Daoism. And we learned that the way to grow our Xing, our trust, is to return our body to the rhythm of the universe. Now that the Daoist cure for our anxieties, which stem from a sense of our independent existence. You know, of our, individuality that is such a small, piece of this enormity. The cure for our anxieties is to identify our singularity, our single body with the body of the whole world. And we do that through aligning our tempo, aligning our rhythm. this is one way that we see the intricate ways that we are all interconnected. And I know I just said some really kind of big abstract things, but, I hope that's making sense.    Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:27:49] Yes, no, aligning and yeah, the tempo and pace of the world. I saw something recently that was like, you know, the power of treating our own bodies like gardens that we're cultivating and not like machines. And I feel like that's sticking to what you were just talking about, too, of like, you know, we are also. Plants and beings that need to be tended to and taken care of and to see ourselves that way in alignment with like the world and the pace of the world.   Meng Yu: [00:28:16] Yeah, absolutely. I love that plant metaphor because it brings us back in touch with life and life cycles, that seeds are sown in the spring. Leaves are shed in the fall, you know, that. Life force and life energy also needs to have time to retreat and withdraw in the winter. All the chi is going back underneath the ground where it's not visible. All the outward and external energy is going inward. It's going hidden. That's the power of yin. When we observe and practice modalities that have survived, not just one genocide, but many, many genocides over thousands of years, we can start to build of broader understanding of the patterns of the universe, the cycles of time. And this is one way that we can embrace and this work with the realities of what's happening, you know, in the current poly crises of our times in, civilization and ecological collapse, you know, it's important that we come to terms with where we are in cycles so that we do the practice that is needed of the Grieving of shedding the anger and the sadness that comes with this time to not live in denial of it and to learn from our ancestors and how they have survived through these times through the practice and the wisdom of understanding, The cycles of nature, how we renew and, regenerate life, the daoists were really concerned with, what is called immortality, but immortality is not like one person living forever. Immortality is. A broader concept about the continuation of life, you know, how do we live in a way that is truly sustainable, that is self sustaining in Chinese, the word for nature is zhi ran, which means self: zhi ran self fulfilling, self renewing, self sustaining. So embedded in the wisdom of these practices is this sense of aligning our lives, aligning our choices in a way that allows life to continue.   Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:30:52] Absolutely. Yes. more life and more environments where life can grow and thrive. I'm curious, you know, if anyone who's listening is now really interested in learning more about Chinese astrology, learning more about your work, what would be the best ways for them to start? And then also if there's anything else that you want to share.   Meng Yu: [00:31:11] The best way to find me is to go to my website. I'm not on social media, so, you'll have to get on the web and find me at www. tigereyeastrology.com and from there you can, contact me, request a reading, as well as just read more about, the different modalities that I practice, a little more about myself, and the perspectives that I bring.   Ayame Keane-Lee: [00:31:38] You are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org. Next up is Miko's interview with Norma Wong.   Miko Lee: [00:32:01] Welcome Norma Wong to Apex Express. We are so happy to have you with us today.   Norma Wong: [00:32:06] Aloha, Mikko. Thank you for having me.    Miko Lee: [00:32:09] I want to just first start off, you, hold dear to my heart. I just finished reading your book, which I'm excited to talk about, but I just want to start in the very beginning by asking you a question, which is based on a question from the amazing poet Chinaka Hodges. Who are your people, and what legacy do you carry with you from them?    Norma Wong: [00:32:29] Oh, Miko, how much time do you have? my people are people of the Pacific. You know, the people who came, who crossed the ocean, now six generations ago to this place called Hawaii, who are the haka. Nomadic people of China who really traveled all over China came as contract work and my people are the indigenous people of Hawaii, of these islands where I live and where you happen to be right now, on in terms of this interview and, with the indigenous people, the Kanaka Maoli, the native wines of this place. I am blessed to be the ancestors of these two strong strands of people and really, people who have long migrated, irrespective of where they're coming from, where they're going to.   Miko Lee: [00:33:23] That is beautiful. And what legacy do you carry with you from those people?    Norma Wong: [00:33:28] I would say the legacy that I carry is the legacy of remembering food, remembering stories, passing on stories, creating stories into the future so that we may know where it is that we will go to. And I would say that I also carry the legacy of people who can both be with each other and also be fiercely independent with respect to not having to really depend on anything other than their wits, the land that they're on, of the people who are close to them, what the winds may be able to tell them.   Miko Lee: [00:34:11] Thank you so much. I'm very excited. I just finished reading your new book, which is titled, When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, shared purpose, and leadership in the timeplace of collapse. Incredibly long title and incredibly appropriate for the time we live in right now. Can you share a little bit about what inspired you to create this work?    Norma Wong: [00:34:39] Well, I will, I will say frankly that the book would have not been written if not for Taj James and some of your listeners may know who this is. He is a movement leader and activist, who resides in Northern California, but really does a lot of work everywhere. And Taj, actually convinced me over a two year time period, to write this particular book. And I finally did so, because of a question that he asked. The question that he asked is, with respect to the kinds of knowledge that spiritual ways practice and pass on person to person, can that happen quickly enough only with the people who are directly in front of you? Will that happen quickly enough for the times that we're in? And I had to reflect upon that and say, no, because we were in a time of collapse. And so I had to take the chance of writing something that would find its way into the hands of people who were not directly in front of me. And that is, not the ways of the long line of teachers that I have had.   Miko Lee: [00:35:58] Can you talk a little bit about some of the teachers that you've had and how you carry on the legacy of those teachers that you have had, the impact they've made on you.    Norma Wong: [00:36:09] I've been blessed with many teachers, some of whom are in my young time days. I particularly remember a teacher from my elementary school days, Mrs. Trudy Akau. She was, Native Hawaiian and Portuguese and a woman of big voice and grand stature. And Mrs. Akau really wanted every single one of her students to Be able to find voice in whatever ways, that they might, whether it be writing or through reading or speaking, telling stories. So I certainly remember. This is a call. I remember Tanoi Roshi, uh, my Zen teacher. He was born Stanley Tanoi, second generation Japanese American grew up in Hawaii and who became a teacher. in his own right, not only with respect to Zen, but the martial arts and Stanley Tanoy, who we all know is Tanoy Roshi, is certainly considered to be my primary spiritual teacher, for whom it is now my responsibility to follow his line. I would say that there are people that I have worked with. who are my teachers, you know, so John Waiheee, who was the first native Hawaiian governor of Waii, I certainly consider him to be a significant teacher of mine, as do some young people, some people who are younger than I am. I consider them to be my teachers as well.   Miko Lee: [00:37:41] You mentioned your Zen teacher, Tanoue Tenshin Roshi and you quote in the book him saying, the truth is the intersection of everyone's perspective, if we could only know that. Can you speak more about this?    Norma Wong: [00:37:55] We are, as humans, we're, we're very certain that our perspective is the truth, that whatever it is that we see. But even from a biological perspective, science shows that what it is that registers in our mind is only a small portion of what it is that even our biology is absorbing. And so. We have this tendency to have a lens with respect to how we see the world that lens is colored by many things. And so what is actually so is difficult to ascertain. And this is just in terms of what may be right in front of us, let alone that which may come to us on a secondhand basis, and even more complicated by the way people get most of their information these days. Which is not through direct experience, but through information that has been provided by other channels, the vast aspects of social media, for example, the echo chambers of the conversation, in which we take as facts, things that are talked about that have been observed by other people who are analyzing that which someone else may or may not have actually seen by their own eyes. So we're many times removed from the actual experience of things. And so to know the truth, is a complex thing.    Miko Lee: [00:39:28] As you sort of mentioned this, but it feels like we are living, in this time where there's multiple truths, and especially with the propaganda that we're seeing from right wing mindsets that are really resistant to, influence especially around harm, unless they directly experienced that harm. In cases where it feels like this progress is really stalled until those people experience that kind of harm personally, what is the best way for us to intervene constructively?    Norma Wong: [00:39:56] Well, I think the first thing that we have to do is to make sure that we are also not doing the same thing in reverse. You know, which is to say that the aspect of harm, The many impacts that people may feel will be felt differently. So that which I believe has harmed me would seem to you as not being harmful at all. We tend to see harm, not from a meta perspective, but from an individualized perspective. And so to actually come out of the weeds of that and place ourselves In an observer's stance of community more generally, of humans more generally, not within the analysis of that, not within the frameworks of that, but to observe actual experiences is something that needs to happen on the left and the right and the center. the American. Value system doesn't help, which is to say that we live in a very individualized society. Our country was formed on the basis of values that are individualized. Even something that we'd say may be universal, such as human rights, we tend to think of it through an individualized lens. And to come more into the whole of it, to not. view our existence as being either dependent or independent of others, but more from the perspective of being interdependent. And you know, by interdependence, I'm, I mean that the success that we may have is born not only of my efforts, but the efforts of others. And if it is at the expense of someone else's welfare, then it is not interdependent. So that type of existence, you know, which I would describe as a more indigenous way of being, is what our times call for.    Miko Lee: [00:41:55] I'm wondering, you have such an interesting background as working in the legislature here in Hawaii and then fighting for homeland rights, supporting people in Lahaina. I'm wondering how you have combined both your indigenous background and your own. Zen belief system, how that has influenced you politically.   Norma Wong: [00:42:16] Well, if I were to reflect on that question, I would say that I was extraordinarily fortunate to begin my spirit practice at almost the same instant that I was coming up in the political world. And so I. did not see one as separate from the other. In fact, I would say that the fortune of that is that there are many aspects about the introspective nature of spirit work that, you have to interrupt your ego at every instant. And as you might imagine, there are many ways in, in the political world. Where the ego takes on an outsized importance to what it is that you're doing. And so it's an important centering value that you would get from the Zen practice. But to me, A thing that attracted me to Zen is that it is almost inherently indigenous and, by that I mean that the Zen values are based on interdependence of the whole and the whole does not only include humans, it includes other beings in the universe itself. And so, to center your political actions and the ways in which you might grapple with an issue is not to separate the issue from the people and the place, and to take into consideration not only the history of that, but what your actions would mean for the descendants that have not yet been born. And in that respect, there's should be no separation. In fact, there should be a profound way, in which that can hold your political decision making. your political conversation, your political actions within the concepts and the values of people in place.    Miko Lee: [00:44:08] So centering on people and place and our interconnectedness with each other. That's really powerful and so important and I'm going back to your saying we have to interrupt the ego and I'm wondering in times when we're about to see 45 enter into his, second administration and the impact of somebody who is ego full or narcissistic and this divide that we're seeing, how do we hold faith in ourselves to help to interrupt that ego when it's happening on such a national scale?    Norma Wong: [00:44:41] Well, there's a thing about ego, which is to say that My ego can only be interrupted by me. Your ego can only be interrupted by you. Now, strategy is a different thing, but that's not the subject of this interview. But with respect to ego, it's going to be part of the environment. it's going to be part of what exists and it'll be a powerful way in which you would see many egos, playing with each other. That's going to be a dynamic that will occur. So I would say there's a lot of work to do. Especially if we know that the construct of government, irrespective of whether this person or another person is holding this job. is in a place of peril and the institutions generally are having difficulty in this moment. Some people, because of who it is that they are and the ego that they have, will supercharge the collapse. In other words, they will increase the momentum of that collapse. And so, in that increase of the momentum of the collapse, there's a lot going on. To be done to ensure that peoples and communities and places are able to do what may be necessary to effectively sustain themselves and each other in relationship to each other, all of the things that they may have otherwise been dependent on the artificial structure called government. And with respect to ego, for us to understand that we have to have enough healthy ego to believe in our own capacity, to be able to work with each other, to take on this huge task, not only through these next four years, but in a period of time beyond that.   Miko Lee: [00:46:29] And what are some of the practices or frameworks that can help sustain us during this time to come?    Norma Wong: [00:46:35] Certainly the practice of, not running dry, you know, that within every 24 hour cycle, if we are to be at the top of our game, then we have to pay attention to make sure that we have enough rest, that we have the sustenance we need, Remain hydrated. I mean, very simple things to not waste away our time in the internal dialogue that keeps spinning to separate ourselves from the habits that keep us from making decisions that taking on too many things means that no thing that you do will be given the kind of attention that it needs, the kind of focus that it needs. the kind of depth that it requires. And so this is a time of choices, in order to achieve that place of abundance. You cannot have many things on the plate at the same time. So simple choices, with respect to the practices that you have, And once that require the dreaded D word, which is discipline.    Miko Lee: [00:47:43] Mm. One of the things that has arisen a lot within the network that I work in, AACRE, Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality, is a lot of folks, especially young folks, are finding themselves in able to have conversation with family members or elders that, have different political viewpoints what is a good way to go about navigating this tension with people who hold really different political and therefore, in their minds, worldviews than you, but you are connected to?    Norma Wong: [00:48:12] Well, it may not be possible to have a political conversation the question is, are you still in relationship? I think that is the primary question. are you able to meet someone's eyes? Or do you just look away? can you feed each other? I mean, literally, do you know the foods that other people desire or need? Can you make them? Not just buy it and assemble it from the nearest store. Are we tending to each other's needs? Emotional welfare, are we observant of the ways in which we may be getting into a place of need that we're not asking support for. It's like politics should not be. the first conversation you have with someone, it's like that, the first conversations that you would have with people should be one of relationship and of community, and that if you're going to slip into that part where you're going to say, well, because of your politics, I'm going to put you in this room or that room, then the, possibility of us being able to proceed as people is just not going to be possible. The civil rights, as a political movement, succeeded. I believe that as a social change movement, there is still a lot of work to be done. And that we put a little bit too much of a dependence on the wins that we had politically. And then We believed that, because those wins were, that the world would change as a result of that. Hearts and minds were not necessarily changed. And the heart and mind work is the work of community, the work of storytelling, the work of arts, generally. The work of building relationships with people, so that irrespective of the label that they thought that you carry, that you can have a greater understanding of desires and motivations, needs, and ways in which you might be able to be mutually with each other. So we have to start by actually being in relationship with people versus relationship with our ideas. A relationship with points of view and that is something that we may have given short shrift to. And I would say that that's like a Western kind of thing, like, you know, okay, we're going to have a meeting and, let's sit down for a meeting. By the way, we're not going to spend any time getting to know each other. We want to get directly to. Whatever the point of the meeting happens to be, or in the case of family. You know, it's like, families are complicated. One of the reasons why families are complicated is because we are in blood relationship to each other and therefore forever bound. But that does not mean that we have actually done the work to get to know each other. It does not mean that at all.   Miko Lee: [00:51:09] Thank you. I'm wondering if you can, talk about how do we hold on to our work as activists, and kind of the ultimate urgency of what's happening in the world, like I'm thinking specifically, there's a lot of conversations about the new laws that might happen right after the inauguration . And so there's a sense of urgency there. How do we hold on to ourselves but balance that with that sense of urgency.    Norma Wong: [00:51:34] Well, I like to put urgency in a slightly different perspective. Which is to say that the urgency that I see is what is the work that needs to be done to ensure that descendants that are not yet born will be able to live the kind of life that I would hope them to have in a world that would be able to sustain that. And if I put that out, as. What is urgent, then that forces me, in a way that I choose into, to pay attention to. Larger stories, larger work, more extensive aspects of work that also require many more people to be engaged in. And, to begin right now, because it's urgent, you know, for example, if there's a possibility, That the aquifer will become contaminated, and we do not yet know whether or not that will be the case. Then it's urgent that we work to make sure that whatever contaminant is in the ground will not get to the aquifer and therefore, we have to work on that right now. And so that which we may advocate for with urgency will be about the things that are going to be required. For the long haul and not just a defensive reactive, type of action, just to attempt to defend the things that are collapsing around us at the moment caught. In a tighter and tighter action reaction, a kind of way in which we make choices and make decisions, which will mean that the urgent work to ensure that the descendants will be able to have a better life in a sustainable place. will not be done and will not done in time for that to occur.    Miko Lee: [00:53:26] Thank you so much, for pulling that sense of urgency out to a broader perspective. It reminds me of that Grace Lee Boggs quote, what time is it on the clock of the world that we're really thinking about multiple generations and the ancestors to come and not just what the deadline is immediately. Can you talk with us a little bit about the hu, Hu, that you describe in your book?    Norma Wong: [00:53:50] So I think of Hu as, you know, capital H and, small U as like the missing element on the periodic table. Okay. So, you know, the periodic table it contains all of the elements that are supposed to exist in the universe, and I believe that there's an element called the human quotient. The human quotient is the stuff that humans need to have in order for us to actually evolve as the peoples that we're intended to be. And that the earth requires so, you know, among the human quotient elements would be courage, for example, courage being that which we do, even in the face of fear. So there'll be characteristics like that, but even more fundamental than the characteristics, there is whether or not we will access.and hold d center to everything, the collective humanity of who we are and who we need to become. Whether we take that at the center or will we, will we just see people as a series of identities, a series of allegiances to particular flags as keepers and adherence to ideologies. as, generations or genders, will we just see people as categories? And so, this aspect of coming into our humanity, is what I'm referring to as the human quotient. One of the chapters in the book.    Miko Lee: [00:55:27] Thank you so much. Can you tell us what you would love people to understand after reading your book, When No Thing Works?   Norma Wong: [00:55:37] I would want them to understand that the work is a distillation. So it's very concentrated. It's like Malolo syrup, a favored concentrated syrup that is essentially the fruit punch of the islands. You have to add water to it in order for you to get it to a place where it can actually bear fruit and it can be delicious for you. And that water is yourself, your own experience, your own practice, your own hopes, your own purposes. And if you add that to the book, then the book will be your Malolo syrup.    Miko Lee: [00:56:17] Oh, that is such a great analogy. I love that you're talking to it. It's a syrup. And actually there is a tudy guide or it's called navigate, but the resource to help people go through the book and have conversations with family and friends, which I think is so lovely. It's such a great way for people to read the book in community.    Norma Wong: [00:56:37] Yes. The book site is, Normawong.com and, I believe that the Navigate Guide will be available on that site.    Miko Lee: [00:56:46] And I will host a link to all those things on the show notes for Apex Express. Norma Wong, thank you so much for spending time sharing with us about your work. Um, I really appreciate you and the wisdom that you're sharing for multiple generations. Thank you so much.   Norma Wong: [00:57:04] Thank you, Miko. Thank you so much. Please enjoy your day.    Miko Lee: [00:57:09] You too. And I also want to give a shout out to my amazing friend that introduced me to you, Mariah Rankin Landers, whose book, Do Your Lessons Love Your Students? Creative Education for Social Change really influenced me. And she helped provide some of the context for this conversation. So I thank you to Mariah and thank you for spending time with me, Norma. Please check out our website, kpfa.org. To find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. APEX Express is created by Miko Lee, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Swati Rayasam, Aisa Villarosa, Estella Owoimaha-Church, Gabriel Tangloao, Cheryl Truong and Ayame Keane-Lee.     The post APEX Express – 1.16.25 – Pathways To Humanity appeared first on KPFA.

What do our ancestral connections mean for us today? In this EP we chat with Dr Emalani Case a Kanaka Maoli academic, activist, teacher, and writer. She shares with us her interpretation of Kahiki the ancestral homeland of Kanaka Maoli and what it means to have love for home. We talk about what it means to be Indigenous today away from home and often on the land of other Indigenous Moanans. She also speaks to us about what our shared past means for our shared futures as people of Moananuākea. Send us a textThe Moanan is not just an educational platform but an online community — connecting diasporas all over the world. We'd love to connect!Find us on all podcast streaming and social media platforms — including Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.Email: hello@themoanan.com

Send us a textIn this episode of The Mama Psychedelia Podcast I interview Karuna (aka Sarah Love). Karuna is a passionate lover of life, she is a mother and a multi faceted creative soul. Currently rooted and raising her son on Kanaka Maoli land, on the precious island of Maui. She is committed to inhabiting the moment from a place of curiosity and authenticity. She believe in the power of love, and the remembrance of our inherent ancient wisdom, guiding us into wholeness and connection. She weaves sound in ceremonial space, and is committed to personal and collective healing. Karuna is especially passionate about working with women in ceremonial space. She serves women worldwide with products that support womb wellness through her heart-led company Cozy and Spice (check out her legendary Moondies) & one on one guidance and mentorship. As well as offering her musical medicine through sound journeys, live performance and recordings locally & globally online. It was a treat to drop into this space with Karuna, to explore the Muse, what comes through the sacred vessel of the voice, we speak about her musical journey and her journey of becoming the woman and the mama that she is today!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cozyandspice/https://www.instagram.com/karunaspice/Karuna's Music:https://open.spotify.com/track/5nqSPqBnWQDOygnkL2MkcOWebsite: find Karuna's Moondies and other sacred creations https://www.cozyandspice.comYour Host Mackenzie:Launching my Pre Conception + Pregnancy Preparation 9 month journey: learn more here https://fertilesouls.carrd.co/ IG: @mamapsychedelia & @hunnywombdoula Email: Birthkeeperkenz@gmail.com Would you like to be on the show? Reach out Calendly: Book a free 30 min discovery call if you would like to work together in Preconception Mentorship before stepping into parenthood Website: https://www.hunnywomb.com/ Support the Mama Psychedelia Mission: PAYPAL: Birthkeeperkenz@gmail.comIntro Music "Waters of the Earth" by Satori Ki covered by me, Mackenzie. (For more of her music, check out her Spotify) 

Nevada is the first state to extend electronic ballots to tribal members. It allows them to register and vote from their own homes, giving rural Native voters an alternative to traveling miles to their nearest polling or ballot drop-off site. It's an idea that other states remain wary of. In Alaska, efforts to improve voting among Native voters remain elusive. Opposition from Republican state lawmakers killed a bill eliminating witness signatures on absentee ballots. On a conservative talk show, the Alaska House Speaker admitted she opposed it because it would have favored U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat and the only Alaska Native in Congress. Rep. Peltola calls it "a concerted effort to silence" Native votes. We'll discuss progress and continuing hurdles for Native voters. GUESTS Mathilda Guerrero Miller (Kanaka Maoli), government relations director for Native Voters Alliance Nevada Elveda Martinez (Walker River Paiute Tribe), voter rights activist Michelle Sparck (Qissunamiut Tribe of Chevak), director of Get Out the Native Vote Gabriel Di Chiara, Chief Deputy Secretary of State for Nevada

The U.S. House of Representatives just upped the ante on voter ID efforts by passing a bill to require proof of citizenship at polling places. Even though the idea lacks support in the Senate, it's the latest in a relentless drive for more voting restrictions that Native American voting rights advocates say hinder access. In addition, an effort by the Walker River Paiute Tribe for more equitable voting access is getting pushback over security. We'll get the latest efforts for equitable voting access. GUESTS Gabriella Cázares-Kelly (member of the Tohono O'odham Nation), Pima County recorder Mathilda Guerrero (Kanaka Maoli), government relations director for Native Voters Alliance Nevada Patty Ferguson Bohnee (Pointe-au-Chien), director of the Indian Legal Program and director of the Indian Legal Clinic at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University

Last week we released Aloha ‘Āina, the second film in our Shifting Landscapes documentary film series, which tells the story of how acclaimed Native Hawaiian poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio brought her poetry and love of the land to the forefront of the movement to protect the sacred Mauna Kea from the construction of a thirty-meter telescope. To complement the film, we're returning to an investigative story we published several years ago when moves to begin construction first ignited protest at the foot of the mountain. Written by Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder, this story—rich with the voices and chants of Mauna Kea land protectors—traces the collision of values that continues to play out on the mountain, giving a depth of context to the promise of guardianship maintained by the Kanaka Maoli community. Read the transcript. Watch the film Aloha ‘Āina, by Adam Loften and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, the first in our four-part Shifting Landscapes documentary film series. Photo by Kapulei Flores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time, the federal government acknowledges the devastation to Native America tribes caused by a century of dam building on rivers in the Pacific Northwest. The report by the U.S. Department of Interior notes the benefits for the region's burgeoning population in need of cheap power, irrigation, and steady jobs. But that same push dismissed the needs of the tribes that already occupied the land, resulting in flooding homes and sacred sites, and the decimation of salmon runs, their chief reliable food source. GUESTS Erik Holt (Nez Perce), chairman of the Nez Perce Tribe Fish and Wildlife Commission Corinne Sams (Cayuse, Walla Walla, Cocopah), chair of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission and member of the board of trustees and chair of the Fish and Wildlife Commission for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Keola Awong (Kanaka Maoli), program manager interpretation and education James Pepper Henry (Kaw and Muscogee), vice chairman of the Kaw Nation and director emeritus at the First Americans Museum

Close your eyes. Imagine standing on land that your family has held for generations. The waters that trickle nearby sing your family name, and your ancestors are there with you, buried deep in the earth. Now, imagine a stranger coming along and violating this land with no regard to the lineage it carries. This is the story at the heart of our latest Sonic Journey. We're sharing the story of the Fukumitsu family who is protecting their land -- their ‘āina -- through the Emmy Award-winning film “Pili Ka Moʻo” by Justyn Ah Chong with Malia Akutagawa (both Kanaka Maoli.) “Pili Ka Moʻo” is a part of the first season of our sibling initiative Reciprocity Project. This is also the film that inspired Seedcast producer Stina Hamlin to embark on our whole Sonic Journey Series, and we understand why: this film not only includes the strong voices of the Fukumitsu family and their ancestors, but it also includes beautiful sounds from their kalo, or taro, fields and the collective voice of a community standing up for the land and their ancestors. Justyn's film is part of Reciprocity Project, a collaboration between Nia Tero and Upstander Project, in association with REI Co-op Studios. Host and Story Editor: Jessica Ramirez. Producer: Stina Hamlin. Story Editor and Audio Mix: Ha'aheo Auwae-Dekker.  Learn more:  Watch the film and learn more here.  Listen to our previous episode with Justyn: Celestial Wayfinding and Pili Ka Mo'o with Justyn Ah Chong   Listen to previous Sonic Journey Episodes:  Sonic Journey One: Sonic Journey One: Diiyeghan naii Taii Tr'eedaa  Sonic Journey Two: Sonic Journey Two: Weckuwapok (The Approaching Dawn)  Sonic Journey Three: SŪKŪJULA TEI (Stories of My Mother)  Sonic Journey Four: Ma's House Seedcast is a production of Nia Tero, a global nonprofit which supports Indigenous land guardianship around the world through policy, partnership, and storytelling initiatives.Enjoy the Seedcast podcast on the Nia Tero website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast platforms. Keep up with Seedcast on Instagram and use the hashtag #Seedcast.

My guest on this episode is Healani Sonoda-Pale, a Kanaka Maoli Human Rights advocate for Self-Determination and a Water Protector who has been organizing at the intersection of the indigenous struggle for liberation and environmental protection in Hawai'i. She is a member of the Red Hill Community Representation Initiative and the spokesperson of the Ka Lahui Hawaii Political Action Committee. Healani was born and raised on the island of O'ahu where she resides with her family.Show Notes:The Beauty of the Pandemic Shutdown in Hawai'iThe Fallout of the Lahaina Fires in West MauiNo ControlsManufacturing the AuthenticReopening for Tourism in the Midst of CatastropheLocal Schism: Those in Favour and Those AgainstThe Tourism at the Heart of the Housing CrisisKa Lahui Hawai'i Political Action CommitteeThe Water Crisis in OahuDecolonizing Tourism is an OxymoronSolidarity with Kanaka MaoliHomework:Healani Sonoda-Pale InstagramKa Lahui Hawai'i | TwitterOahu Water Protectors | Red Hill Community Representation InitiativeTranscript:Chris: [00:00:00] In the first season of the podcast I spoke to Hokulani Aikau and Vernadette Gonzalez about the attempts to decolonize tourism in the Hawaiian islands. And following that Kaleo Patterson. Who offered a deeper historical and cultural background into the ongoing us occupation of Hawaii. The military industrial tourism complex, and some of the traditional forms of hospitality that Hawaiians have engaged in. Since then, and especially because of the wildfires that spread through west Maui this past summer. Listeners have asked again and again, to return to the islands, to host the voices of those. They're now struggling with another catastrophe. Who are offering resilience and resistance. In the face of these enduring consequences. And as such, I welcome.Healani Sonoda-Pale to the pod. Thank you for joining me today, Healani.Healani: It's my pleasure to be joining this podcast and to help [00:01:00] spread the message about tourism in Hawai'i. Chris: Healani, could you do us the favor of elaborating a bit on where you're speaking from today and how the world looks like for you?Healani: Okay. So I'm a Kanaka Maoli woman, born and raised in Hawai'i on the island of O'ahu. I have been in the Hawaiian movement for liberation and self determination for nearly 30 years. I am a student of Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask, and I am on the front lines of many, many issues. The issues that we face today are, many of them are a consequence of tourism.The desecration of cultural sites. The degradation of our beautiful beaches pollution, traffic, overcrowding, the high cost of living in Hawai'i, the extremely high cost of housing in Hawai'i. These are all because of tourism. This is happening to Hawai'i. [00:02:00] As a result, direct result of the tourist industry, which Hawaii relies on.And in Hawaii, we have two businesses. We have the military industrial complex and the tourist industry. Those are the two worst industries to rely on, number one. And they are the most exploitive and extractive industries to have. They do not enhance our way of life here on, on these islands in Hawaii.They do the opposite. They have brought many of us to the brink where we are now, most of us living paycheck to paycheck. The average cost of a house in Hawaii is a million dollars.I believe Honolulu is the number one or at least the top three most expensive cities in the United States to live in. So tourism is a plague in Hawaii. It is a plague upon this place and it has caused us to [00:03:00] struggle on a daily basis, not just financially and not just socially, mentally as well. Having to deal with tourists on a daily basis in Hawaii is frustrating, so that's kind of like the space I'm coming from. I am involved with the water issue, protecting our water, which is now something that is a huge issue. I'm very much involved in the Red Hill issue. I'm involved with protecting Iwi Kūpuna, which is our traditional Hawaiian burials. I'm involved with the repatriation of our land. Again, another big issue. It never ends because the, the economic, social pressure to take and take and take until there's nothing left is relentless. So that's the space we're coming from. So you talked about COVID, right? You started this podcast in the beginning of COVID and COVID was an eye opener for a lot of people in Hawai'i. When COVID happened, [00:04:00] the state of Hawai'i shut down and tourists weren't allowed here during our shutdown.I believe it was like a year and a half. It was beautiful. Even though we were living in the middle of a pandemic, our beaches were empty. There were no lines at the stores. There was no traffic. Even the air we breathed seemed cleaner. The water we swam in, in the ocean, didn't have this sliminess on it, from tourists with suntan lotion swimming in it all day, right?So the fish came back. Even the plants and the land was happy. I mean, it was a beautiful time. Even though it was sad because we were living through a pandemic, it was a beautiful time for us as Kanaka because we got to see Hawai'i without tourists. And that really opened the eyes for people who usually are not as [00:05:00] critical of tourism, as many of us have been so more people in Hawaii started saying, especially Kanaka Mali, well, how do we move forward without tourism?But when the state opened up again, tourism came back and it came back with a vengeance.When you look at what was happening on social media and, you know, what people were posting and across all the islands, we saw some frustration. We saw people posting about interactions they were having with tourists at sacred sites and beaches. People were more aware that tourists were there after COVID because we were able to enjoy our beaches, enjoy our islands without them.And then when they came back, it was not only dangerous because we live 2, 000 miles away from the nearest continent. So, they were bringing in the COVID. I mean, from the time of [00:06:00] Captain Cook, tourists, visitors, explorers, missionaries, they have been bringing in diseases when, when Captain Coke arrived in 1778. We didn't have any immunity to these diseases, and so now, I think for a lot of residents here in Hawai'i, our eyes have been opened on what we have to give up for tourism.We have to sacrifice not only our beautiful island life, but a way forward that doesn't include commodifying who we are as a people, our culture, everything. The state's been talking about diversifying the industry here in Hawai'i, right? They wanted to look into agriculture was one. They've never seriously taken that up. And they always fall back on tourism.Chris: And why do you think that is? Because it's just so easy.Healani: Because they've invested. It's a multi billion dollar business. There's hotels. Waikiki [00:07:00] is loaded with hotels. It's business interests. It's those that have been in control of the tourist industry, wanting to keep control of that and wanting to keep their financial interests protected and keep going.So that is, that has been a problem. And of course we have strong lobbyists here in Hawai'i for the tourist industry. It is an industry that is supported by taxpayer dollars. It's one of the few industries we give millions of dollars of our money. It's a private industry supported by taxpayer dollars.So it's a private industry that we support that exploits not just our resources, our culture, but they have really degraded our way of life here. They've made everything so expensive that most of our people, most of the indigenous people of Hawai'i have moved away because they can't afford to live here.Chris: And you know, I'm curious [00:08:00] in this regard, to what extent do you think that this Government money and government decisions played a part in these wildfires that passed through West Maui in August, you know, like reading and researching for this interview and seeing what's been shared online and social media, the term management and mismanagement continues to arise in and among social movement activists.And I'm curious to what extent you think that either government action or inaction or the tourism industry had a part to play in what happened this past summer.Healani: The Lahaina Fires. was so tragic and the tragedy continues months after. The suicide rates are on the rise in Lahaina. Families are still displaced, thousands of them. They were just [00:09:00] a few days ago, I had posted about it. They were just given again, eviction letters. The last time I was in Maui was there.The first set of eviction letters that went out. So they're being housed in hotels, 7,00-8,000 of them; families that have lost everything, in hotels. And now they're being told to leave to make way for tourism, to make way for tourists. That's the enormity of the pressure that tourists, tourism brings with it. The pressure to a piece and to serve and to put tourism first.Just going back to my childhood in school. We were basically brainwashed into thinking we need tourism. Without tourism, we wouldn't have jobs. There would be no money, you know? So it's been kind of ingrained in us. And that's why I think COVID was super important because it was an eye opener for a lot of us.Because they saw really [00:10:00] what was possible, a world without tourism. And so the pressure to support, to push tourism, to... "they always say, we want to support small businesses," but it's really not about small businesses. It's about those huge, multinational corporations that have invested millions.into this industry and have supported and lobbied for their industry, for the tourist industry. That's what it's really about, to a point where they really don't care about the people, the residents of Lahaina. They're literally traumatizing these families again and pushing them around to make room for an industry that we all pay to support.And the Lahaina fires is a result of corporations, land grabbing by corporations of [00:11:00] tourism gone wild, literally. The whole culture of Hawaii is about making sure tourism is going to be okay in the future. We're one big resort. That's what we are.Hawaii is one big resort. Everything is catered for tourists first. It's always tourists first, residents last. And kanaka maoli not even considered, like we're not even in the equation, except when they want us to dance hula, and when they want us to chant, and when they want us to teach tourists how to make leis. So the whole Lahaina situation is very complicated.Tragic, and it continues to be tragic. Over a hundred people died in those fires. And Lahaina is like a real big hub for tourists, and has been. It's like the Waikiki of Maui. So having that burned down, I think, was a big loss for the tourist industry on Maui. [00:12:00] So they are trying every which way to bring that back. In fact, today they're going to unveil the strategic plan for the next few years for Maui, which again, is just a slap in the face. It's insulting to the people of Lahaina. They're actually having it in West Maui. It's insulting to the people of Lahaina to have now a discussion about how to move forward with tourism while they're still displaced. There's thousands of families that don't know where they're going to be next month.There are thousands more that don't have access to clean water, don't have jobs, that have multiple families living in their homes and they're going to have a big presentation on tourism today. That's what we have to deal with.There is a mythology that's been built around the tourist industry that basically tells us, you know, [00:13:00] we need tourism. We need tourism. For some reason, we won't be able to survive without tourism. So that's the culture of Hawaii. And that's what I've grown up in. One of the things that is concerning about tourism is the fact that there's never been an environmental assessment or environmental impact study done on the effects tourism has on Hawaii .There are no controls. There's no control of how many people will be allowed in, how many people will be allowed at a certain beach, how many people will be allowed to swim and hike up to a sacred pond.There's nothing like that. It's like a free for all here in Hawaii when it comes to tourism.With tourism comes a thriving sex trade. So we have a number of brothels that, of course, are illegal, here in O'ahu. And a real epidemic with a [00:14:00] high number of missing and murdered Native Hawaiian women and girls. Hmm. This is the average characteristics of a victim of a missing girl is 15 years old native Hawaiian.And that's you know, that's the reality here in in Hawaii. So tourism is one of those industries that has a lot of low paying jobs. People have to work two to three, sometimes four jobs to survive here in Hawaii because Hawaii has the highest cost of living and one of the highest in the United States and it's really a struggle to make a living off of the tourist industry.Once tourism gets a foothold in your community, then it's very difficult to get tourism out. And right now, I'm in the midst of a struggle with keeping tourism out of East Maui.[00:15:00] They're expanding tourism into rural areas because they want to make these real authentic experiences for tourists.And they want to provide cultural experiences for tourists now. And the last couple years, the Hawaii Tourism Authority has done something called destination management, which is where they give money to non profits to host tourists in these real authentic settings, where they get to work in the taro patch or they get real cultural experience hiking or storytelling or something like that and in exchange these non profits get paid.The reality of this Destination Management Program that they always give Hawaiian names to -Aloha Aina, Kahu Aina -the reality of these programs [00:16:00] is that they're actually community bribes.Residents are less tolerant of tourism these days, especially post COVID. And so these programs, like the Destination Management Programs that they're now doing, and have been doing for a couple years are community bribes that help residents swallow the bitter pill of tourism. And that is pretty much how this whole thing kind of plays out.Whatever financial benefits we get out of tourism, they're short lived and they aren't sustainable. And in fact, they threaten a sustainable and livable future for residents here, especially Kanaka Maoli.Chris: Do you see any parallels between the quote return of tourism following the COVID-19 lockdowns and later after the fires? Was anything learned by the inundation of [00:17:00] COVID carrying tourists?Healani: Yeah, so I see parallels between what's happening with tourism post COVID and what's happening with tourism post-Lahaina fires. And what's very clear with the government here, the local government has made very clear is that tourism, no matter the cost, in terms of our health and safety, comes first.And that has been shown over and over. While, when they opened up tourism, the COVID numbers went up. And because, of course, people are bringing COVID in. And that put the numbers of people in the emergency rooms and in our hospitals that went way up. We don't have the capacity and we still don't have the capacity to serve thousands and thousands of residents and tourists at the same time.In terms [00:18:00] of medical health care. And so we, you know, we're in a really tight spot for that, you know. So we were really struggling because our hospital and our medical system was overrun.We had sick tourists and we had sick residents. And when you look at the numbers, it was the Native Hawaiians and the Pacific Islanders who were not just catching COVID more, but also dying from COVID more often than others. And with Lahaina, same thing. Instead of waiting, holding off on reopening Lahaina and Maui for tourists, they opened it up super early.In fact, they opened it up a month ago, for tourism. They opened up line up for tourism and families are still suffering. Families don't know what's going to happen next month, where they're going to be living next week. There's [00:19:00] thousands of displaced families still in Lahaina, yet the pressure to open up to tourism is so immense that they did it anyway. So what happened with COVID and the Lahaina fires is that they really show that what they're prioritizing.They're not prioritizing the health and safety of, of the residents, let alone Kanaka Maoli residents. They're prioritizing business interest.Chris: Mm. Hmm. Really just showing the true face, the true nature of the industry. Right. And then not in any way surprising why locals, both residents and Kanaka Maoli would be so upset and so angry, not just with the industry, but with tourists as well when they arrive having no understanding of this. Right. And so my next question kind of centers around locals there, workers, especially. And in this particular article, It says that, "as tourists returned to the [00:20:00] island, displaced residents are still in need of long-term solutions for their future, most notably in terms of long-term affordable housing. Currently. Quote, "a coalition of 28 community groups have staged what's being called a 'fish-in' on Kaanapali beach to help raise awareness of the ongoing impacts of the Malai wildfires. Wearing bright red and yellow shirts, the protesters have pledged to fish along kind of poly beach. An area usually crowded with sunbathers in swimmers, around the clock 24 7, in order to bring awareness to these issues. And so in terms of strategy and solidarity, How have local people and organizations responded in the context of these last few months.Healani: Yeah. Many locals work in tourism. So a lot of people in Hawaii felt that the reopening was too fast, too early. There were other ways they could have dealt with. They always use the term 'affordable housing,' they always use that to [00:21:00] develop. Here they use small businesses to justify prioritizing tourism. So, their whole justification for opening up to tourism early, in Lahaina, was to support small businesses. But there are other solutions. We all know that. They give billions of dollars to Israel and to Ukraine for a war that has nothing to do with us, to other countries who are doing whatever they want with it. But when it comes to this whole issue of tourism and the displaced families, they could have supported these families and for at least a year supported these small businesses like they did during the pandemic, but they chose not to.There's other solutions they could've used, but for them, opening it up was more important than making sure families were okay.So, there is a split between some residents who feel they need tourism and some [00:22:00] who don't. And it's usually, again, business owners who rely on tourists for their livelihood. And like I said before, any kind of benefit we get from tourism is really short lived and the effects of tourism, not just on our environment, but on our society and on our economic system is more detrimental than beneficial.I'll give you an example tourism fuels people from other places wanting to buy a second home here. Tourists come to Hawaii, they see how beautiful it is, they love the beaches, of course. We have like really good weather on a daily basis. So when they come here to visit, they wanna buy a second home here.⌘ Chris Christou ⌘ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Right now we have a housing crisis in Hawaii, and the reason for this housing crisis is because we have [00:23:00] tens of thousands of empty homes. In fact, we could put all the houseless people that are in Hawaii right now into these empty homes. And we would still have thousands of homes left over. And that is one of the reasons why number one, we have one of the, like the highest housing costs. The average house right now sells for a million dollars.It could literally be a shack on a piece of land. It'll sell for a million dollars in Hawaii. It's because of the demand for housing here in Hawaii. And it's because of the fact that a lot of the housing that we do have are usually second homes. And lots of times they use it for short term housing rentals as well. And I just want to clarify the numbers for the short term housing rentals. There's about 30, 000 residential housing units that are being rented to tourists, instead of residents, instead of locals, instead [00:24:00] of Kanaka Maoli, so that's part of the problem here. We don't have a housing shortage.We have a shortage of housing rentals or landlords that want to rent to residents.So, what we gain from tourism doesn't even come close to what we are losing from tourism, from the tourist industry.Chris: Uh, Wow. . It's just a. It's incredible. How so much of this, this desire to vacation, escape, have fun, rest, make money "passive income" lead so much to the detriment of neighbors, of what might otherwise be neighbors in our midst. And I know that, I think I've read the other day that there's this group Lahaina Strong, that was asking for government intervention. Is that right? Healani: Yeah. So they've asked. Yeah, that's a, that's a good point. [00:25:00] Lahaina Strong, one of the lead groups in Lahaina, have asked for the mayor and the governor to intervene and to ask short term housing rental owners to provide long term housing solutions for those, the displaced families. And that hasn't happened yet.It's been months. It's been September, October, November, over three months. And these families, their future is still up in the air. They don't even have reliable housing. So again, it just tells you what the priorities of the state is. Honestly, I don't think they're going to get what they want.Chris: Thank you, Healani and for being a witness to all this and proceeding accordingly. I'd like to, if I can ask you a little bit more about your political work. If I'm not mistaken you're a spokesperson for Ka Lahui Hawai'i Political Action Committee. Could you explain a little bit about [00:26:00] this organization? What the name means, how it was formed its principles, goals, and actions, perhaps. Healani: Okay, so yes, I am the spokesperson for Ka Lahui Hawai'i, and I am part of the Komike Kalai'aina Political Action Committee, which is a national committee of Ka Lahui Hawai'i, which means the Hawaiian Nation.We are a native initiative for self determination and self governance. We were formed in 1987 by Kanaka Maoli, Indigenous Peoples of Hawaii, as a response to the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and as a way forward for our people to seek out justice and to create our own way forward by creating our own nation.I have been with Kalahui Hawaii since 1993. And I [00:27:00] joined after watching Dr. Haulani-Kay Trask do her speech on the grounds of Iolani Palace, where she proclaimed that we are not American. And that was an eye opener to me. And I joined Ka Lahui and I transferred to the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, became her student. A lot of the work that we've done has been nation building. We are a nation in exile, literally. We take stances on issues a lot of times. And the issues we've been doing has been from water issues to intellectual property rights, to land rights, to tourism. The issues we cover is literally anything that affects us as a, as a people and as a nation. So we cover a wide [00:28:00] spread of issues. Most recently it's been the water issue that we've been really focused on. And when you look at the water issue, again, you see the disparity there. We are in a water crisis on the island of Oahu. We are encouraged to practice conservation measures. However, the tourist industry, hotels with pools and fountains and large golf courses, which have to be watered daily, are not being told the same thing. They are the exception. They continue to waste water while on O ahu are concerned about the future.Of our children and grandchildren because we're not sure if number one, there will be clean water and number two, if there is clean water, there'll be enough clean water for everyone in the future, but the hotels in the tourist industry, they don't care. They have swimming pools and[00:29:00] golf courses.Tourists are not told to come here and conserve water. You know, in fact, they waste water in the tourist industry and you can see it. Are you seeing how they waste it? It's pretty visual and obvious. So Ka Lahui Hawaii has been active On the front lines with Mauna Kea issue, and we have treaties with other Native American nations. We've gone to the U. N., our past Keaāina, our governor, Merilani Trask helped to draft UNDRIP, which is the U. N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is one of the most important documents that have come out from the U. N. for Indigenous Peoples and has reasserted all of our rights to self determination.There's about 400 million indigenous peoples around the world, and UNDRIP [00:30:00] is important to every single one of us.Chris: Well, thank you for, for that and the work that you do with Ka Lahui, Healani. I'll make sure that the requisite websites and links are up on the homework section and the end of tourism podcasts for our listeners. Now, in my interview withHokulani Aikau and Vernadette Gonzalez, they spoke of various projects within the tourism sector, undertaken by indigenous Hawaiians to uncover and share with tourists or visitors, the histories of the people and place so often ignored by the industry. Now in order to do this, to educate, many people work within the confines of the structures and the systems we already have, that is to decolonize tourism, for example. Now if we weren't limited by those current structures and systems. How would you personally want to proceed hosting the other, the foreigner? How would you want them [00:31:00] to proceed towards you and your people? How might you imagine such relationship to unfold? Healani: Yeah. Yeah. Decolonize tourism. That's an oxymoron. I don't believe in decolonizing tourism. The nature of tourism, it's like colonization. The nature of tourism is to exploit, is to extract everything it can from a place and from a people and it commodifies, things that to us are spiritual, to us are sacred, tourism commodifies it all. To decolonize something that was not created from indigenous peoples is impossible.We can decolonize our world. But we cannot decolonize systems of [00:32:00] oppression because they're set up to oppress us. And so that is, I don't know what to say. It's like I said before. You know, they keep changing the name, you know, Hawai'i Tourism Authority even though they have leadership that is Kanaka and they're trying to be culturally sensitive and they are doing, you know, destination management practices kind of thing and working with nonprofits and cultural groups.It's still tourism. It's still a business that wants to benefit from our land, from our water, from our culture, from our people. And when we talk about decolonization, when we talk about working against systems of oppression, it's really about us rebuilding our own systems that counter their systems.So it's all systemic, right? It's like a system of power that benefits one group [00:33:00] over the other. It stems from colonization, which is a system of power that is working against us. So to counter that, we have to create our own systems. We actually have to reconnect and recreate our old systems. So Franz Fanon talks about this. When colonization happens, what they do is they compartmentalize our world.So, you know, where we see the world as living, as where we see ourselves as part of nature, and part of this living system where there's balance. We give and take from the land. We take care of the land, the land takes care of us. In our cosmogonic genealogies as Kanaka, it tells us basically our universal perspective on all life, which is basically we are related to all the animals and plants and to the islands itself, because what it does is it recites the birth of every [00:34:00] living thing in Hawaii that was here during the time we were here, before Captain Cook arrived, but it connects us to this world and it tells us our place in it. And when colonization came, what they did was they ripped our world apart.And they separated us from nature. They separated us from our ancient beliefs. They separated us even from our belief in ourself. And many Native people, I'm sure can relate to this, but it's like living in two worlds. We live in a Hawaiian world, and we live in the Western world. We act a certain way in the Western world because of the way it's organized. And in our world, it's different. So, it's important to understand that we cannot infiltrate a system. Without the system infiltrating us. We're going to change before the system changes because these systems have been in place [00:35:00] for centuries.So I don't even want to answer the question about hosting foreigners or others because that's not even something that's on my radar. I don't imagine tourism in my future or in the future of our Lāhui, or in the future of our people. Kalahui, Hawai'i has taken stances against tourists and tourism. It's not worth what we have to give up to host foreigners. And I could go on for hours with stories of our people, putting themselves at risk, saving tourists in the ocean, and not even getting a word of thanks. Having tourists pee on our sacred sites, having tourists throw rubbish on our beaches. It never ends. So I think it's cute that they want to decolonize tourism. It's a multi billion dollar business. You cannot decolonize tourism unless you take [00:36:00] the aspect of capitalism out of it. It's like decolonizing money. How are you going to do that? It's like you need to build systems where you can sustain yourself and your people outside of these capitalist and outside of these corporate systems of power. Healani: Yeah, so what I would want to say to those who want to stand in solidarity with Kanaka Maoli, with the Native people of Hawai'i, I would say stay home. Help us spread the message that we do not want or need visitors to come to our islands. As the Native people of Hawai'i we're building our own food systems, we're bartering. We're trying to move forward as a people away from these other systems, away from tourism, away and out from under military occupation.It's a struggle that we're in. I think for those that are listening, it's important for you to[00:37:00] spread the word about the struggle that Native Hawaiians are going through in our own homeland and our struggle for liberation and to support us in whatever way you can. So I think it's important to support us from afar, I would say.And if you're here anyway, like if you end up coming anyway, then support. Don't just come here. Give back. Help out a Hawaiian organization. Help out a Hawaiian on the street. 40 percent of all houseless in Hawaii are Indigenous Hawaiians. And we only make up 20 percent of the population in our own homeland. 50 percent of the population in Hawaii's prisons and jails are Hawaiians.We have low educational attainment. We die from diseases that other people usually don't die from. We have probably the highest suicide rates in Hawaii. High infant mortality rates. So this isn't our paradise. But we have to make it a paradise for tourists. And that's something we can't continue to do.The reality of the [00:38:00] situation is that it's destroying our future right now. And you look at what happened to Lahaina, and that's all because of unsustainable development, high cost of living, corporations running amok, diverting the rivers, water being diverted to hotels and golf courses, instead of letting water just flow freely from the ocean, from the mountains to the sea.So that's what we're dealing with, and if you are thinking about coming to Hawaii, please, please think again and just support a Hawaiian organization in their struggle to reclaim what we lost. We did something around tourism. It's a survey that we gave to tourists who are here anyway, right? So that is our pledge for tourists if they are gonna come here. And we've had it out for a few years. We've tried to get like the airlines to push it out and stuff like that to raise awareness. Now they're doing more of that, which is good. [00:39:00] And I appreciate that. But ultimately, we don't want people to come here.Healani: That would be the end goal because Hawai'ians are displaced on our own land.This is our mutual aid that we set up to help families of Red Hill who still don't have clean drinking water, which is nuts. And this is two years after, right? So if they want to help with that, we appreciate that. Chris: I'll make sure that our listeners have all of those available to them when the episode launches.Healani: Because we're basically providing services to the residents, but Yeah, that's pretty much it. I can't believe people think they can decolonize tourism. It's freaking nuts.Chris: Yeah. I keep coming back to this notion that, you know, [00:40:00] part of colonization of our minds and the wars against us tend to stem from a war against the imagination and a war against us being able to imagine other worlds and just things completely differently. And I also think that when people don't have examples to follow of what that might be like to, to imagine things differently, and then also to not have the time to do that.You know, people tend to fall back on kind of simple alternatives, I guess.Healani: I think it could be useful for a little while, but it's like, we've got to work towards not sustaining it, but dismantling it, somehow getting rid of it.I mean, look at what everything that's happened to Hawaii, COVID, Lahaina fires. Our wildfires are like happening more and more. We have more on this island now than we've had before. It's just a matter of time before we have our own huge fire that's going to be devastating on this island.Chris: [00:41:00] I'm very grateful for your time, and I can tell very clearly that you're one of those people that's offering an example for younger people on how things might be different. So, I'd like to thank you for your time, your consideration. And I'll make sure, as I said, that all of these links are up on the End of Tourism website when the episode launches and and on social media as well.Healani: Awesome. Thank you so much. You have a good day. Get full access to ⌘ Chris Christou ⌘ at chrischristou.substack.com/subscribe

Good news from East Maui! In this interview with Nā Moku Aupuni o Koʻolau Hui, Jerome Kekiwi, Jr. and Jessie Kekiwi-Aweau share about a recent win for their community: Nā Moku received a 65-year lease for Keʻanae Uka! Nā Moku Aupuni o Koʻolau Hui perpetuates the Kanaka Maoli traditional and customary lifestyle of Keʻanae-Wailuanui, Maui. Encompassing nearly 400 acres of loʻi, this area was renowned for taro farming until commercial stream diversions completely dewatered the area. In 2018, the community's 30-year legal struggle resulted in the largest stream restoration in Hawaiʻiʻs history. With their new long-term lease for Keʻanae Uka, Nā Moku can extend their mauka stewardship and implement a long-term plan for their community's ʻāina and wai. Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

This year's class of MacArthur Fellows includes three creative leaders from Native America. Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) draws community and family together through contemporary and abstract multidisciplinary art. The Haskell Indian Nations University alumni has showed her work at myriad galleries including The Whitney Biennial in New York City. Patrick Makuakāne (Kanaka Maoli) is the founder and director of Nā Lei Hulu i ka Wēkiu, a hula company and cultural organization. Makuakāne is a kumu hula, a master teacher of hula, who's work connects and promotes contemporary Hawaiian hula, music, and culture while challenging stereotypes and taking back Hawaiian narratives. And Raven Chacon (Diné), Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, who, as an artist, explores the relationships between people, space, and sound by examining the history and theft of land. We'll visit with a couple of this year's MacArthur Fellows and learn more about their work.

Air Date 9/13/2023 This eye-opening episode will explore the complex web of colonialism, disaster capitalism, and climate change is ravaging Native Hawaiian communities. We explore how corporations and privatization going back to annexation have exacerbated wildfires, water scarcity and housing issues in Hawaii. We also discuss the role of tourism and its impact on local culture and resources and learn how community-led mutual aid efforts are offering a glimmer of hope for the unhoused and those struggling to reclaim their ancestral lands. Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Transcript BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Clips and Shows + No Ads!) Join our Discord community! Related Episodes: #1401 That is a Texas-Sized Climate Disaster You Got There #1546 Exist, Resist, Indigenize, Decolonize: A story of colonialism, cultural renaissance and modernity SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: Plantation Disaster Capitalism: Native Hawaiians Organize to Stop Land & Water Grabs After Maui - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-18-23 We speak with Hawaiian law professor Kapuaʻala Sproat about the conditions that made the fires more destructive and what's yet to come for residents looking to rebuild their lives. Ch. 2: Why Maui burned - Today, Explained - Air Date 8-15-23 Hawaii's landscape has been rapidly changing for the last 200 years thanks to plantations, tourism, and climate change. A reporter and climatologist explain how those factors fueled one of the worst wildfires in US history. Ch. 3: We are concerned for you. - Read Choi - Air Date 8-4-23 A skit imagining a discussion between an elite property owner and a Native Hawaiian Ch. 4: Disasters at every turn - Native America Calling - Air Date 8-28-23 Officials are still sorting out the human and financial toll of the unprecedented fire on Maui. Many Native Hawaiians remain missing, hundreds more sustained serious damage to their homes and businesses. Ch. 5: “We're Living the Climate Emergency”: Native Hawaiian Kaniela Ing on Fires, Colonialism & Banyan - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-11-23 We speak with Kaniela Ing, national director of the Green New Deal Network and seventh-generation Kanaka Maoli, Native Hawaiian, about the impact of this week's devastating wildfires and their relationship to climate change. Ch. 6: As Fires Destroy Native Hawaiian Archive in Maui, Mutual Aid Efforts Are Launched to Help Lahaina - Democracy Now! - Air Date 8-11-23 In Lahaina, the area in west Maui that is of historical importance to Indigenous people, entire neighborhoods were wiped out by this week's historic wildfires, including the Na 'Aikane o Maui Cultural Center Ch. 7: Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at recent press coverage of the Maui fires and the climate crisis - CounterSpin - Air Date 8-25-23 Janine Jackson takes a quick look back at recent press coverage of the Maui fires and the climate crisis. Ch. 8: Wildfires - This is Democracy - Air Date 9-5-23 This week, Jeremi and Zachary are joined by guests Randy Denzer and Dr. Alison Alter to discuss the increasing incidence of wildfires in the United States and what efforts have been made to mitigate them. MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S) Ch. 9: Relationships, Money, and Maui Tourism - The Amanda Seales Show - Air Date 8-18-23 Is Tourism helpful to the Hawaiian Islands? Is the tourism industry a byproduct of the colonization of Hawaii? Ch. 10: How Native Hawaiians have been pushed out of Hawai'i - Bianca Graulau - Air Date 2-7-23 Native Hawaiians are struggling to afford to live on the land that was once stolen from their ancestors. FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 11: Final comments on the need for better systems to respond to predictable disasters MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions)   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com

Last month's Maui wildfires were devastating. While mainstream media covered the story, the deep Indigenous histories were lost in the news cycle. Kanaka Maoli activist and co-founder of Maui Medics Healers Hui, Noelani Ahia, joins the show, offering a grounded perspective from Maui.    Once a cultural center of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Lahaina is at the forefront of combatting the worst kinds of disaster capitalism and plantation economies. We discuss the deep histories of Indigenous relations with land, water, and fire and the long-term vision for a just and sustainable future in the wake of catastrophe.   Watch the video edition on The Red Nation Podcast YouTube channel Please support the rebuilding efforts and Maui grassroots organizations:   Maui Medics Healers Hui   https://mauimedichealershui.org/donate   Lahaina Cultural Cener   https://naaikane.org  Support www.patreon.com/redmediapr              

Thursday, 8/31/2023, on American Indian Airwaves on KPFK, 7pm to 8pm (PCT) “The Living Histories of Lahaina and Self Determination for Hawaiian Nation and Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush” Part 1: The living histories of Lahaina are told through the intergenerational means of passing traditional stories, songs, language, and life from one Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) generation to the next. Despite the media, national, and international attention on the recent August 8th, 2023, deadly Lahaina fire, many critical questions and concerns are missing from various media reports about the self-determination of the Hawaiian nation in recovery and healing from the violence stemming from United States militarization, the illegal over through of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the United States, corporatizing the land and water for tourism, plus more. Through the settler colonial history of what is called Lahaina, the Kanaka Maoli are resilient in survivance and now more than ever are organized in working to ensure that decolonization and healing takes place as part of the recovery from the Lahaina fire. Tune in today on American Indian Airwaves to hear enriching, important, and real stories from a Kanaka Maoli perspective on the living histories of “Lahaina,” Maui, and the Hawaiian nation, plus more. Guest: • Kepā Maly, Cultural Ethnographer - Resource Specialist of Kumu Pono Associates LLC (https://www.kumupono.com/). Kepā was raised on the islands of O'ahu and Lanaʻi. While growing up on Lānaʻi, Kepā was taught the Hawaiian language and cultural practices and values by kūpuna (elders). Kūpuna spoke of, and practiced many aspects of Hawaiian culture, including land and ocean management practices, mele and hula (chants and dances), material culture, traditions, and ethnobotany. Part 2: The long legacy of settler colonial violence against California Indigenous nations, the lands, waters, and more continues in northern California where the informal and formal cannabis industry is harming the Peoples, lands, waters, and more. The Cannabis industry is just one industry out many contributing to systemic forms of colonial violence. Tune in today on American Indian Airwaves to the author of a new published book titled Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California (2023). The book is the first to cover the environmental consequences of cannabis cultivation in California by foregrounding Indigenous voices, experiences, and histories. It's not intended as an expose of cannabis growers, but rather meant to inform the path toward an alternative future, one that starts with the return of land to Indigenous stewardship and a rejection of the commodification and control of nature for profit. Guest: Kaitlin Reed (Yurok/Hupa/Oneida), Associate Professor of Native American Studies at Cal-Poly, Humboldt and the author of the newly published book: Settler Cannabis: From Gold Rush to Green Rush in Indigenous Northern California (2023). Archived programs can be heard on Soundcloud at: https://soundcloud.com/burntswamp American Indian Airwaves streams on over ten podcasting platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, Audible, Backtracks.fm, Gaana, Google Podcast, Fyyd, iHeart Media, Player.fm, Podbay.fm, Podcast Republic, SoundCloud, Spotify, Tunein, YouTube, and more. American Indian Airwaves is an all-volunteer collective and Native American public affairs program that broadcast weekly on KPFK FM 90.7 Los Angeles, CA, Thursdays, from 7:00pm to 8:00pm. Financially support KPFK by visiting KPFK.org and pledging a dollar amount or call 818-985-5835 (KPFK) to support.

The unprecedented fires on Maui are blamed for a rising human toll and destroyed homes, property and cultural touchstones. The island's original kingdom capital, Lahaina, was hard hit, losing a 200 year-old church and the Hawaiian language immersion school Pūnana Leo, among other cherished structures. We'll get a picture of the destruction and what's next for residents.  GUESTS Dr. Sydney Iaukea (Native Hawaiian), author of The Queen and I: A Story of Dispossessions and Reconnections in Hawai'i and Kekaʻa: The Making and Saving of North Beach West Maui.   Eric Enos (Kanaka Maoli), executive director of Ka'ala Farm and Cultural Learning Center  Carmen Hulu Lindsey (Kanaka Maoli), representative of Maui as a chair of the board of trustees for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs   Clay Trauernicht, assistant specialist in the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources at the University of Hawaii at Manoa 

Ahupua'a. The ancient Hawaiian system that honors the interconnectedness of the land, waters, clouds and all living things. The system is inherently based in sacred reciprocity, sustainability, collaboration with and responsibility to others: to the lands, waters, and life itself, thriving from the mountains to the sea. The destruction of the Lahaina Fire is an example where the connections between people and the land had become broken and out of balance to the detriment of all. Within the Ahupua'a, the people would practice: aloha (respect), laulima (cooperation) and malama (care or stewardship) in order for the whole to be pono or in sacred balance. The system encompasses culture, spirituality, hydrology, aquaculture, forestry, land regeneration, and caring for watersheds. Ahupua'a is a living example of ancestral wisdom, innovation and well-being where the people take care of the land and the land in turn, takes care of them. Kumu Mikilani Young [http://mikilaniyoung.com], Co-Founder of the nonprofits, United Pillars of Aloha and Kaiapuni Ho'ola Piha Sanctuary, joins us on this show to share the essence of the Ahupua'a system as a global example of how we can unify, be abundant and fulfill our shared responsibility to Mother Earth. For an extended interview and other benefits, become an EcoJustice Radio patron at https://www.patreon.com/posts/87744154?pr=true Discussion with Mikilani on youth advocacy in 2021: https://wilderutopia.com/landscape/spiritual/kiai-up-the-rise-of-empowered-youth-with-mikilani-young/ Discussion with Mikilani on stopping Mauna Kea in 2018: https://wilderutopia.com/landscape/spiritual/ecojustice-radio-ku-kiai-mauna-the-mauna-kea-movement-to-protect-sacred-sites-ep-25-part-i/ Mikilani Young is a Kanaka Maoli (or Hawaiian) traditional kumu hula and cultural practitioner who lives and walks a spiritual path set by her ancestors and guided by ke Akua (which means Creator/God). She has been a teacher for 26 years, where her approach to the practice and teaching of Indigenous Hawaiian ways is suited to the challenging times we live in. Her path is a discerning one to not exploit or diminish the mana of her own knowledge while maintaining and honoring the Creator of the Universe. The work she has done as a co-founder of the nonprofits (United Pillars of Aloha and Kaiapuni Ho'ola Piha Sanctuary) [http://mikilaniyoung.com], is in service of Mother Earth and the unborn generations. Carry Kim is Co-Host of EcoJustice Radio. An advocate for ecosystem restoration, Indigenous lifeways, and a new humanity born of connection and compassion, she is a long-time volunteer for SoCal350, member of Ecosystem Restoration Camps, and a co-founder of the Soil Sponge Collective, a grassroots community organization dedicated to big and small scale regeneration of Mother Earth. Podcast Website: http://ecojusticeradio.org/ Podcast Blog: https://www.wilderutopia.com/category/ecojustice-radio/ Support the Podcast: Patreon https://www.patreon.com/ecojusticeradio PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=LBGXTRM292TFC&source=url Executive Producer and Intro: Jack Eidt Hosted by Carry Kim Engineer and Original Music: Blake Quake Beats Episode 186 Photo credit: Mikilani Young

May 1, 2023--Join host Corine Pearce as she welcomes Madonna Feather-Cruz Proud member of Round Valley Indian Tribes, Wife, mother and community member as she discusses her efforts to bring awareness to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women epidemic. Corine also welcomes U'ilani Wesley, a Kanaka Maoli activist, singer, lei maker and Land steward on Northern Pomo Land. Hear about the impact she is having on the local community and culture through her activism, leadership and land tending.

This great conversation on Indigeneity is from a couple of years ago and it just keeps being relevant. Being Indigenous is an analytic, not an identity. We need to talk about that. Patty (00:00:01):You're listening to medicine for the resistancePatty (00:00:04):Troy was so smart last time, and this could only be better with Joy here. Joy: God we're in trouble. Hey, it will be a smart show. Kerry: (00:00:20):Couldn't be more perfect. Joy! Oh yeah. Patty (00:00:24): Just so much happening, right? Like this has been bonkers in Native Twitter.Joy: Oh, I know. I don't either. Patty: Because we had the list right? Where everybody was kind of losing their mind about the list and then some anti-Blackness that was happening as a result of the list.And then, you know, and then kind of, I saw what was trending was seven days of fighting in Palestine and I'm like, no, that's, let's talk about seven consecutive days. Kerry: It's been like, what, how many, how many hundreds, you know, almost a hundred years we're coming up to now?- like stop it!  Patty: And then we're talking about global indigeneity, right? That being Indigenous is more than just living here in North America, which is something that, you know, I've kind of been unpacking for myself over the last year.  Then there are conversations happening, you know, who is Indigenous, in Palestine and the Levant area.Patty (00:01:37):Um, and then what claims does that give them to land? You know, and what, you know, what claims does that give them? Um, and do we rest our claims on land solely to being Indigenous? I mean, even here, it's all migrations, right? The Anishinaabe started and then we moved east and then we came back and there are tribes that exist now that didn't exist then.  You know- like the Metis, right? They didn't exist at the time of contact and yet there are distinct Indigenous people and what's there. So all of these conversations are so complicated.And then into the midst of these complicated, you know, difficult conversations, of course, rides Daniel Heath Justice's voice of reason and recognition into these conversations. So I can't think of two people that I would rather have this conversation with, for Kerry and me to have this conversation with, than with Troy and Joy.Troy: (00:02:51):Exciting to be back and, uh, and to meet, to meet Joy online, at least.Joy (00:03:00):Yeah, it's my pleasure. I remember watching you, um, I guess a couple of months ago when you're on and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like, just totally blown my mind. And I said it to Patty and she's like, yes, let's do a show. I'm like, yes, let's do it. Let's figure this out because yeah, it's a lot!Kerry (00:03:21):I agree. There's so much complexity. We're talking about Palestine and we're talking about these roots; where do we put roots down? What is Indigeneity? What are all of these spaces? I was thinking about Burma or AKA Myanmar.And that brave stance that young woman-I'm not sure if you guys heard about it- at the Miss Universe pageant, held up a sign saying, ‘Pray For Us.' We are being persecuted or we're being killed, I think the message said.  Once again, it made me think about how precarious, you know, our spaces are, how the colonial system has this rinse and repeat way of creating, um, the same kinds of spaces.These genocides that are created all the waves through, um, the way of being. I was thinking about China and the Uyghur tribes, the Muslim Islamic based tribes that are being,  ‘rehabilitated' we have no idea to the scope and scale.Kerry (00:04:38):I have been fascinated recently with North Korea.  Just the very existence and structure of how North Korea even exists in this realm.  All of these pieces led me back to this idea that the reality, maybe I'm posing a question for all of us. Where do we begin? When we think about breaking this question down, you know, um, the right to be forced off of our lands, this space of, of the massacre, that seems to be such an integral part of the bloodletting. That's such an important, integral part of why we take over the land. And then finally, how the resources, because I noticed that we touch certain places, you know, we protest about certain places, more so than others. because resources are advantageous to more so than for some of the colonial structures that exist? And it makes it advantageous for us to take a moment's movement in those spaces versus others. I just, I've been very sad this week. I had to step away because of all of it.  As you mentioned, there's been so much!I'm just going to breathe now….. (laughter)Troy  (00:06:06):I don't even know where one can start. We have you have to start, I guess, where we are. As you pointed out, what's going on in Palestine has been going on, you know, it's 73 years since the Nakba stuff started and it's been going on since then,  although the roots go back even further than that. So, you know we can't that didn't just start this week and we didn't just start relating to colonialism this week, the four of us. And, uh, we didn't just start relating to genocide and racism either this week. So I think we're all situated in ways that give us insights into these topics, but also blind each of them in different ways too. So it's good to know.  When I was a kid, my dad got a job in Beirut in Lebanon, and we were there before the civil war and our house was just, just up the hill from the Palestinian Palestinian refugee camps.Troy(00:06:54):  So it was a lot of the kids I played with before that were there before I started school. And then I did first grade in Beirut. Some of the kids I played with were from the refugee camp. Then later when we came to this country and just the blatantly anti-Palestinian bias of the media was a real shock because you know, these are people who were kicked out of their homes because somebody else wanted it. And, uh, and of course, Lebanon wasn't doing a great job of taking care of them either. It was, you know, that was a big shame was that all these refugees are treated, treated so poorly in the, in the countries that took that they, that they went to.Troy (00:07:30):But you know, those little kids are my age- they're in their fifties now, and they've got kids and maybe grandkids and there are their generations that have been born in exile. And, uh, meanwhile, now we have this thing going on in Israel itself, where Arab Israelis are being targeted by Jewish Israelis and some vice versa too. It's just street fighting between us. We're not even talking about Palestinians, we're talking about different groups of Israeli citizens based on their ethnicity and their religion. Yeah, it's interesting.Joy (00:08:06):Cause I  live on social media and so just watching the discussions going on on Twitter. And it's interesting to see a lot of the activists for Palestine, which is great, but they kind of like, I've seen some memes where it's like, oh, just give you know, Canada, this part of Israel, this part of Canada or the US I'm just like, I'm like, okay, friends, no, we're not going to be doing this. Right. Because we're talking about colonization, but I'm surprised by how little, a lot of the activists understand that they're currently living in occupied states. Like, I'm just like, wow, like really like Canada, US you know, I'm, I've been quiet about for most of the weeks. I'm just like, okay, you know what? I'm just going to let people have their space, but I'm like, come on.Joy (00:08:54):Like, you know, like, and I'm watching like Black and Indigenous Twitter, we're just kind of saying, yup, that's the playbook. There's the playbook check, check, check, check. And we're like, we know this, we've been through this, we've done this, you know, for, you know, 500 years on this continent. Right. And so, and in many places much longer. And so I'm like, okay, let's, you know, I'm finally, I said something I'm like, okay, you know what? We need to kind of understand that this is a global issue. And that, you know, we are still currently occupants working in occupied states as it is, and sort of state of Canada, the state of us, right. Mexico, you know, and as you see, like, you know, with the countries that are supporting Israel, you know, a lot of them have like a huge long, giant history of, you know, occupation and colonialism and genocide behind them.Joy (00:09:42):And it's just like this isn't a surprise folks. And so, I mean, but it's good because I've had a lot of great conversations with people who did not know this. And so I'm kinda like, okay, let's educate, I'm kind of prickly about it, but I'm gonna, you know, do this in good faith. And so, and I mean, it's just been, you know, like Patty said a week because, you know, I'm coming off a week of serious anti-Black racism within Indigenous communities as is too. So it's like, okay, that's, what's up now. Right. It's a new type of, you know, I don't know, uh, fall out of hatred, fall out of genocide, fall out of colonialism. It's just like, okay. And yeah, which way is it going to, you know, smack us in the head this week? It just kind of feels like that. I'm just like waiting for what's going to happen next week is going to be something else. So it's been a yeah. Interesting two weeks, I guess. Patty (00:10:38):Well: I think some of it is that we don't have a solid understanding of what Indigenous means say, particularly in Canada because of the way we use the word. Um, you know, uh, yeah, we, we just, we don't have a really solid understanding of it. So that's where I'm gonna kind of punt over to Troy. So, you know, if you could kind of give us that global, you know, that because not everybody also thinks of themselves as Indigenous, right? Like not all countries have that same kind of history where they would have a settler Indigenous kind of binary. I hate binaries, but, you know, because they're, they're never, they're never that clear and distinct, but if maybe you could kind of help us out so that we're at least working from the same understanding, at least in this conversation.Troy (00:11:24):I mean, but the thing is I hate to jump in and say, this is what Indigenous means, because, because Indigenous is a contested term and it's, it's, it's used differently in different places, geographically, but also in different contexts. And, uh, um, you know, I guess, I guess what I got some, some attention for on Twitter a few months back was basically for, for putting up other people's ideas, who I, that I teach in the classroom about, you know, Indigeneity isn't is not an identity, it's analytic. And it has to do with our relationship to land our relationship to settler-colonial states. And that our identities are, you know, in my case, I mean, in other cases, other Indigenous nations and cultures, uh that's. And so we have, you know, Indigenous, there are 5,000 Indigenous languages in the world. Um, if each of those is a different cultural group, then we're dealing with a lot of diversity. 90% of human diversity is Indigenous.Troy (00:12:18):So it's hard to say any one thing about all Indigenous people are this or do this because it was less, we've got most of the world's cultures and, and, and get then as, as, as, as Daniel Heath justice was, was reminding us on Twitter, uh, you pointed it out Patty to me today. And it was, it was worth looking at again, is that it's not just a political definition either because our relationship to the land is because it's everything. It's not just, it's not just political, at least for, for many of us, it's not. And, uh, for many of our cultures, we derive our very personhood, our peoplehood, our, or you know, our spiritual identity is all connected to, to, to land and water. So, yeah, I mean, what, what, what Indigenous is Canada from a double outsider in the US I'm not Indigenous to the US but I've lived here for a long time.Troy (00:13:03):And I, I kind of, I kind of am like another settler in the US in the sense that I've been here for much of my life, whereas Canada is, is, is a place I observed from the outside. But it seems like in both the United States and in Canada, Indigenous is often used primarily domestically to refer to groups that are Indigenous within the borders of the Canadian settler state or the US settler state. Because, there are so many different groups and, and what other, you know, what terms is, what have, we can say native American or Aboriginal or first nation. So rather than just listing all the, all the many hundreds of nations, people might use that term, but then, you know, there's, there are Indigenous peoples in all over the Pacific and in much of Asia and in much of Africa and even, even a few places in Europe.Troy (00:13:47):And it has to do with this colonial relationship where we about the Sam. We have a really deep connection to Sápmi, our land and water. That is which we, you know, our, in our, our way of viewing it, it's animated. We ask permission from the water.  When we take water or do we ask permission from a place of a piece of land before we build a house there. The settler states, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia came in, came in in recent time, historically, you know, within the last 500 years came in and extended their borders through our land and claimed it as theirs. And then there was all the boarding schools and all that stuff.  Those are similar histories, uh, because there's sort of a similar playbook that comes from, that comes from a certain way of looking at the world.Troy(00:14:37):That land is something that isn't a dead object that we can just buy and sell and parcel up and own. Coupled with the idea that with the will to take that land from other people. People who are first nations of Canada, the US and Australia, New Zealand have experienced that. Indigenous Northern Japan, I've experienced that it's, I wouldn't say that the, I knew and all the many different, uh, Aboriginal nations in Australia and the Maori of New Zealand and all the Canadian first nations, and then the new it to the Métis and all the native Americans and Alaska natives and, and, uh, Kanaka Maoli in the US are all the same. We're not, we're so radically different from each other in so many ways, but we share this, we share this, the important art, a similar way of relating to our land and water.Kerry (00:15:23):That brings up for me a question when, you know, first of all, Troy, you're always so brilliant. And when you put it out there in the way that you just did, I'm like, wow, it's a vast, vast space! And then when you put the number on it at 90%, I went that's everybody pretty much, you know? Um, but what also comes to mind then is, is the word indigeneity serving us or Indigenous serving us and, and this, um, and the movements that all of us as a whole, as, as you know, a group like, just does it, it's served to be using this word in particular and then leaving it to be open to interpretation or not? Patty: Traces of History, by Patrick Wolfe, because he looks at the way race is constructed differently in different places, right?  It is like when we talked with your friend Marina about how Blackness is constructed in Brazil. and how it works in North  America and how it works in different places because it all works.Patty:(00:16:37):It works differently but for the same purpose. So, you know, and I think indigeneity, it works differently in different places, but for the same purpose, it works, you know, colonialism works to sever us from the land to sever us from each other, you know, to sever our relationships. I'm just writing, you know, it was just writing a bit about, you know, the Cree understandings of kinship networks and how many mothers, you had one that's tied up in the language, right? Like your, your mother's sisters are also your mothers and then your father's brothers are also your fathers. And then their spouses are also your mothers and fathers. Cause if they're married to your father, then that, you know, like these kinds of intricate webs of relationships and those things all get severed, you know, and our connection to land because, you know, the colonial powers are very mobile.Patty (00:17:26):They're moving around all over the place. So they're moving us around all over the place. And then it's like, I'm reading this book right now that Kerry had recommended, um, Lose Your Mother, um, about, you know, she had heard that the author's trip home to Ghana and, and, and how heartbreaking it was because you go looking a for home and realizing that that's not home. And I just finished Hood Feminism by Mikki  Kendall. And she's talking about real, you know, having to come to terms with her seeds may have been, you know, left Africa, but her roots are here this is home. So then that's easier than thinking about being Indigenous and diaspora not having that same connection to land, but having that kind of fraught relationship with colonialism, I don't know. And I'm thinking too about the ways that we do find even, you know, tomorrow night, we're going to be talking about refusing patriarchy, because everything exists in opposition to colonialism, right?Patty (00:18:26):Like indigeneity to a certain degree. We weren't Indigenous before the colonists got here. I was Ojibway. Joy's ancestors were Lakota, Troy's were Sàmi. Like, you know, like we were ourselves, we didn't have this collective identity that placed us in opposition to another collective identity. We were ourselves. And if you were our enemies, chances were we called you a little snake. That seems to be what we call everybody. So whatever identity, it's like, you know, identities, you know, existing in counterpoint to a binary that just doesn't work. It doesn't work for anybody. And so people have to keep, but that doesn't fit. I just keep thinking about how we keep identifying ourselves in opposition to something. I don't know that that serves us, but I don't know what the alternative is because we do need some things, some kind of coherent way of thinking about ourselves in opposition. And I think that's okay to exist in opposition to something that should be imposed. It's so intense.Kerry (00:19:29):lt really does. Patty. I know for me, in particular, it's so interesting how some of the ways that you and I, outside of this space, how some of these very similar thoughts, um, I, I've almost been having the same kind of process going on in my own mind about how do I relate to my being this as a woman of diaspora you know, a Black woman that has been just kind of left here or plumped there, the point here, I guess, I don't know. Um, and how that interrelates to my, being this, to being whole, and also relating it back to the colonial space that I have had to adjust to in my thinking, um, I've been doing a lot of study recently on a man named Kevin Samuel's. And he's been, uh, approaching this topic from what we would have considered a 'Menenist' standpoint, but there were some arguable facts in the way that he was breaking some things down that has caused me to have to question how I stand in my feminist.Kerry (00:20:52):Because I kind of consider myself a bit of a feminist in my feminist stance and how this itself has become a way that we have created diversion and division between ourselves as men and women, the idea of the masculine and the feminine, and then how that exists in the non-binary or binary space. Like, so what I'm, what I'm getting at is all of these different isms, all of these, these structures that have been created really feed into our way of being separated and with the separation, it allows the system to keep feeding itself. I almost feel like we have to start examining the liminal spaces that exist, trying to find the commonalities, but at least allow for our specialness, that individual part of who we are to stand. Because as you mentioned, Patty being Ojibwe versus being Cree I feel there's such beauty there, right? And like, I know that I believe that when we, when we just classify it under one thing, it, it helps, but it doesn't do that make sense? And I'm really just caught in that right now. Like I know that I've been trying to process that and do we need some radical acceptance that goes along with that understanding we are different and special. And that specialness is what makes us unique and rich and full in the space of our togetherness.Troy(00:22:39):This is, I love this conversation because just like last time as I'm sitting here listening to this, I can do so many ideas. This phenomenon that we have, whether it be as Indigenous people or as members of any of our Indigenous nations or as racialized other, or as women, or as LGBTQ or as whatever group or groups one belongs to, and then being treated as a member of that group. If I define myself as Indigenous, then I'm defining myself in opposition to colonization and I'm erasing all kinds of other important things. Defining oneself in opposition to patriarchy is opposing something, but we have to post these things. I think like you said, petty, and we can't, there's also a sense, a certain degree to which we can't, you can't help it. I mean, I was thinking of Franz Fanon and his essay on the fact of Blackness and when he was growing up in the Caribbean, he really didn't think of himself as Black.Troy(00:23:28):That was sort of an abstract, weird thing. He thought of himself as educated from the privileged classes and, and to a certain degree as French. And then he goes to Paris to study and he's walking down the street and this little, little girl was holding her mom's hand and points and says, look, a Black man. And, um, that's when he, you know, realizes that he can't escape. He is Black and he can't escape it because people won't let him escape. That's, that's not that he's always identified or interpreted as that. And if we're interpolated as, as women or as or as Indigenous, or as whatever, whatever groups we may, we may be identified as we can't just pretend that we're not. I mean, we can't. And so I think, like you said, petty, sometimes it's worth fighting. Um, I can tell, I go back to the story.Troy (00:24:18):I always liked to fall back on stories, but in my own existence, you know, my mom's white American, and she went over to Norway and married my dad and us, I was there for a time. And then there's been in the US for time and in the US you know, I grew up speaking both English and Norwegian. I speak English pretty much without an accent. I look white and I get a lot of white privilege in the US as long as I don't mind people not knowing anything about, my Indigenous culture. I have a much different situation than my Sàmi relatives and began to feel like maybe I shouldn't be calling myself a hundred percent Sàmi. And then I go back and experience vicious anti-Sammi racism directed at me. And there's nothing that secures you and your own.Troy (00:24:57):There's nothing that secured me and my Sàmi identity as much as being harassed for being Sàmi than being threatened physically. That just makes you I guess I am, because it's not fun. And I would rather not be in this position right now, you know? Um, and, and, uh, I think that's one of the reasons for these alliances, but they also are alliances Indigenous. These, these are, we're a bunch of different groups that have a common cause and can learn from each other and help each other have awesome glasses. I kind of noticed thatJoy(00:25:41):I was kinda thinking about like, you know, I'm like, this is the resistance like we're resistant. So cause I always liken it back to like, you know, some sort of weird um, you know, thing, but solidary, it's interesting, since we weave through this topic, I'm thinking about like, you know, indigeneity and land. And I saw a point, but, um, Carrington Christmas a few days ago. And so, and she mentioned that you know like not all Indigenous people are tied to land because many of us are in cities and urban centers. So what does that look like? And so when I saw, um, Daniel's, uh, tweet, you know, his chain, I was kinda like, I need to trouble that for a little bit because a bunch of us are removed from land and relations too, but at the same time, it's like, what does that relationship look like within cities?Joy (00:26:28):Um, so I just wanted to say that before I forgot that, what does solidarity look like? Oh my gosh. Um, I can't even think of one way it looks like, because again, like when we have like Indigenous, we talked about Indigenous as the overall say within North America and I that for sake of brevity, right? Like you have like, you know, Black Indigenous people, you have, like, I know a guy who's Cambodian and he's Indigenous. Right. And so it was like, what does that look like? How do we manage that? And these folks that I'm referring to are like, you know, Indigenous to North America. Right. And so it's like, so when I see discussions about like, um, what does, you know, kinship look like? What do relations look like? What does it mean to have a relationship to the land? It's like, what does that mean for a Black Indigenous person who didn't necessarily have that kind of a relationship for various reasons, whether it be slavery, whether it be, um, racism, right?Joy (00:27:25):Whether it is being chased off the land, you know, as say, some of my relatives were right. And so this is the thing. So it's like, how do we address solidarity when we don't even when we tend to think of Indigenous as like, you know, first nations, um, 18 in you, it's right. And just like one shape or form, you know, kind of brown veering towards the white sort of thing. Right. And so in Canada, at least. And so, and when we're far more likely to accept someone like Michelle Latimer, no questions asked, but then when I kind of stroll up and say, Hey, I'm Indigenous. Or like, Nah, you're not right. And so you're from Toronto and your hair is curly. It's not now, but that sort of thing. Right. And so solidarity, I mean, I can tell you, what does it look like based on the past couple of weeks, and I'm sure we'll get into that, but you know, it doesn't look like a list.Joy (00:28:19):It doesn't look like, you know, a supporting list who, you know, are largely Black Indigenous people or even run by people who are largely anti-Black. Right. And so, um, but yeah, it is a wide and varied topic from being a political analytic to like, you know, having a relationship to land, to having relationships with our relations. Right. And so I couldn't even begin to start thinking about what that looks like, but I do resonate with Kerry's point with just kind of like, you know, having those separate identities, but, you know, still coming together for that resistance to, and so, because we need to kind of have, you know, those differences because someone who was Anishinabek has a different relationship to Atlanta, someone who has Lakota. Right. So it's, you know, and me as someone who is Lakota and living in Toronto, it's kind of like, okay. And I kind of meander through these spaces. I'm like, should I be having this relationship with the land? Like, my people are like way out in the Plains, but here I am, you know, it's kind of like patching through what it is because we've been shifted around by colonialism taken away. Sorry. That'sPatty (00:29:28):The reality of it really is Troy living in the Pacific Northwest, which is about as far as he can get from Sàmi land.  You know, I finished all, I've talked about this now that you have massive territory, I'm still within, there's not a big territory. It's not big, it's not Ojibwe. Right. My people are Northwestern, Ontario. It's a 24-hour drive to get up there. Right. I can be in Florida by the time I get there and not among Black flies, you know, but, but in terms of relocation, right? Like in the US relocation was government policy that went beyond boarding schools, they were shutting down, you know, in the allotment period, they shut down reservations. They were moving people into cities, you know, kind of getting them off the reserve and moving them into, you know, from, you know, from the Midwest into the city.Patty (00:30:26):So you're certainly not alone in terms of being a Plains, Indian living, living, living in a city. And I think that's, you know, where the writing of people like Tommy Orange is so valuable, you know, that kind of fiction where he's writing about urban Indians. That's 80% of us. That's 80% of us who are living in cities far from our home territories. You know, I see, you know, people who are saying, you know, you know, they're Ojibwe and they're Lakota and they're may, you know, like they've got this. And so then who are we? Because we didn't grow up in these kinship networks to tell us who we are. We grew up disconnected. We know, because like you said, Troy, from the time I was little, I grew up in my white family. But from the time I was little, I was the native kid.Patty (00:31:15):I was the Indian, even though I was surrounded by white people, you know, grew up in a blizzard, like, Tammy Street said, you know, growing up in a blizzard, the blizzard of whiteness, um, you know, um, you know, kids didn't want to play with me because of my skin colour, which, you know, as bonkers to me as a little, you're not playing with my skin colour. Oh, I dunno. This is a story outside of, um, you know, so other people impose that on me. So I couldn't run away from it. If I wanted to, when I got to high school, I let people think I was Italian. Cause that was easy here. And we talk about passing privilege. Um, but passing contains an element of deceit and deception because when you're passing, you're not telling people who you are, you're deliberately withholding that information. You're allowing them to think that there's some, that you're something that you're not. And you know that, and that's corrosive. And yet you, you know, this idea of being Indigenous is freaking complicated and it doesn't need to be colonialism just ruins everything.Patty (00:32:19):So what would the refusal look like? Because that's also what I'm thinking about because tomorrow night when we're talking about patriarchy, I started off talking about resisting patriarchy. And then I changed my mind to refusing because to me that sounds riff. We talk, we've talked, we've talked about the politics of refusal, which is just, you know, I'm not going to engage with that anymore. I'm just going to build this thing over here. I'm just going to refuse to deal with that because that does not speak to me, does not help me. That does not contain my life. What would it look like to exist as Cree, Lakota, Black, Sàmi, Ojibwe and refuse colonialism? What would that lookPatty, Kerry, Joy, Troy (00:33:07):[Laughing ] existing in opposition to it?Kerry (00:33:14):This is the new train that my brain is going down. Well, you know what? I love it. I think you're onto something. Um, as we, you, you, you brought back that reminder of the politics of just simply deciding not to engage. And for me, this conversation is bringing up so many different things. For example, Troy, when you mentioned going home and hitting such resistance when you go back, you know, you can't deny being  Sàmi. It makes me think about when I go home to visit my mother's family in Antigua, it is Black, you know, the way that my cousins and my aunties and all of my people back there exist that every teacher they've ever had is Black. Every storekeeper is Black, all their doctor's lawyer, everybody is Black and dark skin Black.Kerrr (00:34:18):You know, there has been very little mix on that small island. The sense of being in your note is so radically different. I have realized in my time then what it is for me, I, I know my Blackness, I'm a Black woman and I have a lived experience that makes me guard in that space. Right. Whereas when I am there, it just is, and you live and you exist in that space. And it gets me thinking about this idea of just not engaging. What would it be if I could potentially create a space like that here? So for me, this boils down to being able to connect and create an economic basis. So where I can shop in stores that are, you know, Black West Indian, you know, just my culture experienced in those well Browns. And we also know that that economic power makes a difference.Kerry (00:35:25):I think I read a statistic recently that in North America, um, Black people, the money stays in our community for about six hours before it is extended out into other communities. So the dollar does not cycle, even though we are one of the powerhouses for an economic base, our dollar is so strong. And not only that we normally create culture, you know, uh, Black women, you know, we, we, we kind of build some of that creativity, but that panache, comes from North America. Um, it comes off the backs of us. And so partly when I think about how we, how maybe we can disengage in some ways, it is about that. It's about creating our own little nuggets, you know, creating our own little niche spaces that allow us, afford us to tap into our own uniquenesses as who we are, and then share, but really starting to create those spacesKerry (00:36:30):So, um, for example, as I said, I think in particular, we still have to exist in the system. So to me, it is coming into the self-awareness of that uniqueness, creating, the economic basis for that, for me, I think that's fundamental, especially in my community, we just don't hold on to that dollar. Um, creating some of that economic base by our shops, create shops that are, are, are, or economic foundations, like grocery stores in our communities. We know we have food deserts and most of the communities that we exist in by our own grocery stores have outlets, especially that focus on our, um, image. We don't control our Black image, nobody like that is controlled by others. If we could get our own. I think it's happening more with social media, with people being able to hold their YouTube channels and creating our own sources of who we are, how we want to be seen. But for me, that's where it begins two things, money, and also, um, controlling our image. I think those two will be powerful,Troy (00:37:46):Powerful. And I think, um, I really, like we said, even when we're in the midst of our refusal we can't you know, it's one thing to refuse colonialism. It's another to pretend it doesn't exist. Um, because I'm, you know, I'm either going to increasingly sort of psychotic and just detached from reality or, or I'm going to have to, you know, do take specific measures, like invest in investing in communities, um, take control over our images, those sorts of things, which are, which are still, there's still acts of resistance with our acts that are focused, not so much on negating the oppressor as on empowering ourselves. And I think, I think, uh, yeah, I mean, it's harder for, for, and I'm not doing it all alone. There's so much, like a mentor for so many Indigenous people who are living away from our, from our native land.Troy(00:38:36):Uh, I can't, I can't live, I saw my life surrounded only by Sàmi people here and no would, I want to, I'm so enriched by living by so many around so many other people, but I can certainly make an effort to, to include and celebrate and, develop and engage in Sàmi culture in my life. And so, and tell me so many ways of being and knowing. Um, and it's so much easier now that we can talk to people every day back home too. But, uh, but, but the part of it is also taking that same way of relating to two people and to place and relating to the people around me and the place that I am at. Not in a possessive way, because this isn't my, this isn't my land. I'm on, I'm on now, y'all planned here. This is, this is their land, but I can relate to the land in terms of respect and in terms of a living relationship with a living entity.Troy (00:39:24):So it would be different if I'm back home. This is like, this is where, this is where my ancestor's bones are for the last, you know, for the last 20,000 years. And, uh, that's not here, but, but it's still, it's still, you know, a different way of relating to that. And then I think this is back where the Indigenous people are so important because knowing and working with and interacting with Indigenous people here keeps me Sàmi, even though they're not me. I was only interacting with settlers and with other, with other non-Indigenous people too. But if I never interacted with other Indigenous people, you could disassociate it. Then it comes all down to you as an individual, as opposed to being part of communities. And so there are different types of communities. They, you know, could be a relationship with people as a kind of community even if you're not part of, part of the group of that group.Patty(00:40:15):Want to hear more about that? How relationships with other Indigenous people keep you SámiTroy (00:40:22):Because, uh, I, and this works much easier for me than it would for my half-brother because my half-brother, his mother is from South Asia and he would never be, he would never be seen as white, um, a white person who speaks English, American, English fluently. If all I hung out with were, were white English-speaking Americans, I would be, I could be still very much participating in this sort of inner negotiation of part of who I am and this sort of alienation of by saying, yeah, I'm just one of you. And knowing that there's something that I'm suppressing, something that I'm cutting off and that sort of inner injury, but I would also just be having that culture reinforced all the time, because those become the cultural norms, those, those become the exceptions. And if I'm also hanging out with a non-people of colour who are, who are not Indigenous, but, uh, but then especially Indigenous people who, who have analogous relationships to their place, uh, they're not the same people don't relate to, to, to this land in the same way as, as we, um, uh, markdown may relate to our mountain valleys and our coasts.Troy (00:41:30):Um, but there's some, there are some analogies, there's some, there's some, some patterns that I recognize and there's also more humour than I recognize. And I recognize what it's like to be in a group that is at home and is viewed as outsiders by the majority of the population that lives there. It's like we're sitting right here where we belong and you look at us like we're outsiders. And I see that in, in my native friends here, uh, and my native colleagues and, uh, and that's like, yeah, I, I know what that's like. I get that. That's, um, that's a shared reality, even if it's from two different places. And so, and then having other types of relationships to place other types of relationships to people and community is reinforced by the people around me, other, other ones than the sort of relationship of domination and ownership and, and alienability that I can just sell this land and buy other land and that sort of thing that makes those things less automatic. It's a way of making sure that I don't just sort of slip into, this colonizer mindset or colonized mindset.Patty(00:42:33):It goes back to some of the things that have popped up in the chat about feeling kind of disconnected because you know, their relations are so scattered. Um, yeah, I'm going to have to sit with that. That's really helpful. Thank you.Joy(00:42:53):It feels similar because, again, how many Lakota is in Toronto? Right. And so, and just being, and I mean, if we're going to pan indigenize, you know, the sense of humour, certainly, you know, something we share, you know, across the world, it's like, yeah. Colonialism, ah, right. And so we were able to laugh at our misery so well. Um, but yeah, I really, I relate to that and feel that, and it's, it's about re I mean, it's kind of veering into another topic, which is about relations and such. Right. And so, and again, going back to what Kerrington said, saying like, you know, um, my Indigenous community is also an urban community and its many communities. Right. And so I'm paraphrasing really horribly, but I can't remember the tweet, but nevertheless, right. Like, and she's like, who's someone to call that invalid because she is Mi'kmaq. And I believe she lives, she doesn't live in Ontario somewhere. I can't quite pinpoint where, but, um, yeah. So it's like relations and what keeps us, you know, um, Indigenous or Lakota or Sàmi, even when we're far fromKerry(00:43:53):I was thinking Kerry, about what you had said about controlling our image. Cause I was having conversations recently about, um, both social media and about our presence on social media. Um, because of course, we don't own these things. I mean, we're here. Like we can all share that Trump got bounced off every social media platform in existence, but another one of my native friends just got another 30-day suspension on these books. So we can all laugh about it happening to Trump, but we know that it's more likely to happen to us. You know, the, you know, the algorithms are not set up, you know, for those who live in, you know, in opposition to colonialism the things we say, like what happened with, you know, um, the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls posts on Instagram. I don't think, I, I don't think there was any benefit to Instagram to deliberately silence those posts.Patty(00:44:48):But what I think is more likely is that there was, it hits some kind of algorithm. It didn't stop to consider the context of these posts because it's just an algorithm. And so then, because there was some commonality, it bounced all of them and that's what happens, right? Like you set up a rule and that's all these things are right. You set up a rule that affects you, you know, that's everyone equally, but it's not everyone equally. It never is who sets the rules determines. Uh, you know, and so, and when we do these things like on social media and, uh, you know, we're also in a sense performing, performing indigeneity for, for clicks and likes and views. And you know, we're performing a hype of ourselves. That's palatable to the people that are going to pay money for it. So it's a two-edged thing like, like Joy, I live on Twitter, I am very much out there.Patty (00:45:43):You know what I think about it because, you know, I've got a book coming out next year. And so I want to make sure that I have a big reach. And so then you think about that, well, how now am I not performing things that are authentic, or am I, you know, so what I'm, you know, you're kind of constantly balancing all of that stuff because it's right. It's a space that we assert ourselves in. And I think we should be there. I'm not arguing against it obviously. Um, but we also need to be careful about it. And particularly right now in COVID most of my conversations with Gary, when I'm talking about Indigenous things, I'm lately quoting social media people. If people that I know on Twitter, I am not quoting the women in my drum group because we never see each other. So my local community is becoming more and more remote and my soul. And then there's, we lose the accountability of our communities because I mean, we can Twitter mobs, we can take each other down all the time, but that's not real accountability.Patty (00:46:44):We can rail against the writer of the list all day long, but that's not real accountability. Real accountability happens in the relationships that we form in theKerry: I think you said a lot, you settled it. I like you're in my head, like what you were saying, because I too have been very much thinking about that, thinking about my image, thinking about how I am showing up on social media. I'm not a Twitter connoisseur like most of the three of you are. And I was really thinking about why, why I think  I shy a little bit away from Twitter is because I think it's so polarizing. You've got, you know, those 140 characters to speak your mind and make that point. And it's a remedy that has to, well, you hope it's riveting and captures the imagination and then it moves on.Kerry(00:47:56):And so for me, that flow getting out there means you've really got to be in that larger-than-life space and, and keeping ourselves balanced there. And that's the thing about what I believe social media has done. It is this beautiful space that allows us to be out there to get our points across. But I just got a shadowban, funnily enough, on Insta. Yes, I'm a cool kid, but the cool kid got put in jail for a minute, simply because I was doing a post that was about Black women and trying to empower them. And I, I'm still not sure what in the algorithm, didn't like what I was saying. And I know I touched controversial stuff, so there's an intimacy and sex coach. I talk about some things, but, for whatever reason, I was really careful about this particular post as I put it up and it got shadowbanned for me, what that taught me or what, I remember being sobered by was the fact that we have this platform to be able to speak our truth and our minds and, and create all of this wonderful stuff.Kerry (00:49:12):But it really can be controlled by the very fraction that we are choosing to resist. And so that in itself means we have to conform to it. And I remember wanting to stop my feet. I'm the youngest child, and I so wanted to go into temper tenure mode over this one. Um, but, but it, it was sobering in that as well. That as much as, um, we talk about wanting to resist, so I'm going to bring it back to that, that idea of resistance and being in it. I still have to conform to some degree, to show up, to be able to use this platform, to move my voice forward. And, and I find that just a real cognitive dissidence for myself, you know, I wish we owned a Twitter platform. Do you know what I mean? Because that's where true freedom lies. I almost feel like, you know, we're, we're just getting a little lone of this space and when, when whatever, and whoever is ready, it all just comes crashing down.Patty:  And then let's not talk about women, the AI, oh, go back to the list. Right. Who's going to gatekeep who gets to be a member.Joy (00:50:27):It's interesting. Right. Because you touched on two things, you touched on the rules. Right. and rules applying to everyone equally. Right. And so, and when we think about what indigeneity is, you know, the rules don't apply to everyone equally because it's like, okay, well I need to see your pedigree. And it's like, well, that doesn't happen for Black Indigenous people. Like I don't have, you know, like slavery. Right. And so, and you know, birth certificates, like so many of my family, were not allowed to have birth certificates, you know, until fairly recently, like in the last hundred years, so that's not happening. And of course, and you mentioned it before a patio, I think last week that even just proximity to Black people at a certain point meant that you were Black, whether you were or not. Right. And so a lot of Indigenous people were labelled Black.Joy(00:51:17):Right. Because I don't know if they looked at a Black person at one point or another. And so this is a thing, right. And so then we have a gatekeeping list. You have the gatekeeping Twitter, which, you know, I still am very much in love with, but nevertheless it is, you know, it is a loan space and I mean, and again, and you have people who are, you know, okay, well, I'm going to make a list off of these rules that don't affect everyone equally because we're, I'm angry about the Gwen Beneways, or I'm angry about the Michelle Lattimer's or whatever, but it's like, but then, you know, I'm also kind of racist on the side too. So, you know, and it's like, the rules don't apply. They can't possibly, like, if you're trying to find a Black person's, um, what's the word I'm looking for a family tree on ancestry,Joy(00:52:04)It's not going to happen. Like I looked, I tried for my own family. Right. And so, and a lot of it is still oral and, you know, it's interesting cause Daniel had a thread about, uh, lower this, uh, today. And so I'm like, but again, what does the law mean to different communities, right? Like for white communities, like, yes, you had an Indigenous ancestor, like, you know, 400 years ago that, you know, is that lore not right. As opposed to like, you know, a Black family, you know, and I'm speaking largely to my experience with this, um, Black American. Right. And so, you know, is it lower because that's all we had, like, was it guarded more closely? Was it, you know, held more, um, carefully, right? Because again, then you had the community connection that also how's your community, uh, accountable. That is the word I'm looking for because it was a very tight-knit community.Joy(00:52:58):And so someone would say, oh no, that wasn't your grandparent, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And so it's really interesting to kind of look at the rules and the gatekeeping and just how they change based on, you know, your skin colour. Like it is just, and you know, these rules that were created by white people that say, you know, you are one drop Black, you are, you know, you're not Indigenous, right. Because we want to get rid of you and we want to create more of you. Right. So yeah, my mind is being bent again, but I don't know where it just took us. I'm sorry.Patty(00:53:32):You were also talking about relationships and the way certain relationships were constructed to serve the needs of, you know, the way certainly, you know, communities were split apart or concentrated in certain places and pushed aside where either, because you have family law would be different in a history where families were disconnected over and over and over again, who's holding that collective knowledge. When you, you know, when like in losing your mother where you know, her great grandmother gets, goes off with the family and then winds up getting sold for gambling debts and never even had a chance to say goodbye to a spouse or children, child that might, that may have been back, you know, on the plantation, does, oh, gambling debts, your, I guess, I guess we're selling you, like, how do you hold collective memory?Kerry: I love that because also what comes up in that is the collective memory becomes so rooted in the space of the trauma.Kerry (00:54:29):Yeah. And, um, I found after reading that book after reading Lose Your Mother, that I had this wistfulness about making the space of it, right. Because we all, most of us Black folks, um, hold out this dream of, you know, putting our feet, planting our feet, especially in Ghanian soil and, and going to the slave castles. And knowing that this might've been the last space of our ancestry. And in this book, when she counts her version of what happened in that space, you know, there were some, some holes for her, you know, some real charts came up about how, while this was the story of her coming, this was a place of where she came from. Her family's story of slavery being a slave was an erasure, of who she was. And it got me thinking Patty, and Joy and Troy, it got me thinking about my own family history.Kerry (00:55:33):And so recently I've been talking to my mother because all of my aunties and uncles, you know, of my family, especially my Antiguan family, they get a little bit older. And, um, I recognize how they have been the gatekeepers of this history. And they ensured that our legacy as a family was, was whole and real, you know, they got us together. They would tell us these stories. And as they're getting older, I'm seeing that my generation, especially with COVID, are a little more disconnected, like my cousins. And I, even though most of us were raised together. Um, you know, I'm noticing this, we're not getting together in the same way. And so one of the things that I'm playing with and realizing I'm feeling called to is, is to take some reclamation that I think one of the ways that we can offer resistance is in the reclamation of that history.Kerry(00:56:39):Um, I really want to do some, um, you know, recordings of the stories that my, my mom tells and my dad, sorry. I'm like, well, yeah, my dad too, I would love to do my Bajan side, but my dad tells get the stories of my aunties and uncles and what I thought was so interesting when I mentioned it to my mom, she said to me, you know what, Kerry that would be amazing because I don't know very much about my father, her father, my grandfather's history. They are, um, they came from Haiti and I think it was my grandfather's mother that immigrated from Haiti over to Antigua. So all this time, I thought we were originally Antiguan in that space and come to find out that it's not necessarily that I got that Haitian blood in me too. And so what would it be?Kerry(00:57:35):And I think there's, there's some real power in us being able to do that, too, to take it back as much as we can, even if it is just from that oral history, that oral history is powerful, you know, um, in losing your mother's today, uh, um, mentioned that you know, we all want that root story. I remember reading Alex Haley's roots when I was nine years old, it was one of the biggest books I ever read up until that, right. 1,030 pages, I think it is. And I remember reading that story and it was just like, for me, I was like, how did he know all of that? And that's one of the spaces that sparked my curiosity of wanting to know. And so I think there's a responsibility if we can to know that truth and to try and gather it. And that in itself is a powerful way for us to offer resistance in this space as well. Yes,Troy (00:58:39):Exactly. A thousand times. It's a, it's, um, it's a way its resistance, but it's not resistance as focused at the colonizer or the oppressor. You have to claim stories. what could be more empowering than that than reclaiming your stories. This is our modernity. Um, some years ago, I got into an argument with a senior faculty member at, uh, at, uh, at the University of Oslo. And I was just a junior faculty member at a tiny college in the Midwest of the US and he was talking about Indigenous people having, you know, so many Indigenous people haven't experienced modernity. This is our modernity is being alienated, being fragmented from.  Who, who has experienced that more than the African diaspora of being, being alienated, being, being cut off from, um, that's our modernity. And, uh, to fight that by reclaiming and by and by and by owning our own cultures.Troy (00:59:31):And it's a, it's a really important thing for me to do that because there are, it is a living language and there are people who are native speakers and when I can have conversations with them without having to go to in a region, that's going to be, you know, a really important moment for me right now. It's more than I can read what people write because I can take my time and parse it out and stuff. Yeah. But, um, but I also think that we need to, you know, our cultures are all changing too, and we need to own the things I'm, I'm working with. I've got a colleague, uh, his name is Caskey Russell he's clean cut.  And he and I are both big, big, uh, soccer football as we call it everywhere else in the world, fans working on a book on Indigenous soccer.Troy(01:00:12):And this was like, um, because, uh, it's not that the way that we do different things, you know, we, we talk, we have people teaching Indigenous literature, Indigenous novels, Indigenous films, um, uh, we, certain Indigenous cultures did have writing before colonization. We saw that I wasn't among them. We didn't have writing, uh, before, before colonization. And so it was the colonizers who taught us literacy, but we have our own literature. We have our own, our own stories and our own sensibilities. And I think we can do that within cities. We can be who we are and be doing new things to it, as long as we have those connections. And I think those stories are still out there. You've got to record those stories. You've got to keep them, and it will be not just for you because that's going to be a resource for so many people.Kerry (01:00:57):Speaking on that point. One of the things that I realized is how few stories come out of the West Indies. You know, I started kind of digging around a little bit and I think there's only one book that I know of that talks about, uh, an Antiguan family that, uh, trace back their history of one of their relatives and the, he could, and I think he had been a slave, like one of the last slaves or just out of it. And that's one book. Like I can't find very much, um, in that space. So to me, I recognize there's an opportunity, uh, for it. And, maybe there is a book or two here. We'll see, Patty: I'm talking about your book or would just be me. Okay. This has been really good. This has been really, really good. I am always so grateful for you guys when you spend time with them.Troy (01:01:52):Thank you so much for inviting me back and Joy it is a pleasure to meet you like this.Joy (01:01:58):It's nice to meet you too off of Twitter. And so I'm sure you just watched me ran like most people. SoKerry(01:02:05):Whenever I do dip, Joy you, give me joy!. I love it. Patty: One of the things I learned recently is that caribou and are the same animal, which I had no idea. I don't even remember how I learned that. Um, but it just kind of blew my mind that caribou and reindeer are the same, which makes Troy and I kind of cousins because I'm caribou clan. So that was on Twitter now, you know, see, I did not know that and right there in front of them, um, but then I saw that caribou and reindeer are the same animals. And that was the first thing I thought I was an animal that does really wellPatty (01:02:55):Up north and who come from up there learning to live with them.Patty (01:03:00):Well, it makes sense. Right? You tip the globe in different parts of the world, look related, you know, you can see it. There's no reason why the globe has to be this way. It's really neat. And when we went up to Iqaluit, um, the one fellow that asked me, he asked me if I was Ojibwe. And I said, yeah. And he says, yeah, we look alike because we are men used to kidnap your women all the time.Joy (01:03:23):There's that Indian humour,Patty (01:03:28):That was just so weird and random. But anyway, thank you guys so much. This has given me so much giving me so much to think about these episodes are always like masterclassesKerry: 'till we meet again. Cause I'm sure we will. SomehowSpeaker 1 (01:03:52):You can find Medicine for the Resistance on Facebook and the website, www.med4r. com. Don't forget to rate, share and support us by buying us a coffee at www.kofi.com/medicinefortheresistance. You can also support the podcast and so much more by going to patreon.com/payyourrent. You can follow Patty on Twitter @gindaanis and at daanis.ca.  You can follow Kerry on Twitter at @kerryoscity or follow her on FB  online@kerrysutra.com. Our theme is FEARLESS. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit medicinefortheresistance.substack.com

130 Years Ago Overthrow and Organizing Now. The host for this show is Joshua Cooper. The guests are Lynette Cruz, Kuhio Vogeler and Kekoa Enomoto. January 17 in Hawaiʻi serves as a solemn day for reflection on the illegal overthrow and a call for moral revolution for a better future. January 17 marks Hawaiʻiʻs monarchy being overthrown. Beyond the businessmen proclaiming a provisional government with the support of the U.S. Boston and Queen Liliʻuokalani preventing bloodshed being forced to abdicate her thrown temporarily, January 17 reminds us of the past atrocities but also the necessity for the nation of Hawaiʻi to be honored and respected. On the 130th commemoration, the people call for a path of peace, truth and reconciliation rooted in human rights for all beginning with Kanaka Maoli. The ThinkTech YouTube Playlist for this show is https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQpkwcNJny6lBAcTYfWa3JsYGYjCulQFi Please visit our ThinkTech website at https://thinktechhawaii.com and see our Think Tech Advisories at https://thinktechadvisories.blogspot.com.

From Hawaii, Katie talks to three organizers who are protecting the water and future of Hawaii as well as organizing for its independence: Healani Sonoda-Pale, Dani Espiritu & Mikey Inouye. Healani Sonoda-Pale is a citizen leader of Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi a native initiative for self-determination and self-governance. She was born and raised on the island of O'ahu where her ancestors lived from time immemorial. For over 25 years Healani has served as an educator who has taught at Hawaiian immersion preschools and Hawai'i high schools and colleges for over 25 years. Currently, she is an outspoken advocate for the protection of Hawaiian lands, water, ocean resources and marine life, and iwi kūpuna. Healani sits on various community boards and is a member of the O'ahu Water Protectors, a group of leaders who are calling for the shut down of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility. Dani Espiritu is a Kanaka Maoli educator from Kāneʻohe, Oʻahu currently living in Waimalu, where her mother's ʻohana is from. She is a member of the Oʻahu Water Protectors and is also dedicated to the restoration of loʻi kalo (irrigated taro fields) and traditional food systems. Mikey Inouye is an independent filmmaker and community organizer with O'ahu Water Protectors and the Shut Down Red Hill Mutual Aid Collective. Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen - https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/liliuokalani/hawaii/hawaii.html#I Recommended reading: https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/from-a-native-daughter-colonialism-and-sovereignty-in-hawaii-revised-edition/ ***Please support The Katie Halper Show *** For bonus content, exclusive interviews, to support independent media and to help make this program possible, please join us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow Follow Katie on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kthalps

Happy 50th last episode and Human Trafficking Awareness Month 2023. After a long podcast posting pause, Host Victoria is joined by Kanaka Maoli, Leinani Yahiku, to share some truths about her story AND journey of surviving domestic violence and sex trafficking. Leinani and Victoria leave a lasting message about community support needs and why, "CAXHI"-Community Against Exploitation -Hawaii was formed. They talk about the human trafficking "movement" and all the mis-labeling, mis-categorizing, mishandling of cases, and misinformation especially when it doesnt fit a certain narrative. Listen, be aware, and support survivors and lived experience experts not just during this month but always!! Please share and raise awareness. Reach out to the survivors and support their journey. You can always visit the IG account @unseentttpodcast.Support the show

In the first half-hour “First Voices Radio,” Co-Host Anne Keala Kelly (Kanaka Maoli) talks with Mikilani Young, Kanaka Maoli cultural practitioner and kahu. Their conversation begins with a prayer for one Hawaiian elder, and then goes onto the cultural and spiritual connections between Indigenous peoples, the protection of Mauna Kea, and Mikilani Young's own prayerful path, living here on Turtle Island, thousands of miles away from the Hawaiian Nation. Mikilani's courageous approach to the practice and teaching of Indigenous Hawaiian ways is both suited to, and challenged by, the times we live in — sharing, but not selling, giving, but being discerning so as not to exploit or diminish the mana of her own knowledge. Her path is a prayerful, thoughtful balance between human needs that adhere to the soulful premise of existence, while maintaining and honoring the Creator's guidance. Mikilani's journey has taken her to many First Peoples Nations (Tongva, Winnemem Wintu, San Carlos Apache, Kumeyaay, Acjachemen, Pomo, Coastal Miwuk, Klamath, Moduc, Maidu, Colville Confederated Tribes, Wabanaki Confederacy, Kewa Pueblo, Tonoho O'odham, Akimel O'odham, Hopi, Lakota, Nakota, Dakota, Warm Springs, Diné, Mohawk, Yavapai, Payómkawichum, Kwatsáan, Tatavium, Lisjan Ohlone, Wintun, Onasatis). She is at her most grateful and skilled when she can be a unifier of people across and beyond the land she lives on, and joyous because she lives with complete trust that her ancestors guide her path. Mikilani formed the non-profit United Pillars of Aloha as well as Kaiapuni Ho'ola Piha Sanctuary in service of Mother Earth and the unborn generations. More about Mikilani can be found at: mikilaniyoung.com. In the second half-hour, we feature several selections from First Voices Radio's “Top Listener Favorite Songs of 2022.” Production Credits: Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Lakota), Host and Executive Producer Anne Keala Kelly (Kanaka Maoli), Co-Host Liz Hill (Red Lake Ojibwe), Producer Malcolm Burn, Studio Engineer, Radio Kingston, WKNY 1490 AM and 107.9 FM, Kingston, NY Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Audio Editor Kevin Richardson, Podcast Editor Music Selections: 1. Song Title: Tahi Roots Mix (First Voices Radio Theme Song) Artist: Moana and the Moa Hunters Album: Tahi (1993) Label: Southside Records (Australia and New Zealand) (00:00:22) 2. Song Title: Star People (feat. Jim Cuddy) Artist: Vince Fontaine's Indian City Album: Code Red (2021) Label: Rising Sun Productions, Winnipeg, MB, Canada (00:29:55) 3. Song: Reap & Sow Artist: One Way Sky EP: Soul Searcher (2021) Label: Akimel Records (00:33:50) 4. Song: Ball and Chain Artist: Xavier Rudd & J-MILLA Album: Xavier Rudd: Jan Juc Moon (2022) Label: Virgin Music Label and Artist Services Australia (P&D) (00:38:55) 5. Song Title: 1492 Artist: Earth Surface People EP: 500 Years (2021) Label: Underwater Panther Coalition (00:43:50) 6. Song Title: The States I'm In Artist: Bruce Coburn Album: Bone on Bone (2017) Label: True North (00:53:05) AKANTU INSTITUTE Visit Akantu Institute, an institute that Tiokasin founded with a mission of contextualizing original wisdom for troubled times. Go to https://akantuinstitute.org/ to find out more and consider joining his Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/Ghosthorse. 

An interview about Hawaiian self-determination with Healani Sonoda-Pale, the public affairs officer for Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi Political Action Committee. Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi Political Action Committee (KPAC) is a national committee of Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi (KLH), an ʻōiwi initiative for Hawaiian self-governance formed by and for Kanaka Maoli without the interference of the State or Federal governments or its agencies in 1987. KPAC advocates for Hawaiian Self-Determination and Human Rights set forth in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and International Human Rights Conventions. Along with the Queenʻs Court, KPAC is once again helping to organize the annual Onipaʻa Peace March and Rally on January 17, 2023, commemorating 130 years since the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy. Website: kalahuihawaii.net Tags: Hawai‘i, Hawai'i, Hawaii

Sitting in for Host Tiokasin Ghosthorse this week is First Voices Radio's Guest Host Anne Keala Kelly, (Kanaka Maoli), who is an independent journalist, filmmaker and activist from Moku Nui (Big Island) in the illegally occupied Hawaiian Islands. For the full hour, she speaks with Ronny Kareni, a Canberra-based West Papuan activist, musician, youth worker and bilingual health educator. Ronny discusses the movement to free West Papua. For more background, read this article: https://bit.ly/3OXHaaO Ronny graduated in diplomacy studies at the Australian National University and is the co-founder of Rize of the Morning Star, a musical and cultural movement. Ronny also is a consultant for the Pacific Mission of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, a coordinative and consultative body of the national liberation movement. Ronny has a band called the Black Orchid Stringband. Their music is available at bandcamp.com. (Photo credit: Foreign Correspondent Greg Nelson, ACS) Production Credits: Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Lakota), Host and Executive Producer Anne Keala Kelly (Kanaka Maoli), Guest Host Liz Hill (Red Lake Ojibwe), Producer Malcolm Burn, Studio Engineer, Radio Kingston, WKNY 1490 AM and 107.9 FM, Kingston, NY Tiokasin Ghosthorse, Audio Editor Kevin Richardson, Podcast Editor Music Selections: 1. Song Title: Tahi Roots Mix (First Voices Radio Theme Song) Artist: Moana and the Moa Hunters Album: Tahi (1993) Label: Southside Records (Australia and New Zealand) (00:00:22) 2. Song Title: West Papua Anthem feat. Will Golja (vin) and Eve Gold Artist: Black Orchid Stringband Album: Black Orchid Stringband (2017) Label: Black Orchid Stringband (00:04:05) 3. Song: Country Mama Artist: Black Orchid Stringband Album: Black Orchid Stringband (2017) Label: Black Orchid Stringband (00:16:45) 4. Song: Yako Pamane Artist: Black Orchid Stringband Album: Black Orchid Stringband (2017) Label: Black Orchid Stringband: (00:31:05) 5. Song Title: Akai Bipamare Artist: Black Orchid Stringband Album: Black Orchid Stringband (2017) Label: Black Orchid Stringband (00:35:40) 6. Song Title: Mystery of Life Artist: Black Orchid Stringband Album: Black Orchid Stringband (2017) Label: Black Orchid Stringband (00:52:40) AKANTU INSTITUTE Visit Akantu Institute, an institute that Tiokasin founded with a mission of contextualizing original wisdom for troubled times. Go to https://akantuinstitute.org/ to find out more and consider joining his Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/Ghosthorse. 

*Red Media is proud to announce the launch of our latest project, REDsurgence, a podcast hosted by Riley Yesno.  Subscribe on your podcatcher by clicking here* Uahikea Maile is a Kanaka Maoli professor of Indigenous Politics in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Follow him on Twitter: @uahikea ---------------------------- Follow REDsurgence on Twitter @REDsurgence  rileyyesno.com/ Produced by Red Media  www.patreon.com/redmediapr

A conversation with Hi‘iaka Jardine and Jen Nakamura about Hawaiian engineering, food sovereignty, and vigilant community care for ‘āina in the Kahalu‘u ahupua‘a on the windward side of O‘ahu. Kaiāulu ʻo Kahaluʻu is a grassroots organization created to serve, organize, and uplift Kahaluʻu community voices. It is their mission to mālama the people, resources, history, wahi pana, and community well being of the Kahaluʻu ahupua'a.  The Kahalu‘u Lo‘i, located in the ‘ili of ‘Āhuimanu within the ahupua‘a of Kahalu‘u, is the largest intact terraced lo‘i on O‘ahu and the best example of Kanaka Maoli expertise in this type of engineering. Kaiāulu ‘o Kahalu‘u is working with multiple stakeholders to properly mālama this special wahi pana. Website: https://kaiauluokahaluu.wixsite.com/kahaluu Tags: Hawai‘i, Hawai'i, Hawaii

Kanaka Maoli educator Malia Lum-Kawaihoa Marquez (@ka_nax808) talks to Uahikea Maile (@uahikea)  about the reoccupation of Waikīkī to protect Hawaiian monk seals from tourists. Red Media is hiring! Join our team!  https://redmedia.press/2022/09/red-media-seeks-operations-director-job-listing/ Support www.patreon.com/redmediapr

This week, Roqayah and Kumars are joined by Danielle Espiritu and Mikey. Danielle is a Kanaka Maoli educator and activist from Kāneʻohe, O'ahu and Mikey is a filmmaker and activist also born and raised on O'ahu who also organizes with Shut Down Red Hill Mutual Aid.  Dani and Mikey describe their fight against the United States military's poisoning of Hawaii's water supply, and the (originally) secret Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, directly above the Southern Oʻahu Basal Aquifer, which is operated by the United States Navy.  Dani and Mikey explain the significance of the Red Hill Facility and the decades of poisoning that has resulted not only in jet-fuel tainted water but the displacement of nearly 95,000 O'ahu residents. We discuss the warning signs, local pushback, and the military cover up that is still having an effect on locals and Hawaii's native ecology. We also examine the wider impact of colonialism on native organizing on the island, and the struggles facing local activists who are fighting further military encroachment and a tourism industry that often intersects—denying them access to not only their water resources but their land as well. You can follow the Oahu Water Protectors @OahuWP on Twitter, and find them on Instagram @OahuWaterProtectors. Find Mikey on Twitter @karaokecomputer, and make sure to follow @ShutDownRedHillMutualAid as well. If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!

Today, I talk to Nathan Samayo who is receiving his Master of Divinity from Harvard. We touch on his testimony, his interests and a little extra too. Enjoy! Show notes: You can follow Nathan on instagram at: @nksamayoo During this discussion, Nathan recommended: -listening to Guahan ChaCha Music including https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RODp0ftQ6Io and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOGtj4Z5GwU Nathan & Angela also discussed meddos (seafaring maps) and recommended books by Kanaka Maoli scholars & activists. Another good read recommended was Our Sea of Islands by Epeli Hau'Ofa: https://savageminds.org/wp-content/image-upload/our-sea-of-islands-epeli-hauofa.pdf

Tomorrow Is The Problem PodcastWelcome to the ICA Miami Podcast. Each season, we'll explore familiar concepts from everyday life that we often take for granted.We'll expand these concepts to understand their critical historical and cultural underpinnings and forever change the way you view them.Oceanic Ways of KnowingThe focus of this first season is the ocean as a source of knowledge. Understanding identity and history inevitably requires a study of the seas, the communities it affects, and the secrets it was made to hold in the deep.Rising TidesFrom Miami's Tequesta to Hawaii's Kanaka Maoli, indigenous peoples everywhere are living memory of what the water has already taught us.Today's guests discuss the effects of handing stewardship back to native peoples to stem the tides of climate change.Timestamps + Takeaways[0:00] The Oahu Water Protectors versus the U.S. Navy, an exercise in indigenous rights and demands.[3:37] Land stewardship in Hawai'i is an issue best tackled by Kanaka Maoli whose methods of systematic observation resemble science but without the drastic excision of spirituality. Candace Fujikane shares some of the 4000 deities that describe natural and elemental processes.[7:09] Candace speaks to the importance of indigenous knowledge and methods — Hawaiian and otherwise — for combating climate change through restoration.[15:11] ICA Miami sits on Tequesta land, an extinct people whose stewardship duties have been transferred to the Miccosukee tribe.[17:41] Dina Gilio-Whitaker explains the significance, for the Colville Confederated Tribes, of the now flooded Kettle Falls along the Columbia river as well as the fracture and cultural wound the damming created.[21:53] Mending her connection to water by way of surfing, Dina embraced humility. She speaks about her work correcting false narratives and reclaiming surfing as a spiritual practice.[25:44] Climate change is a philosophical problem brought about by a commodified relationship to the land, and incidentally to water which can be directly countered with indigenous principles, knowledge, and practices.[31:22] Season 1 of Tomorrow Is The Problem podcast closes with a quiet reminder to reconnect the middle passage with the Afro-Futures seas of Drexciya, the healing waters of Hawaii, and the indigenous knowledge we all need to sail forward through unknown waters.Tune in for season 2.Contributors + GuestsDonna Honarpisheh / Assistant Curator and Host.Candace Fujikane / Professor and Activist.Dina Gilio-Whitaker / Journalist, Author, and Activist.This podcast was made in partnership with Podfly Productions. This episode was written by Isabelle Lee and Donna Honarpisheh, and edited by Frances Harlow. Our showrunner is Jocelyn Arem, and our Sound Designer and Audio Mixer is Nina Pollock. Links + LearnICA MIAMIPodflyThe Oahu Water ProtectorsCartographies of Kanaloa, Inundation and Restoration, by Candace FujikaneAs Long As Grass Grows, by Dina Gilio-WhitakerQuotes“I think that's what these restoration projects give us, not just physical manifestations of restoration, but it also restores our mental health and wellbeing. It provides a kind of spirituality that you don't see in many discussions of anthropogenic climate change.” Candace Fujikane“It's not a catastrophic event causing panic and anxiety but rather a practical question: Kanaloa is rising, how are we to greet him?” Candace Fujikane“It's the values of understanding how to live in relationship to the earth and the natural elements, that's what needs to be restored and that's why indigenous knowledge is so critically important to how we imagine a response to climate change, how we adapt to it or even how we mitigate it.” Dina Gilio-Whitaker

Tanya Mailelani Naehu is an educator, performer, artist, community organizer, and activist of Aloha 'Āina from the island of Moloka'i, Hawaiʻi. Stemming from a very diverse multi-racial genealogy, she is Boricua being of African, Taino and Spanish descent as well as Kanaka Maoli, Portuguese and Chinese. As co-founder of Ka Hale Hoaka, an online school of Hawaiian knowledge, her teachings are grounded in Indigenous philosophies and practices such as mo'olelo, ʻōlelo Hawai'i, hula and oli.Ka Hale Hoaka's online curriculum has enabled Hawaiian schools to break away from a Eurocentric curriculum developed on the mainland and provide students of all ages with the ability to learn sciences, social studies, language arts, fine arts and more through an indigenous cultural lens. Using the online learning platform Thinkific, Kumu Maile has been able to create an easy-to-use, interactive learning experience that's accessible to any person or school across Hawaiʻi and the world. More information about Maile's work can be found at: kahalehoaka.com, molokainuiahinaproject on Facebook, and huiokuapa.org.Production Credits:Tiokasin Ghosthorse (Lakota), Host and Executive ProducerLiz Hill (Red Lake Ojibwe), ProducerMalcolm Burn, Studio Engineer, Radio Kingston, WKNY 1490 AM and 107.9 FM, Kingston, NYTiokasin Ghosthorse, Audio EditorMusic Selections:1. Song Title: Tahi Roots Mix (First Voices Radio Theme Song)Artist: Moana and the Moa HuntersAlbum: Tahi (1993)Label: Southside Records (Australia and New Zealand)(00:00:22)2. Song Title: The Barber's GuitarArtist: Jimmy Thackerey and The DriversAlbum: Spare Keys (2016)Label: Rio Blanco Records(00:30:15)3. Song Title: Caravan of FoolsArtist: John PrineAlbum: The Tree of Forgiveness (2018)Label: Oh Boy Records(00:44:20)4. Song Title: AmenArtist: EnigmaAlbum: The Fall of a Rebel Angel (2016)Label: Republic Records(00:46:45)5. Song Title: Ship of FoolsArtist: World PartyAlbum: Private Revolution (1986)Label: Chrysallis(00:56:20)AKANTU INSTITUTEVisit Akantu Institute, an institute that Tiokasin founded with a mission of contextualizing original wisdom for troubled times. Go to https://akantuinstitute.org/ to find out more and consider joining his Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/Ghosthorse.

An interview about the restoration of taro-feeding streams in East Maui with Jerome Kekiwi, Jr. and Amanda Martin of Nā Moku Aupuni o Koʻolau Hui. Nā Mokuʻs mission is to perpetuate the Kanaka Maoli traditional and customary lifestyle of Keʻanae-Wailuanui. Encompassing nearly 400 acres of loʻi, it was renowned for taro farming until commercial stream diversions completely dewatered the area. In 2018, the community's 30-year legal struggle resulted in the largest stream restoration in Hawaiʻiʻs history. This enabled families to return to farming and mālama the watershed and the network of streams, tributaries and springs that are part of a vast ʻauwai system. Website: namoku.net Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

An interview about protecting burials and challenging illegal sand mining with Clare Apana, Cody Nemet Tuivaiti, and Uʻi Hotta of Mālama Kakanilua. Mālama Kakanilua is presently engaged in direct action resistance/protection of ʻiwi kūpuna and aims to stop the Grand Wailea Resort from constructing 151 hotel units, swimming pools, new wings, and injection wells in known Kanaka Maoli burial grounds on Maui. The hui stands with other Kanaka Maoli groups pursuing this case to ensure that ʻiwi kūpuna are protected, safe, and at peace and to halt the Grand Waileaʻs hotel expansion efforts due to numerous environmental violations and dismissal of Kanaka Maoli claims to defend the ʻiwi and traditional and customary practices. Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

Edith Kanaka'ole (Kanaka Maoli) was an acclaimed composer, chanter, hula dancer and educator. Her work in Hawaiian cultural and language revitalization helped strengthen Indigenous Hawaiian culture, science, identity and sovereignty. Her image will be featured on U.S. quarter coins in 2023. We take this hour to learn more about the legacy of “Aunty” Edith Kanaka'ole. […]

A conversation about ʻāina and activism with Lynette Cruz and Sparky Rodrigues, board members of Mālama Mākua. Mālama Mākua is a Kanaka Maoli-led non-profit organization dedicated to bringing about the return of sacred Mākua Valley for culturally appropriate use. They preserve and protect this wahi pana on Oʻahuʻs west side through continuous community access and engagement, establishing constant presence and practice in a place that has been occupied by the U.S. army since World War II. The non-profit organization hosts free cultural accesses to ancient and culturally-vital sites in sacred Mākua twice each month, and address the cultural, social, and legal issues associated with the use of Mākua Valley, especially the environmental and cultural impact to the land and sea and to Native Hawaiians and other people. Website: malamamakua.org Tags: Hawaiʻi, Hawai'i, Hawaii

This week, I speak with Mikey Inouye and Aedyn-Rhys King -- two community organizers who have been fighting to shut down the Navy's massive Red Hill fuel storage facility next to Pearl Harbor. This facility leaked thousands of gallons of toxic fuel into O'ahu's sole source aquifer, poisoning Aedyn, his family, and thousands of others who have relied on the aquifer.  Recognizing the severity of the threat to all life on the island, Mikey and Aedyn joined a coalition of organizers from Sierra Club, Hawaii Peace and Justice, and other concerned community members to form the O'ahu Water Protectors. Through their sustained efforts, they've succeeded in pressuring the Navy to agree to shut down the Red Hill facility on March 7th -- two days before our recording. While we take a moment to celebrate this huge win, Mikey and Aedyn know that the fight is far from over. Mikey Inouye is an independent filmmaker, writer, producer, and community organizer who has been working tirelessly to raise public awareness about this crisis. He's collaborated with Abby Martin of the Empire Files to produce powerful documentary films about Red Hill. In addition to organizing with the O'ahu Water Protectors, Mikey has been deeply involved in the Shut Down Red Hill Mutual Aid Collective, along with his friend and fellow organizer Aedyn. Aedyn-Rhys King is a kanaka maoli trans veteran whose life has been upended by the Red Hill fuel leaks. While living in the Kapilina Beach Homes, he witnessed firsthand the poisoning of his family and other community members who followed the Navy's advice and continued to drink and bathe in the water in their homes. Like Mikey, Aedyn has thrown himself into community organizing and mutual aid efforts to help the victims of the Navy's dangerous negligence. You can support their efforts here. For a clear timeline of events, check out this great resource from Hawaii Public Radio.COCKTAIL:Cloud Forest 45 ml KōHana KEA Hawaiian Sugar Cane Spirit (or another rum)90mlCoconut Water15mlLime Juice 15    mlSugar Cane Syrup (or simple syrup)Small pinch of salt Lime leavesAdd the rum and a lime leaf into a cocktail shaker and muddle to incorporate. Add the rest of the ingredients and shake well with ice. Fine strain into your favorite glass filled with crushed or pebble ice. Garnish with a lime wheel and two lime leaves. Glassware:  Collins or rocks style glassGarnish: Lime LeavesABV: 11%KōHana Farm makes some of the best Hawaiian rum from 34 different varietals of heirloom sugar cane brought to the islands by the Polynesians. It is a spirit that is closely tied to the land.  You can also use similar rums like Cachaça, Clairin, Rhum Agricole, or Mexican Cane Rum. Support the show

You guys. I have something BIG to share with you today!I have just released my newest offering into the world. This is something that has been incubating in my meditations, my dreams and my daily walks for a full year, and I am so delighted to finally share this with you! ⁠Elemental Awakening is an exploration of the elements and 6 corresponding sacred practices. This program will run from the Spring Equinox to the Fall Equinox, and it is a chance for 12 of you to study in-depth with me over the course of the next 7 months. This is not a workshop, a training or an intensive. This is an invitation. An invitation to go deeper with me; to gather in an engaged, curious community; to explore together; and to weave a tapestry of our own magic.I'm so excited to share a bit about this opportunity with you guys, AND I'm releasing one of my newest meditations from my newly redesigned nature-based meditation app - Roots. This practice is one I've been using daily for weeks, and I think you might enjoy it too -A while ago, I had the opportunity to hike to the top of Haleakala - a dormant volcano on Maui, Hawaii. The summit lies at 10,023 feet above sea level. We were above the clouds, and although it was summer time, it was bitterly cold as the wind whipped around us. The landscape felt desert-like, but what was most noticeable was the way it seemed like you were closer to the sky than the earth. It felt like we were quite literally ‘hanging in the void' or the liminal space between the solid ground we call home and the expansive universe that wraps around us. It was a moment of both/and - of being connected to the life we live on a daily basis and equally connected to the greater expanse that reminds us not to take ourselves too seriously or to worry too much. In this practice, we hear the wind whipping from the top of a volcano as recorded by Gordon Hempton. We imagine ourselves at the edge, the void between earth and the universe, between the mundane and universal consciousness.Let's practice balancing on this edge.Native Hawaiians, also known as Kanaka Maoli, are the first people to have heard the sounds of this particular landscape. You can learn more about Elemental Awakening here: merylarnett.com/elemental-awakening-2022Special thanks to today's sponsor:Baronfig - Baronfig's line of “Tools for Thinkers” includes guided journals, notebooks, writing instruments, bags, accessories, and so much more. As an avid journaler, I use and love their guided meditation journal, dream journal and their basic Confidant notebooks! Get one for yourself here: https://baronfig.com/These mini meditations are meant to support a daily home practice. Tune in every Monday to find your practice for the week! Full episodes are released every Thursday for a longer, deeper practice.Join my FREE meditation community here: https://meditate-with-meryl.mn.co/Learn more about my:***Elemental Awakening: Begins March 20**Roots: my nature-based meditation app*Live, virtual meditation classes with me*Upcoming eventsAll by visiting merylarnett.com.If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider making a one-time or monthly donation to support the growth of this labor of love. Your monthly donation will aid in keeping this show sponsor-free, employing additional small businesses AND funding the ongoing creative growth I invest in.Donate here: https://www.merylarnett.com/support-the-mindful-minuteYou can also grab my FREE Meditation Starter Kit on my website merylarnett.com. It is full of my favorite tips, stories and ideas for starting and maintaining a daily meditation practice. Grab your copy today! --> http://bit.ly/meditationstarterkit ***Connect with me on Instagram {@merylarnett} to get bonus meditation tips, mini-meditations, and the occasional baby spam: https://www.instagram.com/merylarnett/#meditatewithmeryl

Kūʻiʻolani (she/they) is a queer, mixed-Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) living in their ancestral lands in Mākaha, Hawaiʻi. She is an educator, learning experience designer, musician/creative and plant person. In this episode Miguel Mendías interviews Kūʻiʻolani about Hawaiian history, lands, language, color theory, queerness, colonization, belonging, being of mixed Indigenous ancestry, and living in highly-gentrified, highly trafficked tourist destinations.  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * For this episode we're asking folks who are able to support a gofundme that Kūʻiʻolani and their friend Kahele have launched to create a māhū* (nonbinary, trans) led project in Hawaiʻi. They write: "Primarily, this project aims to house QTBIPOC community and repair relationship to land, especially for Kanaka Maoli, Indigenous, and Black relatives. Secondary to this objective, is a focus on creative endeavors, both traditional and contemporary. In general, it is the continuation of ancestral practices alongside new media, arts, and music."   * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To learn more about this collaboratively produced 2nd season check out our websites at www.countryqueers.com and www.weareoutintheopen.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Created and produced by Miguel Mendías, with support from HB Lozito from Out in the Open, and Rae Garringer of Country Queers. Sound Design by Hideo Higashibaba. Audio editor: Rae Garringer Editorial advisory dream team: Hermelinda Cortés, Lewis Raven Wallace, and Sharon P. Holland Music by Tommy Anderson and Podington Bear.  Ambient recordings by Kūʻiʻolani Cotchay.   

Known for her incredibly strong voice and fierce love for her people and land of Hawaii, Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask was a force to be reckoned with. She is one of the founders of Hawaii's sovereignty movement who inspired generations of Kanaka Maoli to speak up and take back space in academia, politics and the cultural […]

Enjoy this interview featuring Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio! She is a CH '06 and '07 alum. - - - Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio is a Kanaka Maoli wahine artist/ activist / scholar born and raised in Pālolo Valley to parents Jonathan and Mary Osorio. Heoli earned her PhD in English (Hawaiian literature) in 2018 from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Currently, Heoli is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous and Native Hawaiian Politics at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Heoli is a three-time national poetry champion, poetry mentor and a published author. She is a proud past Kaiāpuni student, Ford fellow, and a graduate of Kamehameha, Stanford University (BA) and New York University (MA). Her book Remembering our Intimacies: Moʻolelo, Aloha ʻĀina, and Ea is forthcoming with University of Minnesota Press in Fall 2021.  Twitter: @JamaicaOsorio Instagram: @JamaicaOsorio Website: https://jamaicaosorio.wordpress.com/  Upcoming Book: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/remembering-our-intimacies PBS Documentary “This Is The Way We Rise”: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/jamaica-heolimeleikalani-osorio-this-is-the-way-we-rise/15821/  UH Indigenous Politics Program: https://uhip.politicalscience.manoa.hawaii.edu/jamaica-heolimeleikalani-osorio/  - - - - - College Horizons is a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to increasing the number of Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students succeeding in college and graduate programs. Since 1998, we have served over 3,300 Native students on their path to higher ed through our admissions and financial aid workshops. Be sure to follow College Horizons! CH Website: https://collegehorizons.org/ Instagram: @CollegeHorizons Facebook: College Horizons Twitter: @CollegeHorizons Donate to College Horizons, Inc.: https://collegehorizons.org/give/ - - - - - Hosted by Kendall Harvey (Diné / CH '13). Music by Sam Bader (Kanaka Maoli / CH '13). Cover art by Jared Yazzie (Diné / CH '05 & '06).

This episode I talk to the multi talented Stephen Henderson. Stephen is musician, writer and music producer. This episode gets cut off prematurely due to technical mishaps. There will be a part 2 but it will come in the next few months. I feel this second part must be done in person as this first part to me was just to good. In part 1 we talk music, what it means to be Kanaka Maoli and briefly touch on hunting on the islands. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. Stay tuned in the coming months for part 2. Don't forget to listen, subscribe, rate and review on all platforms. Be sure to drop us a message on the IG @cheehoopodcast or email us at cheeheepodcast@gmail.com. I'm waiting to hear on your podcast suggestions such as guest and topics so be sure to speak up and let me know. You can find Stephens music on apple music just type in Stephen Henderson and follow his IG page at stephenhmusic. Thank you to all of you who have subscribed or have given us a listen.

Candace Fujikane leads us through Kanaka Maoli cartographies that articulates Indigenous ancestral knowledges via moʻolelo (historical stories), oli (chants), and mele (songs). Engaging in the art of kilo, observing laws of the natural order is based on longtime observation and recording in relationships with the almost half a million akua. The akua are the elemental forms, who guide the people in their daily lives and embody the lands, seas, and skies. Professor Fuijikane asserts, “abundance is expressed out of Kanaka Maoli restoration projects, as practitioners assert their capacity to determine their own decolonial futures…." Candace Fujikane is Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi. She received her PhD from UC Berkeley in 1996, and she teaches courses on Hawaiʻi literatures, Asian American literatures, and settler colonial and Indigenous politics. In 2000, she co-edited a special issue of Amerasia Journal entitled Whose Vision? Asian Settler Colonialism in Hawaiʻi, and that issue was expanded in 2008 into Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaiʻi. She has stood for Mauna a Wākea since 2011, testifying to protect the sacred mountain and standing on the frontlines against law enforcement in 2019. Just this year, she has published a new book, Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawaiʻi. Mapping Abundance for a Planetary Future: Kanaka Maoli and Critical Settler Cartographies in Hawai'i Purchase Mapping Abundance from Duke University Press. Use the code F J K N E for a 30% discount on your purchase. https://hawaii.academia.edu/CandaceFujikane Editing for this episode provided by the wonderful Katie Dunn Music for the show you heard from was from Reed Mathis Tell a few friends about the show and follow the podcast on Instagram and Twitter @treehuggerpod Review treehugger podcast on iTunes

WATCH CULTURISED IN 4K: https://culturised.com/blogs/shows Andrew Kalani Simeona was born in Seattle, Washington but raised in Kahaluʻu and Kāneʻohe. His decision to pursue a higher education in Hawaiian Studies comes from his many experiences with his family, friends and Kumus. And it is these influences that have molded him into being a proud Kanaka Maoli that he is today. Currently Andrew holds a B.A Degree in Hawaiian Studies and plans on working towards pursuing an M.A Degree within the same major. His area of concentration is centered towards Moʻolelo ʻOiwi, being associated with history, literature, storytelling and media in various forms and expressions. And all the while, dancing in a hālau (Hula school) and pupu ʻori (Tahitian Dance School), being involved in student council, and working 2 jobs through his academic journey. As the modes of indigenous storytelling changes with each generation, Andrew hopes to one day contribute to these stories through media and writing for the next generations.

Today we honor the struggle of Kanaka Maoli and all indigenous people's around the world fighting corporate capitalism and colonialism. Here is a clip from Kanaka Maoli Wahine Jamaica Osorio answering the question "what does the political context of Hawaiʻi have to do with EJ today?" Listen to her make the connections and give a snapshot of the fundamental shift from the indigenous perspective of land. Stat rooted.

Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio is a Kanaka Maoli wahine poet , activist , and scholar "born and raised on "music, mo‘olelo and ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i." In this episode she dives deep into the political history of violence to the ʻāina and people of Hawaiʻi and what that means to the struggle against colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy today. Our conversation is loaded with wisdom and passion and offers so much to look forward to as we Hawaiians and "their homies," as Jamaica likes to say, move forward together in reclaiming our relationship with the land in Hawaiʻi. To witness the power of poetry and solidarity, check out her epic video of the poem "Hawaiʻi Ponoī- This is How We Rise" she shared on Mauna Kea. It's on our website rootcauseremedies.com!