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In my community, there are many people mostly of the same ethnicity as me. I was brought up learning my cultural ways and beliefs. I was never taught that the color of my skin, texture of my hair, facial features, language I spoke, things I ate or even the things I believed in could make such a drastic change in my life. I grew up not caring what skin color my friends, family were, or the fact that their hair were more manageable then mines. Nor did I care about the way they looked, language they spoke, what they ate or what they believed in, all that mattered to me was that they were my family or friends, people I knew, loved and trusted.
As I got older into my teenage years, I began to see sudden changes occur in my life and it had a lot to do with racial issues. I entered elementary school with only a few friends from my street and left the sixth grade with more then 20 close friends. We all entered middle school together and for the first year it was good, but by the next school year the big group of 20 was now 10.
I continued into high school and acquired new friends along the way but still my old friends were around but not as close as before. The ones I trusted and confided my secrets to was now a stranger to me. I knew the different groups they hung around with in school and started to see why. Some joined certain ethnic clubs because there families wanted them to be come connected to there race and culture. Other’s joined similar clubs or sports because there families also wanted them to be cultural inclined or accelerate in sports like their family members before them. As for me, I joined the Hawaiian cultural club because, yes much like most of my friends my family too wanted me to be cultural inclined and connected to my roots. But, I think for my family it was more “who was the more superior group” rather then what I could learn out of it.
I remember one time in my senior year there was a big fight involving the Samoans against the Hawaiians and it was so bad that the school had to go into lock down. While everyone was fighting I was standing there in a distance watching and witnessed one of my Samoan female friend from elementary school get hit in the face from a Hawaiian female from the club I was in. I did not think twice but ran over and stopped the girl almost getting hit myself. I dragged my friend to the side our of harms way and she was crying saying “Why, why did I do that, why did I help her?” I responded by saying “I don’t know why everyone is fighting but I know you would have done the same for me if I was in your shoes”. My friend got up, said “Were not little kids anymore you can’t fight all my battles for me”, and walked away.
The next day almost half the school was suspended and things went back to normal. I saw my friend in the hall and just put my head down as I passed. She grabbed my arm as she passed, stopped and said “Thanks, and I would have done the same” I looked at her and both our eyes were watery with tears, we hugged and I said “See you around”, she responded “Same here” after graduation we lost contact because she went out of states for college but I heard she married one of our classmates friends brother who is not Samoan but Hawaiian.
As I got older, I realized that most of the people in my community were of Hawaiian ethnicity. We share similar facial features, language, taste for certain food, practice certain cultural beliefs and customs, share the same grief and struggles of the everyday life but, most of all we all one minority in one community.
I would have to say that the leaders in our community don’t really treat people like us different besides the fact that they try to use our ethnicity as a way to get more money for our so called “people”. I do not think these leaders of our community treat other people outside our community any different then the fact that we are all people fighting for what we believe in and no matter how hard we fight there will always be differences. We have many active members of the community who is much involved in the political issues, one would be 27-year-old Hanalei Aipoalani, the Nanakuli High School graduate had been living in California with his wife for almost eight years and until last winter had resisted entreaties to run for office on the state level here, since doing so could be seen as a culturally inappropriate challenge to his political mentors. The open congressional seat changed his mind about seeking an office.
Although this is his first election, Aipoalani is no stranger to Hawaii’s political scene. His mother, Merrie Aipoalani, has long been involved in Hawaii’s government, and his mentor was the late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink, whom he worked for from 1998 to 1999. While working in Minks Honolulu office, he learned a great deal about federal