Spectrum Hawaii; Statehood. Part 1 ; Statehood Part 2

The following program is a production of public television. The following program was funded in part by the Hawaii State foundation on culture and the arts. Chevron USA in Hawaii and the 1984 Hawaii statehood silver jubilee Committee. This week and next spectrum celebrates the super Giulio statehood by taking a look at the courage to follow home a couple by hi I'm coming down to play kitty. You know 50 years ago people in Hawaii didn't take much pride in the background and heritage but won't want to and then state will help change that. Today there's a great

interest in retaining culture tradition than ever before. But life in these islands is also changing and we cannot save everything would like to say we're going to meet some people who are trying to preserve the ethnic heritage and we'll listen well of those we call the changing lives in Hawaii. No. Let's begin. Back in the piece a fisherman all the children you know how to fish how to Squid you know because it was very important for their livelihood. That was the means to get food for the family. And as they grew older they would have to support their family and they were not at a very early age how to plan terror how on how to go to fish to look for squid. They just weren't able to care for the family. So the fisherman talked to children a lot of things about fishing over the period of time since statehood. Hawaiians have had

good and bad things happen I think for them. Whered relates to perpetuation of the culture. Good things have happened more recently. At one point in time I think things of culture and history were become known be put aside and almost forgotten. And more recently however that has regenerated and reaffirmation has been taking place there. When it comes to some of the problems related to the social development of lions I think that some of the negative statistics still prevail and have magnified over a period of time so that more attention needs to be addressed to these you know he my quite this renewed interest in ethnic heritage has been called something of a run of songs. It's taken many different forms including a revival of the rich addition of the ancient Hawai'i to cover how

my own I know my own imam our alumni. I grew up in a family that spoke the language and my parents took the time to provide us with the history culture and the background. A good working knowledge of Hawaiians past as well as contemporary and I think that we practiced the culture as we live. And so I make application of that beginning to now the flower lei as one of the Hawaiians important cultural traditions. One of the most treasured of these the mighty lucky Hunter. These two ladies are made separately and then they are intertwined together and we go

you have one of the most beautiful and most ancient of all Hawaiian needs. Oh intermarriage is reducing the number of pure Hawaiians Hunan make up less than 1 percent of the population. But this mixing with other ethnic groups is increasing the number of people with some Hawaiian blood and among these people the identification is strongly Hawaiian. Not only homeland. I am a blend of a number of different races that are reflected here in the state. I think my cultural roots are strongly associated with the host culture and so I have done to fight and so do many other people he stated and fighting that way.

But I choose to work I would on because it's a traditional media that our ancestors used in the past and it is really a carry over for today. Who are we. I create most of my pieces through there because it's an easier medium for me to express myself. Another man also expresses himself with his hands putting his own mark on one of his ancestors most popular gifts to the world. A long time ago and along the boards when people was making surfboards they had no fans they were meat on board and they were very heavy and it was very difficult to shape very difficult to write a novel with a modern type of light weight. It's a little more easier to shape and the bars are much lighter. Nor where as interest in heritage by young Hawaiians more evident than in dance. Yes there's another side to the cultural renaissance Hawaiians

have been associated with music dance activities that are not associated with work. Again the lazy Hawaiian The one with Love says you know and his. Enjoyable types of activities but not somebody who will be committed to hard work and the outcomes that are necessary for society's pain. So these stereotypes still exist which influence younger people too. They're unsuccessful in the educational system and so therefore they can't find employment so therefore they become the highest population in the prisons and on the social welfare rolls and so on but still is there a wine shared with the different people who came here and they learned from the New England missionaries. The Hawaiians learned group make it and then they created their own art form. But sometimes they didn't want to let the world see what they had

done. The old Hawaiians do not like to show people what they know or see. So I've known women that quilt for Dove 45 50 years been dead never shown they work out they've hidden it. I go out and I show what I know. Actually a grudge and not dying on it was I hate going on. It is better because of the horns because as the host population we set the tone for the arrival and blending of people the welcoming of strangers with open arms. That basis I believe and people refer sometimes to that essence as being a little higher that base forms a very

strong opportunity for all of the different minorities here to be able to have better opportunities for making things work. The Hawaiians welcomed the first New England missionaries in the 1820s and these immigrants brought with them their own customs and traditions many of which are still part of island life. One of these so-called homies would follow my own family left to Scotland in the 18 forties because life is so difficult in Scotland it was not to eat the same is true I think of Japanese people who came to work in the sugar fields. It was a hard grinding rice but it was probably better than what they had at home. As in this tour the Filipino people who in many cases had to leave their families behind and what they came to was very difficult.

But it was probably better than what they had so all of us came. All of us brought with us the desire to find a better life and a better world and to the extent that that's what makes up the ethnic population of Hawaii. People who came to try and achieve a better life I think grapheme done that in the minds of early cook Asian immigrants revolved around the church. To them a church meant a pipe organ. With pipe organs came another Western church tradition stained glass a European art form that is no Pershing in the islands. Oh I use all kinds of class. I like euro European glass I love French antique like this is French antique and I like the English class English and Tikrit just very difficult to get a very very expensive German and then Does this

satisfy you because I decided that even no doubt and it's subject to just putting colors together find exciting and we had a small minority of Caucasians controlling the economy at play. I don't think anybody really disputes that. And as and the curious thing is that the now that there mark occasions their influence has diminished which is good. We had a small group of very influential Caucasians now we have a very large group of less influential Caucasians. The bad is that in becoming that way we have become a more homogeneous population. We're all ma like we do the same things we all watch TV we go and watch the Islanders play baseball but we have lost some of the cultural things that were good that we brought with us when we began the industrial revolution in 1970. Forced many Cross workers to seek might elsewhere. Some came here with the traditional European cabinet making continues today.

But I like to do is use the woods to its utmost advantage. And who would make a proportionate to make it look and feel good is something you live with. It's not something that you're just going to toss out when you get tired of it. This can be done by machine but I just see I have to go along with what Olivia Braun says about work. Your work is your love made visible machines don't know that yet. I can remember my father coming home from lunch and saying he saw somebody on front street that he did know. That was unusual because it was of such a small city but I think that we we had we were very friendly with each other it was much less frantic. There were no airplanes that came in when the big day was Boat day of course and the pace of life was much slower. Our food variety was much larger and

much more Hawaiian an Oriental in nature and at our dinner table we had some oriental foods at night and some online foods and whatever was growing in the yard and and I think it was sort of nice and now our things are packaged in fresh frozen. Maybe this is part of our cultural Ross I think it is. Western jazz dance in some ways is a replay of the peace and character of the modern world and its find a place among the other arts here in Hawaii as well. The main thing that I have achieved with the dancers in my company has planted a suit you know I wanted to start something so that they could feel that from this point onward they could go on no matter whether I was there or you know in doing the American thing. You may lose some of the cultural advantages of what came with you. I used to play in this very yard and I used to get out of school at 2:30. But my oriental

friends that I played touch football with or baseball didn't get out of school until 3:30 because they went to cultural school Japanese school Chinese school which their parents required because they wanted them to keep some of the cultural heritage that they had brought with them. I like to think about the place and why you know 90 percent of your Chinese ridiculous tourist Not that it has a new meaning. Look to the wisdom of your antics look to the comedic spirit that made us I think for me in terms of my paper making I interpret the phrase to mean look first to the history and the tradition within which I am working and then also look to the natural world the plant life that gives me the five years from my work. I knew as much almost as many Hawaiian and Japanese words as I did English ones. My father grew up speaking on him. He had nine brothers and sisters of which he was the youngest in the whole family spoke while I came along and although I didn't speak oh and I knew all the Hawaiian songs of my era. Now my

kids are grown up and they don't even know the Hawaiian songs that at each step we've lost something. One ancient tradition called us on which nearly lost it was revived during the Renaissance in French and later was transplanted here. And from the rock band into the outside and pick up the counter neat it appeals to people I think of all ages who are willing to have the self-discipline and spend the time required to work on the subtleties and the fineness of it. I ride on horseback in the plantation days of old Hawaii was a symbol of Asian influence and the influences change over time. A certain image may linger on the sugar plantations Romanovich by colleagues who were certainly overbearing.

I have witnessed many a scene which convinced me that they were overbearing and in some cases very unfairly so. But that's gone. I don't think that there's any feeling of superiority. We no longer have the some of the racial barriers that we had before. I certainly don't feel better or worse than anybody else does. I think that that part of the overbearing colonial type in a Panama hat and a white linen suit which we used to see a lot of that's gone now we're all dressed in polyester. I guess officially we are part of the Caucasian group. But I have a little story that I always use to illustrate a point when I say that it's good to be Portuguese in Hawaii because when you're Portuguese in Hawaii you can pass through an Anglo-Saxon if you want to. Most of us Portuguese don't want to. Clearly goes church was built on the slopes of Punchbowl created by Portuguese immigrant families.

The old church is used only for special occasions now but it's still a symbol the long time put use community that surrounds it to this neighborhood with street names from the Old World. Came an 8 year old boy from Maui. He was a son of a Portuguese immigrant and a boy with an idea about where he was going. I wanted to learn to speak good English and you have no idea how difficult this is and you've been speaking pidgin English all your life and all of a sudden and I was about 10 to 12 years on I decided that I wanted to learn how to speak good English because I wanted to be a liar and I wanted to do that and I wanted to be that. And I thought that you know out of the Get them going to have to learn to through good English. It was a difficult task and it took a lot of work on my part and a lot of dedicated teachers to get out of the curtain

and the accent that I had and still have once in a while. The culture and traditions of old Portugal like kept alive by groups such as this one. The sentiments of Hawaii's early Portuguese immigrants they came there primarily in labor and pretty soon found in niches and other areas in the community and worked their way up the ladder to wealth and a key thing in all of this progress was education. The last quarter century. I find with the Portuguese as well as with other groups a lot of emphasis being placed on education. I know with my own parents for example my father and mother did not have hardly any formal schooling I think but my father didn't go to school or my mother I got a father fourth grade but they learned to read on their own. They were good in arithmetic but they insisted that we go to school.

Among us on that delicious fried dough coated with sugar is what many people think of when Portuguese I mention that and bean soup and the other delicacies that the Portuguese share with us mentioned Portuguese to some people and they think of a kind of ethnic humor. And that's not always funny. I can tell you any time out of a cracker port you go get the presence of my mother. I get scolded for it because you're putting down your people don't you do that. So you got to be very careful about that but I think every ethnic group that got to the Cali and Jew the black There they are they are all about through this a lot of it then and some of it a little mean but I don't think there's any particular stereotype. I know one thing that annoys me and I think every every Portuguese is that we call a Portuguese If you call me that you're going to be corrected on the spot that I'm portuguese. I'm not a plug for what you use descendants trying to

preserve what they can from the past to know where you're going. It helps to remember where you've been. The immigrant son from my we remember us I came from RR and I came good a big CD and now I think good of all that traffic away yeah. I didn't know what the big place I thought it sounded. A sign of communiques is through out the centuries. Although we have this in dialects in different provinces the character is the same and is written the same way. I was born and brought up in Peking China. The first 12 years when I arrived here I was in short pants and tennis shoes from the banana boat. I think the impressions were one of initially being

very much in the minority being awkward not fitting in one doing how you would and how language and slangs would be picked up. It was a slow process. There are many hurt nights and wonderings as to how you would really become an American and its a family structure as it is today. What is really an offshoot of ancient Chinese families which really defines the role of each person's relation to the letter that was brought over and teaching the Chinese system of education. Confucian without them throughout the day different generations Chinese power was regarded family structure as the most important area in the social system. Festivals

and the customs are tied back to the values of piety love and respect for one's elders and power that Im a good boy to ride on the banana boat was really the first of his family to come here. Its interesting because my grandparents for the first Chinese couple arrived in Hawaii at the turn of the century as Western medical doctors they were the first Chinese doctors to practice here in Hawaii and as such practice for 50 years. My grandmother who was a little bitty room and for 11 delivered over 6000 babies. My grandfather was a general practitioner. Used to be in horse and buggy days going over the pony making house calls. It was quite the strong dynamic doctor. One was 11 11 when my

dad took me to China and dad came in because I don't make something like that. There are many festivals celebrated by the Chinese in the Hawaii because it's a part of their heritage. It's a time for the families to get together. Chinese love to celebrate the Chinese love to get together and they love to eat good food and remember their ancestors and give thanks for the nice things that have happened during the year. I think the basic traditions would be the closeness of the family and the emphasis on education of education towards your future and the whole as far as the Chinese the industry the emphasis wasn't what you had to do to better yourself and from there to contribute. If you wanted to be

attorneys in the way you have the simile the Western ways it is important for the young to appreciate Chinese traditions. I wanted to achieve this is to tease the younger generation to appreciate their cultural heritage as I certainly did in the American way. As I write in Hawaii obviously we and our Yemenis and had our sandwiches. But we also forget. And when have I can use a meal it's of interest that my mother had a special interest in Chinese cooking. She volunteered at the YWCA and did a lot of Chinese cooking on a Chinese cookbook. You know Mary Scio's Chinese cookbook. I'm only seem to mind being Chinese. As I grew older I began to get nasty. Part of my whole life and I couldn't make a go of it and it was like Chinese is a part of my life

and so I went back to school to learn more about my art farm I really discovered different aspects of my Chinese heritage. So for my master's of finites technique I decided to do a chinese down way of mending up all cultures. The Chinese make up only 5 percent of Hawaii's population mainly because of the high rate of intermarriage. Chinese people are also highly urbanised and the representation of business in the profession is much greater than the percentage of the total community. I believe that many people stereotype the Chinese especially in Hawaii has the merchants the concerns about making money and nothing else. This has a significant background. Traditionally the Chinese are an industrious are as I stated for education for betterment here as we see many of the

Chinese merchants have become successful businessmen but also if it tempted to do much more in terms they support the community the Chinese has been used primarily as the instrument of the case in the documents continues to be used today in China Japan and Korea. In fact you even need to cash a check. For me to spread the song to show people there is something bigger than just your ordinary daily life and can be found in our innate things in the stall. I think Chinese culture for myself and for the people who study Chinese culture it gives them an opportunity to be one with nature. To find art in ordinary things. And for this it offers much for the Western world. Our story that we have told other groups were to follow the Chinese.

I didn't grow the to Hawai'i diversity of cultures. We'll take a look at them next time. This is going to all identically kitty for spectrum the whole of we all got over that almost. Spectrum was funded in part by the 1984 who y e statehood

silver jubilee Committee. Chevron USA in Hawaii and the Hawaii State foundation on culture and the arts are.

The following program is a production of Katie Chichi in Honolulu Hawaii

Public Television. The following program was funded in part by the Hawaii State foundation on culture and the arts. Chevron USA in Hawaii and the 1984 Hawaii statehood silver jubilee Committee. This week the speculum celebrate the Super jubilee of statehood with a second and concluding look at it take her to. A whole other likeable why welcome I'm coming all identically Kenny. You know 50 years ago people who I didn't take much pride in the background and heritage but World War 2 and then stay to help change that. Today there's a great interest in retaining culture

tradition than ever before. But life in those islands is also changing and we cannot save everything we'd like to share. We've already met some people trying to preserve the ethnic heritage. We listen to others we call the changing lives in Hawaii. Now let's meet a few more. When I look back and look at my own family and look at the Japanese as a group I always try to go back to the pineapple fields and the high labor and the real you know and going off to war when I think of World War Two and I think of the. People from Hawaii who went off to do battle and serve their country. I think of the Japanese I. In ancient Japan. Zen Buddhism and the summary code of Bushido shared a belief in discipline and in the soul

control of mind and body. In Hawaii. A Zen Priest continues this tradition as he turns to his throne garden. As the priest rakes his garden. He gathers strength from the storm by sharing its patients and in durance and hearing to the ancient tradition is so important. In terms of the Japanese retaining a lot of the culture one of the most important things that I've been impressed with from the time I was an incense and even now with my own children is the concept of shame. Or embarrassment not the thing. And it's one of the Japanese kind kind of assume a responsibility to the entire race. And so it it's something that doesn't just bring shame upon you and your family but it's it's shameful that a Japanese person would behave this way. Another Japanese tradition is the bone festival memorial service held to honor the

spirits of departed relative. Influence of tradition has been one reason the Japanese in Hawaii have a rather low rate of intermarriage in that regard. The daughter of immigrant family remembers her grandmother her purchase was interesting because. When I brought home to my grandmother's house a fellow who was half Japanese you know half. My grandmother didn't want me to go out with him because his last name was a holiday. I brought home another. Guy. He was Japanese Howie but he had a Japanese last name my grandmother said Oh that's all right. You know and I said what difference does it make. They're they're both half and half. He says Oh yeah but he has a Japanese name. The bone density may be one Japanese tradition familiar to other ethnic groups. The event traces its origin to a 20 500 year old Buddhist legend. And that tradition is passed on from one generation to another.

You have are because of the age of these people. The first generation people. There seems to be in less and less such performers as musicians. However there's also a trend right at this present time with a younger generation taking over learning use of the different musical instruments. So I'm sure that such musicians will continue with the younger generation finishing the necessary music for the young dances. I made a commitment to myself that when I was near 40 I'd start to get back into the real Japanese thing. So I I have my children taking Japanese. I've planned for them to go to Japan and. I've gotten to ceremony and reading Japanese process. And seeming very comfortable with the thought. I've been teaching it for the last forty seven years. And I'm still learning.

These are my three main points. Father Mother and Child. Or you may call it heaven men and earth. The hyphen Japanese American was not to me a blending. I was not a Japanese American I was Japanese. And I was American. If you can appreciate that we are in the open. Amongst friends and in school I never thought that I was Japanese it was just I was one of everyone else. But it felt like I belonged to a very Japanese family. I think now I'm trying to put those two parts together. Thank you for giving me this beautiful arrangement. You stated there's been a greater appreciation on the part of the local Filipinos.

Of the Filipino culture. I think that prior to statehood. There was some resistance and maybe even some embarrassment about the culture because we didn't know much about it. I didn't know the history didn't know the beauty of the culture. And I think Filipinos in a less a sense. Less intense of sense are going for the same kind of renaissance in terms of culture of the Hawaiians are going through right now. Is at a gallop word meaning legacy. And that is an appropriate name for the kimono dancers because our primary aim is to teach retain and spread Filipino culture through dance. My household was the one where my father who was from the Philippines did everything he possibly could to infuse himself with Americanism you know. So he never spoke to us in the in the Filipino language and we never learned it. He always spoke to us in English. And he was very very oriented to learning things that were local learning things

that were American so to speak. I never knew about. The Filipino culture in terms of dances of the musical. Or the history. Because my father wanted to learn the American culture. Come on a dancer in the troop by any hand there it operates like one big family by any means to be one to be united or to help each other. The dancers in the poem on a dance or. Cooking. Company. Have brought in their family members to help out in many ways and. I guess we are joined from on a dancer's because of this good fellowship that we have in the old days the Filipinos who were brought to a why. Were those who were sought to work in the plantations were deliberately but the ones with the nice education were deliberately chosen because I think the

plantations learn from their experience of the Japanese and Chinese who once they got it tended to venture into business and all of that. They wanted people who would stay on their own on the plantations. So there was a concerted effort to get people who are not educated. If you're a teacher or you had that kind of background usually the Filipinos are still closely identified with the plantation where they make up the greater part of the workforce. But that may change as it did for the Chinese and then for the Japanese. Assimilation for Filipinos means working within the power structure. When they say it's in the economy or in politics you know. And if you want to one day be the vice president or president of a bank you've got to convince the stockholders who maybe are not Filipinos that you you know you have whatever it takes to do it. For some of today's young Filipinos. The road to success in America is in the ring. In the early 1960s one young Filipino lawyer to be told his

road was blocked by the discrimination I pick my family up moved to California. And I never come back actually. When I got to California. I went to school. And I live in California at the time though the civil rights movement. I went to the Watts riots and all of this and all of turmoil on the mainland. And then I came to the conclusion you know I wasn't so bad after all. And then came back home so. That I think was that. Was an experience one experience that I think will get me up to the fact that. In the early 60s at least Filipinos were in a minority group. We weren't accorded the kind of respect. And consideration that maybe we are today. Before the birth of Christ the shamans of Korea were blessing homes and healing the sick and praying for the living in the dead or

by entering the spirit world and assuming the souls of ancestors there. Was one of the world's oldest religious experiences. But such as this one are not seen are often. My Korean experiences as as a child really stop around the seventh or eighth grade because my grandmother how my name in Korean forced us to go to church and I kind of ran away out of the seventh grade. But my Korean experience is with my sister Laura and I spoke pretty fluently from grandmother. And of course we have to go to church until I was about 12 years old. And then. When you were put all at 12 years old surfing is more important and football and baseball and kind of stuff right. So the daily experiences really stopped about that. Immigrant grandmother word the one buck the national dress of Korea for centuries which was brought here by immigrant women.

She came over and she poured. She supported her six kids by sewing for the military. OK. And she started the first Korean Methodist Church on the street. He's a very devout Christian. Grandma just like I said before I have five before I put that Korean into us. You know more so than dad as far as a church with. Koreans make up less than 2 percent of Hawaii's population. They've been very successful. They are said to have the highest per capita level of education and income of any ethnic group. But the going wasn't always easy even for the children of successful parents. When mom enrolled me and put it all in the second grade. This was 1952. And there were not that many. Hawaiians are someone's already have those then like they are now. So I memorized a couple of crying in the second grade because. The

kids or whoever would call me change and slant eyes and stuff like that and I would come home and I would beg mom to take me out to put on put back in line or school in the valley. But she would. A Korean Study Center at the university's Manoa campus is a symbol of the migration to Hawaii by children from the mind of morning Kong. The success here was built by hard work. I was I must attribute this to put it all. When I was a very competitive school. OK. And it drums into you for the first day you know succeed succeeds. Go to college go to college and make something of yourself. And with grandmother there and mom there and dad there and we're all here. God I had no choice did I. You see. That. One of the things that has changed us right here in our story is that in 25 years an awful

lot more sometimes now than there were then. And when we were growing up you know we were identified as someone's because there weren't that many someones around after mid 50s when the migration of the. In the Navy the Department of Interior took over some law and the Navy moved out and a lot of the Navy families migrated to Hawaii in the West Coast and that's when I think the identification of someone started is in the mid 50s. But prior to that you know we weren't really identified as a group. And. I think. The Samoans and other Pacific Islanders are still close enough to their arrival date here that their cultural roots are unbroken. Almost everybody speaks the language at home and that's their primary language at home. And that's perpetuated in song and dance and day to day life so the Samoans have been lost in language and the

ties to the homeland is still very evident. People travel back and forth a lot so the you really don't lose the language. That's one of the ways that the preservation of our culture is maintained as to all history and tradition only the older folks stay at home to take care of the children because the younger folks and the parents are out working in some more you know it isn't as modern as Hawaii is they have a lot of village work you got to cultivate the land for food and fish so that the older folks are left to take it to young children. And this is where the upbringing is that's where your history and your culture is maintained. Our language can be a cultural asset. It can also work against immigrants especially children in school. One of the things people don't understand is that the some laws respect authority very much and when the child sits in a classroom because of the communications problem the child will feel that he doesn't understand or is unable to

comprehend what the teacher is teaching and the child feels that he is insulting the teacher by saying that I am unable to learn which in essence means that you're only able to teach. And for me to tell you that you are unable to teach is not proper for me as a young student or young child. Therefore I keep quiet and you know you go on thinking that I'm retarded I don't communicate. So that is one example where the communications barrier oftentimes and the cultural the customs of adhering to authority and respecting authority is misinterpreted and that's why we get a lot of the negative stereotype. Someone's have been identified as entertainers and great athletes. And that was a little. To expect it provided we find out and we have our recent law school graduate from University of Hawaii we are practicing attorneys who got doctors and these are young some more into the beginning to find them and taking advantage of opportunities that others from once before that were still in are don't have the opportunity to give managers various programs given the opportunity of having an even keel and

competitive who they are oftentimes excel over other. If you look closely enough you may see other racial and ethnic groups among us Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics. American Indians and more. Together they make up about 2 percent of our population. But visitors often come in and not seeing many blacks in a way. And the question is why haven't more blacks come here. Or I don't think that is something this only particular black so I think the lack of space. And that in itself I think a lot of the housing and the cost of housing is a prohibitive. So are there any racial groups coming to Hawaii. But as far as blacks against And I think the reputation that Hawaii has had an impasse and been anti back because of the military expenses papa charitable to that way of thinking. Well the majority of Hawaii's blacks are connected with the

military such as these gospel singers at Hickam Air Force Base the military has given many mainland blacks a chance to live here. I first came in the military in 1966 and that was some bad experience on my part there were quick times where I have I was looked at looked around upon for going to certain restaurants or when you went to the beach I mean I guess it is back black to go to the beach I guess that was such a taboo but over the years I think because of my strength University we have because of basketball at our athletic experience we have changed the attitude towards blacks so we had to satisfy a situation where five men and blacks represent the state of Hawaii. Not only locally but nationally and that sort of broke the ice for other blacks who came after us so I think that experience helped Blacks be perceiving a different light. Blacks to see to feel more accepting of white today than they did a few years ago.

And some have found a home. When I met my wife who is a Chinese and half Chinese and half white. And when I went to dinner at their house I didn't feel uncomfortable at all if I were a warm and they accept that. You know that they were there. We're thinking oh this is the place for me. Also the place of this Vietnamese girl one of the newest arrivals from Southeast Asia. Yeah. She and some other refugees recently made an animated film as part of a high school project. The film is titled The boat people and it documents the frightening experiences of refugees who are trying to get to a resettlement camp in Malaysia. All with the dream of coming to America. I found that when I left my car you know all my friends and I. I wonder

why would my friends again. And. We were on a beach. I got to go. Look into the faces of young Hawaii and you see what Hawaii is becoming a blending

of races. Today. People of mixed blood represent the largest single group in our population. Nearly 29 percent of the total. I grew up in Kailua and when I think about it it was a tiny town and it was primarily a holly town. And. I didn't think about myself in ethnic terms at all. The whole Bowman of the family the part Hawaiian part is very very much a bag of Oreos. They were raised like Holly's by their father and they lived like holidays and there was not a lot of Hawaiian roots that were visible but the blending is not all blood alone but of culture as well. Young people from various ethnic backgrounds study tradition that uniquely Japanese kabuki. Oh my. That's right. Like you become a disciple. You must be.

Oh I am going to raise the rates. Are you going to. Shave my. Head. It's a discipline. I think. It would benefit the Western active amongst. I think it's that. Forcing yourself to do movements in a particular way. We don't get quite that same training in western. Theatre. I remember very distinctly the first time I felt like. There was something different about me ethnically happened in Fargo North Dakota. I was probably five years old my mother was from Fargo and she did. Take trips back so we saw the Swedish side of the family and the kid next door who was a freckle faced Irish kid. Sullivan asked me why I never washed my dirty face and. It was the first time it occurred to me that there was any kind of difference at all.

The sharing of traditions in the Ireland's picture for example and interest in Hawaii's architectural heritage. Historic Preservation has real value to everyone living in our state today and to our visitors to. Our World. Whole history was made up of different periods of time. Our whole culture is made up by many many different people. And the buildings in our community reflect that change and those differences so that they really visually represent the history and heritage of our state. To walk down a street in Old Town Honolulu. And know that other people have walked that street have seen the same buildings makes it possible to deal with present day problems a little better. Other people have survived and we're going to survive too. I find. Now. That people have stereotypes and are surprised when they meet me. I have a nice Howley name a nice Howley job. I will

show up at a press conference for instance. This is a true incident. I showed up and they said. Where are the sandwiches. And I said home. And they said I'm the boy from the caterers. And I said no I'm the boy from the newspaper and. I find it amusing most of the time. Whole buildings like L.A. Palace are part of the cultural heritage of our community. They belong to all of us. They are inheritances from our past from the past he was. People have lived and died in the past whose great events have occurred and lead to other events going right up to the present. In terms of the span since statehood I think there's been a great change. Part of it is a change in fashion in the last 10 years it's become fashionable to be part of Wyatt. I know it wasn't fashionable at the beginning of statehood. There was a the establishment. In business in government.

It's changed. And. There's been a national change in ethnicity and I think it's reflected in a way where the differences among people are more celebrated today used to be. There's a tendency in the United States and in most of the Western world today to lump all human beings together and give us a Social Security number and make us part of a homogeneous situation. As we become more of the same we lose our sense of specialness. And I believe there is something there is a psychic need within people to feel unique and identify with their own group. And to share that identity with other people. Right. It does and. It's the blending and the diversity of Hawaii's people and cultures that have made these

islands show you he can be on the rest of the world. We call it will be just as you're going up a quarter century from now when we celebrate the golden anniversary of space. We can hope that it will. I'm going to be saying whoa hold on you'll call cool at all. Spectrum was funded in part by the 1984 y e statehood

silver jubilee Committee. Chevron USA in Hawaii and the Hawaii State foundation on culture and the arts.