Settling in the back of the class, learning the history of your people straight from the sugar dipped tongue of the oppressor.

Lies!

It’s easy to avoid confronting things that makes us uncomfortable, things that make us feel guilty.

Comfort is what kills us in the long run.

Comfort is sitting down, when you should be on your feet.

Comfort is staying quiet when you should be speaking up.

Wake up!

The vibrations of our darkness activate,

Reverberates the water below, our koko.

A movement from the roots of our soul.

A grassroots movement.

Ordinary people like you and I, fed up with the lies.

The white lies that enforced kids into ethnocide.

They told us to move it! But we were the movement.

No eviction evil enough to push us out.

But our grass shacks were not enough, they wanted the big bucks.

Boom!

Crater created and called it the sailor hat. Shame.

Our island raped, utilized as target practice with ammunition that didn’t even know how to pronounce her name.

Kohemālamalama o Kanaloa,

The shining birth canal of Kanaloa.

A body so deep and wide, taking warriors that fought on her side.

George Helm, Kimo Mitchell, Eddie Aikau

In a race to save a race

Disprove a theory of arrogance by the displays of our ways upon the waves.

A canoe, named after a star that brought us to where we are

Hōkūleʻa, star of gladness.

Release the sails and let the wails of our loved ones propel us to safety.

And when the wind capsizes our hopes, your soul will guide our every journey.

E Ola!

Shifting through the ashes of a culture once deemed illegal.

Retaining all knowledge and history

through shaping the spoken word into muscle memory.

Our ancestors etched everything into the tides of their tongue.

Fed off of our Whānau,

Their Kōhanga reo, our Pūnana Leo.

Every level of education raised in this nest of native dialect.

When you kill a language, you kill a people.

But what they don’t know is that language is the most dangerous weapon you can give to a native people.

We may not sound like our ancestors, but our bones still remember their stories.

Our bones should be left where they were buried.

Our bones hold power with in them.

Our bones are not for you white man to hold as a prize possession.

Respect!

Something that wasn’t shown at Honokahua .

1000+ bodies, naked and afraid.

Unearthed by greed and protected by ʻohana.

Walking carefully through the crime scene,

Hearts heavy as if every hole is like a glaring wound.

Stop! We cry.

Don’t move them!

This movement has grown from the grass roots to sovereignty.

Haunani Kay Trask planting seeds through her artistry.

“The natives are restless!”

Bulging of the eyes, gasping of the breath, hesitation of a cheer

Different reactions from the crowd

Loud!

We are not American!

We will never be American!

We will die as Hawaiians!

We will never be American!

Call it what you want. A renaissance, A revival?

Rebirth!

A new generation of Hawaiians.

Educated, dedicated, reinvigorated.

Aloha ʻĀina stood in the front line of our battles

And still till this day we protest the desecration happening to our nation.

With the resources you pushed us down with, we will use it to lift our people up.

We will thrive and we will not back down

They stood up to the sugar coated lies of the oppressor.

Now it’s our turn to continue the fight.