Hawaiian Identity in a Changing Society

The Hawaiian people stem from rich cultural roots that have grown into something unlike the traditional culture that used to be found in the islands. Within the historical context of the new settlers who came to Hawaiʻi, the people of the islands would be changed forever. No longer were most people pure Hawaiian but now of mixed heritage. The blending of outside cultural ideals with that of the Hawaiian culture led to new ways of life. Today, many in the islands are keen to identify with their Hawaiian blood. The strong sense of belonging as a Hawaiian is a powerful force that has led many to connect with this part of their heritage. Author Kiana Davenport in the novel Shark Dialogues explores the power of Hawaiian identity through multiple mixed race characters. Austin Aslan exemplifies the power of Hawaiian blood in The Islands at the End of the World through the connection of the protagonist to her ancestry. Both Davenport and Aslan’s novels take on the task of embodying the power of Hawaiian identity in mixed race heritage through different modern characters.

The transition from pure Hawaiians to the mixed race individuals of today occurred over time. The native Hawaiian population was secluded from the rest of the world in early history, resulting in only purely Hawaiian bloodlines. From 1100 to 1650, the Native Hawaiians developed a distinctive society (Benson et al.). The emergence of other races did not occur until a certain boat captain came across the islands. In 1778, English sea captain James Cook arrived in the Hawaiian Islands, the first of the Europeans (Benson et al.). The traditional language, culture, and behavior would no longer be the same after this first encounter. In 1820 the first missionaries came to Hawaiʻi to convert the people to Christianity (Benson et al.). The Hawaiian gods were and continue to be a very important part of Hawaiian identity and culture. There are main gods and also ʻaumakua, known as gods associated with specific families. While many in Hawaiʻi practice Christianity today, the original Hawaiian gods are still revered. Mana is a Hawaiian word that means the supernatural or magical abilities of an individual. This is one deep connection to the culture of Hawaiʻi that is exemplified by the character Leilani in Islands at the End of the World, who turns out to have a spiritual connection to the past. This also occurs for multiple characters in Shark Dialogues that will be discussed later.

Along with the emergence of new religion came new languages. The native people spoke Hawaiian, a language that was not understood by foreigners. After the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, a ban was placed on the use of Hawaiian in public schools, and corporal punishment was used if children spoke the language (Kawakami and Dudoit). The language almost died with the elders. While Hawaiian has made a comeback over the past few decades, it is by no means a common household language. However, the use of Hawaiian words in everyday life is occurring. As writers of Hawaiian novels, Davenport and Aslan both use many native words and chants to properly represent the importance of the language and its meaning to the mixed heritage individuals who live here.

Shark Dialogues traces seven generations of a Hawaiian family through a magnificent journey that illustrates what life was like for each. The story of the family tree begins with a Tahitian princess, Kelonikoa Piʻimoku Kanoa, and a white sailor, Mathys Coenradtsen. This is a unique yet relevant example of the interracial marriage that was occurring in Hawaiʻi’s history at this time. Although social tensions were high between Hawaiians and white settlers, the characters are introduced in a setting that is not affected by these outside social norms. Rather they are regarded as two individuals who have left their lives behind, “For, in that last year while Mathys had been slaughtering, whoring, eating human flesh, a young, headstrong Tahitian beauty was also consigning herself to a life of shame, exiling herself forever from her native lands” (Davenport 36). The first generation of mixed blood forms from this marriage. Tracing the genealogy back to the origin of mixed blood, Davenport creates an understanding of the Hawaiian characters beginning at their roots. Although each generation undergoes immense changes in the world around them, they are all tied to the islands, their blood, and each other.

Unlike the exemplification of generations, Austin Aslan takes a different route to understanding Hawaiian identity in The Islands at the End of the World. The main character Leilani is considered hapa, or half Pacific Islander. Her father is Caucasian, or haole, while her mother’s side of the family is almost pure Hawaiian. Leilani describes her mother by saying, “She has beautiful dark eyes and Polynesian features. I wish I looked like her” (Aslan 12). Leilani lives in Hilo, Hawaiʻi and seeks a stronger connection with her Hawaiian ancestry. Leilani grew up on the mainland, but felt a strong association to the islands once her family moved there.

I envy Kai’s dark complexion: he can pass for Hawaiian. But it’s not the hapa

thing that gets in the way so much as the fact that I grew up on the

mainland. Too many folks come and go from these islands, taking taking,

taking. The locals are right to be wary. I only talk to Grandpa and Tami about

it. The last time Grandpa and I spoke, he said, “You are kamaʻāina. Child of

the land. No one can take that away” (Aslan 21).

Leilani has a deep connection to the land, which is confirmed by her grandfather. Embodying the ideals of Hawaiʻi is important to many mixed blood Hawaiians. Today, Native Hawaiians remain deeply connected to the Hawaiian Islands on genealogical, cultural, and spiritual levels (Fujii).

Similar to Leilani’s connection with the land in Islands is the character Pono in Shark Dialogues. With two or more races in a person’s blood it is not uncommon for one to identify strongly with only a certain part of their ancestry. A study done to identify mixed identities states, “We are not claiming that individuals of mixed ancestry recognize their multiple identities. Of course, many are absorbed back into one or another of their ethnic groups” (Labov and Jacobs). Pono is a character that perfectly exemplifies the absorption of her Hawaiian identity, although she is also Caucasian. Pono is the great granddaughter of Mathys and Kelonikoa, the first in the lineage of the Shark Dialogues family. Pono mentions Kelonikoa and the Tahitian blood her family contains many times while almost blatantly ignoring her haole blood.

One reason for Pono’s strong identity is her mana, or supernatural abilities. A few days after Pono’s birth, her parents discuss her: “Then the child is mana pāl,” Lili said. “My mother, Emma, was psychic too, she had prophetic dreams.” The newborn stared at them, her gaze so piercing Ben felt hairs stiffen on his neck. “Lili, dis child be one kahuna” (Davenport 80). These abilities to see the future and be spiritually aware of ones surroundings are something specific in Hawaiian culture. Pono’s grandmother Emma also possessed these abilities that can only come along with Hawaiian blood. It also leads to a stronger connection to the land, including the ocean. Pono has the ability to shape shift into a shark when she is in the water.

Pono’s granddaughter, Jess, had an upbringing that enhanced her abilities to acknowledge both her Caucasian and Hawaiian backgrounds. Similar to Leilani in Islands, Jess spent most of her time on the mainland with her parents. Yet she would visit the Big Island and stay with Pono and her cousins every summer. Vanya, the darkest cousin, often refers to Jess as “just another haole” among other negative references. As a child in Hawaiʻi, Jess’s fair skin often confused and embarrassed her, as she wanted to identify with her native blood when on the island. Jess does not understand why she couldn’t be as dark as most Hawaiians. This makes it hard for her to be secure with her mixed ethnicity for quite some time. As an adult Jess goes to college and opens a veterinary practice in New York, which shows that many opportunities were allowed of her because she was identifying with her Caucasian lineage. However, Jess embraces her Hawaiian roots and begins speaking in pidgin when she stays in Hawaiʻi for long periods of time.

While Jess embraces pidgin around her native family, this is something that Leilani struggles with coming from the mainland. When Leilani describes her mother in Islands, she states, “Mom’s pidgin, the local Hawaiian slang, bubbles up when Grandpa’s around. I understand pidgin pretty well, but I hardly use it. Speak it wrong around a local and you’ll get laughed out of town” (Aslan 17). Similar to Jess in Shark Dialogues, Leilani’s mother speaks pidgin when around her Hawaiian family. This simply comes out naturally for both women. The cultural connection to elders in Hawaii has always been a valuable part of the family system. Being surrounded by parents and other relatives who find their Hawaiian identity important is another way in which the culture is preserved.

Davenport also addresses mixed heritage individuals who do not understand their Hawaiian heritage. Jess’s daughter in Shark Dialogues, Anna, ignores the one-quarter of her Hawaiian blood and identifies as white like her southern father. Jess describes the first time she took Anna to the Big Island, “Her shock, her accusations. ‘You didn’t tell me they were dark!’ Summer of our fracturing. And when Benson and I divorced, Anna choosing to go with him. Tearing down genetic blocks, erasing my side of her history…” (Davenport 217). Anna is sixteen years old during this visit to the island, a period of adolescence when she is trying to form and understand her identity. Anna lives on the east coast of the United States, where white ethnicities are considered superior. While Anna’s mother Jess and the character Leilani from Islands both long for dark skin, even being related to dark people embarrasses Anna. This goes to show that an important part of the strong urge for Hawaiian identity is in part due to the location of individuals.

Working when she is younger to be able to attend college, Jess’s cousin Vanya remembers, “Smoothing out my English. Swallowing Pidgin, denying it, saving it for home, for slang. This tongue I was born with, raised on, this part of my mouth demeaned, thrown out like garbage” (Davenport 193). She cannot embrace the way she grew up because she needed to fit in with whites on the mainland. This is the opposite problem of Jess and also of Leilani in Islands. Vanya made fun of her cousin Jess for looking white around the Hawaiians, yet she desperately tries to fit in with them eventually.

Anna’s mother, Jess, experienced embracing both cultures at separate times. Being around her Hawaiian family on the Big Island, even for short periods of time, would lead to her pidgin and Hawaiian identity being incorporated. Once Jess moves to the Big Island when Pono is ill, her Hawaiian side is fully discovered. The strong mana that her grandmother possessed is now passed down to her:

Slowly, as in a trance, Jess drew from her bag a pen and sheet of paper. She

would start with the story she knew best. Pono and Grandfather. She would

work her way backward. What she did not know, they would tell her. They

would come from other eras, other generations, each and each, they would

come to her in dreams. (Davenport 480)

While spiritual abilities are discussed and believed in a plethora of cultures, mana is something special to Hawaiʻi. With the blood of Hawaiian ancestors running through her veins, Jess is connected to her relatives, their stories, and the past. She is connected to the land and spends much of her time swimming in the ocean and staring out to the vast horizons.

Similar to Davenport’s writing in connection to the islands is Author Austin Aslan. In his writing he understands how important the land is to Native Hawaiians and the power it has to connect the people to the place:

And the islands themselves bring this book up a notch for another reason.

The Hawaiian Islands are so profoundly material and sensuous and concrete

that in spite of my own instinct to write a story about sustainability and the

dangers of nuclear materials and how great the mysteries of the universe

are,

the raw, material power of Hawaii kept pushing up through all of it and

pushing me out of the way. The place assaults the five senses like no other

place on earth. It made my job as a storyteller simple. (Interview)

While Aslan admits to being Caucasian and not having a full understanding of how Hawaiians feel, he understood how powerful and important the land is in the process of identity. His main character Leilani is only half Hawaiian, yet her connection to the Hawaiian Islands make her Hawaiian blood more prominent than her Caucasian blood. Leilani’s medical condition and seizures are actually caused by a connection to her ancestors and the Green Orchid. Realizing that she does not have a medical condition, “I throw my medical bracelet and remaining pills into the green waters to meld with the life-delivering flesh of my Hawaiian ancestors, and I prepare to fight for my family, for my islands, and for my world” (Aslan 341). Similar to Jess in Shark Dialogues, the land is a way for Leilani to connect to her ancestors.

The erasing of family genealogy and the embarrassment of certain aspects of one’s bloodline are also common occurrences involving mixed ethnicity. Ming, a cousin character in Shark Dialogues thinks about all of her father’s ancestors who were “Mistakes erased from the family genealogy” (Davenport 200). This is another issue involving mixed heritage because of cultural clashes that can occur based on varying beliefs. Davenport uses the character Ming to represent the balancing of ethnicities and cultures amongst peoples. Ming is known as the family mediator throughout the story, which is symbolic of her mediator status in a cultural sense. She manages to keep in touch with her Chinese history as well as her Hawaiian side. However, some of these beliefs amongst ethnicities can clash. Leilani in Islands doesn’t know what one thing she is supposed to believe in regards to religion. Her father is Christian while her mother’s side of the family is fully faithful to the ancient gods, or akua, of Hawaiʻi. “I don’t know whether it is fat or chance or God or gods. But I feel the mystery in the air” (Aslan 340). Both authors do manage to point out the clashes amongst ethnicities that can occur.

The unique history of Hawaiʻi has led to the melding of many ethnicities. In a study involving the identification of multiple ethnicities, Hawaiians identified with mixed blood 24% compared to 2.1% on the mainland (Labov and Jacobs). Many struggle with identifying the multiple cultures that their races are linked to. However, the connection to Hawaiian culture through ancestry, the land, and spiritual abilities make this Hawaiian piece of people much stronger. Davenport and Aslan approach the importance and power of connection in different ways, yet their messages are clear. Toward the end of Shark Dialogues Duke addresses his granddaughter Jess saying, “you’re also haole Jess. Never forget that. You’re hybrids, all of you. You’re what the future is” (Davenport 416). This world is quickly becoming full of mixed ethnicities and the blending of cultures. Those of Hawaiian blood who stay connected to the 'āina will most likely have a much more powerful connection to this part of their ancestry.

Works Cited

Aslan, Austin. The Islands at the End of the World. New York: Wendy Lamb, 2014. Print.

"Cook, James." Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 3. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008. 396-397. U.S. History in Context. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

Davenport, Kiana. Shark Dialogues. New York: Atheneum, 1994. Print.

Fujii, Kahi. "Cultural Research and Significance." Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. National Ocean Service Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.

Kawakami, A.J., and Dudoit, W. (2000). Ua Ao Hawaii/Hawaii is enlightened: Ownership in a Hawaiian language immersion classroom. Language Arts, 77(5), 384-390.

Labov, Teresa, and Jerry A. Jacobs. "Preserving Multiple Ancestry: Intermarriage and Mixed Births in Hawaii." Journal of Comparative Family Studies 29.3 (1998): 481-502. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Feb. 2015.

Sonia Benson, Daniel E. Brannen, Jr., and Rebecca Valentine."Native Hawaiians." UXL Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Vol. 6. Detroit: UXL, 2009. 1067-1071. U.S. History in Context. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.