[Jake Kongaika/Cubworld]
A couple of months ago I came across this video clip of Cubworld singing in Amsterdam. I was so moved by the whole performance that I immediately became a Cubworld fan! There are many talented musicians out there but very few are talented and humble! Cubworld is definitely among those few and we are honored to have him represent for the H.Y.P.E Movement!
Check out his HYPE video profile below and share it with your friends!
Click on the picture below to check out Cubworld's music!
Get on the H.Y.P.E.-- Cubworld
Words from the Wise--Farewell Dr. 'Epeli Hau'ofa
[Picture borrowed from Color Me Fiji's Blog.
I discovered 'Epeli's writings at a very critical time in my academic career when I was trying to make sense of writings by non-Tongan scholars about Tongans. At the time I couldn't fully articulate why their writings never really spoke to me and I had a hard time identifying with their analysis of the experiences of my Tongan people.
Then I came across 'Epeli's words which boldly spoke to me that "human reality is human creation, if we fail to create our own reality someone else will do it for us"...I decided then that I was going to work in constructing my own reality and in creating a platform for us to retell our own stories and reclaim our legacy as Pacific people!
It was 'Epeli who put forth the idea that the Ocean is in Us that we are not just Islands in the Sea but rather that we are a Sea of Islands and that the Ocean doesn't divide us as Pacific people but rather it connects us!
He stressed that the terms Pacific Islander/Polynesian were all terms made up arbitrarily during the time of colonization to conquer and divide the Pacific. Before those terms were invented by outsiders to describe us, we were always the Moana people--the people of the ocean!
"there are no more suitable people on earth to be the custodians of the oceans than those for whom the sea is home...we seem to have forgotten that we are such a people...our roots...our origins are embedded in the sea...our ancestors were brought here by the sea...the sea is our pathway to each other and to everyone else, the sea is our endless saga, the sea is our most powerful metaphor...the Ocean is in Us..."
--Epeli Ha'uofa
Farewell Dr. Ha'uofa! Thank you for inspiring even those of us who have lived away from the Ocean for so long...that even we could carry on the legacy of the Moana people!!! 'Ofa lahi atu!!!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
H.Y.P.E. Movement Commercial-- It's Our Time to Make a Difference!!!
[Reppin' HYPE with Bologna Fungi Film Crew after filming the commercial]
I had so many mixed feelings about the making of this commercial--perhaps I wasn't sure if I wanted to put it out there so bluntly, but after much thought I knew there was no other way around the truth!
I had initially conceptualized the idea for the script with my cousin Richard Wolfgramm after a conversation I had with the Bologna Fungi Film Crew about a commercial that would discuss the current statistics in our Pacific Islander community.
It is always difficult for me to see the statistics of what is happening with our young people, to others it may just be numbers, but to me, those numbers represent a face, a name, a relative--it's never just some random number!
I kept writing and rewriting the script literally until the morning of the commercial shoot. My intention was to help our community understand that the current trends of where we are heading is dreadful and unacceptable and that if we don't take a stand TODAY our Pacific Islander young people will continue to suffer!
It was difficult even in the filming of the commercial to hear our young ones say their lines because it made things so real, so concrete, so immediate! One of the hardest and saddest things for me as an educator is to come across young people who have accepted this craziness as their destiny and see no hope and no kind of future for themselves!
This commercial is representative of what is happening to the majority of our young people ages 15-17! I wish I could say that this commercial was just a random script I wrote to get an emotional response from people, but unfortunately this commercial is reflective of the lived reality of many young people.
Many have asked me why do I spend so much time engaged in this type of work-- and my response has always been the same "how can I not?" How can we not use whatever talents and resources we have to ensure a brighter future for our young people and our communities?
It starts with MAKING A CHOICE!!! I HOPE TODAY, YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE THE H.Y.P.E.!!!
LET'S MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!
GET ON THE HYPE!!!
Much love and gratitude to the Bologna Fungi Film Crew for bringing this script to life in a way that only they could!!!
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The Making of the HYPE Song Video
Check out the making of the HYPE Movement Song... "The Promise" written and composed by 676 (Neti Taumoepeau) featuring our Pacific Islander youth and filmed by the Bologna Fungi Film Crew!!!
Read HERE about the whole idea behind the song "The Promise"!
Add it to your page and share with your friends and spread the word about the HYPE MOVEMENT!!!
It's our time...Rise up Pacific People.... GET ON THE HYPE!!!
HYPE PHOTOS
HYPE MOVEMENT BEBO
MY MYSPACE
MY BEBO
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Hefa Tuita-- HYPE in Action...
[Hefa Tuita Jr. Reppin' HYPE]
I have received many emails inquiring about my process in choosing who would be part of the HYPE Photoshoot.
There was really only 3 simple criterias:
1) They needed to be from here in Utah (mainly for logistical reasons)
2) They had to be Pacific Islander
3) Their lives had to fully reflect the meaning behind the HYPE Movement
Many of these young people I had previously known and had worked with on various projects; some had been my students, others I have written about or have worked with in some type of capacity.
However, there was only one, who I actually never really formally met (well only once, but it was just in passing), but it was a conversation that I had with his father about a year ago, that fully convinced me that his son had to be part of this photoshoot.
[Hefa Tuita Jr.]
I am of course talking about Hefa Tuita Jr. the star dancer on Nickelodeon's new dance show, Dance On Sunset. He was also in High School Musical 2 and Unaccompanied Minors and has shared the stage with many amazing dance choreograpahers and superstars; singer Rihanna being one of them.
[Hefa Tuita Jr.]
However, it wasn't just his great resume of success that made me track him down for this photoshoot (I was almost borderline stalking by the time I finally was able to secure a date/time/location for the photoshoot... we literally confirmed everything between the hours of midnight to 3am...hahaha...yes, that's how much I wanted him to be part of this photoshoot)!!!
[Hefa Tuita Jr.]
In December 2007, I was organizing a Bone Marrow Registry Drive in our Pacific Islander Community, which was connected to a concert that featured various Pacific Islander music artists.
[Hefa Tuita Jr.]
At an informal dress rehearsal held a couple of days before the concert, Hefa Sr. (Hefa's father) had brought his sons to the University of Utah for a quick rehearsal. I had never heard of the Tuita boys, but was assured by everyone present that they were the real deal--talented, handsome, and most of all humble-- and they proved to be exactly that!
[Hefa Tuita Jr.]
Immediately after the dress rehearsal I met their father and we talked for a short while about our Tongan community and some of the things I was hoping to do in the community. I specifically remember him talking about how proud he was of his sons and how he had raised them with the two most important values in the Tongan culture--Respect and Service!!! He then said to me "my boys are very proud to be Tongan and I hope they do good things for our Tongan community"! Our conversation lasted for probably only ten minutes, but I knew then that this father had instilled in his sons not only a fierce love for their Tongan culture but also a sense of responsibilty in regards to the power of service!
[Hefa Tuita Jr. Reppin' his father's Firefighter Uniform]
When I decided that we would do a professional HYPE photoshoot, Hefa Jr.'s name was one of the first on the list because I knew he represented everything that the HYPE MOVEMENT is about, but mostly because of my brief conversation with his father about a year ago.
Unfortunately, his father passed away before we could actually do this photoshoot, but I hope that through the HYPE Movement, a new generation of Pacific Islanders will be able to actualize the yearnings of many of our grandparents and parents, who had always envisioned a future of endless possibilities for us!
Rest in Love Hefa Tuita Sr., even in your absence, you still continue to inspire us!
[Hefa Tuita Jr. in his father's Firefighter Uniform-- and the Legacy Lives On...]
[Tuita Boys Tribute to their father the late Hefa Tuita Sr.]
**Many thanks to Karley Tuita, Teresa Tuimaseve, Lavinia Taumoepeau, Abby Langi, our amazing photographer Naomi Masina --and of course Hefa Jr. and all others who were there for making this photoshoot possible...***
Monday, December 29, 2008
Always Livin' the HYPE!
I met today with some awesome Samoan brothers (and our Latino brother! love you too bro!) who are the masterminds behind the Bolonga Fungi Film Company!!!
They will be doing some film work for the HYPE MOVEMENT and are a great example of what it means to live the HYPE on a daily basis!!! They are completely rooted in community and are all about helping Pacific Islanders to reach their greatest potential! Always inspiring to meet such great individuals!
Here is a sample of their work (and this was something they just threw together last minute...so awesome!)
Check out more of their work HERE
Monday, December 22, 2008
Words from the Wise--Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui
[Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui]
Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui is an associate professor of American studies and anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she teaches courses on Native American sovereignty issues, U.S. colonialism in the Pacific Islands, and U.S. racial formations, and critical race methodologies. Her first book, Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Indigeneity and Sovereignty, is forthcoming from Duke University Press in October 2008. She is currently co-editing a book with Andrea Lee Smith, Native Feminisms: Without Apology (under review, University of Minnesota Press) and is currently embarking on two new book monographs: Mana Wahine Hawaiian Decolonization that explores gender politics in indigenous Hawaiian nationalist struggles, and Hawaiian New England: The Grammar of American Colonialism. She is also the host and producer of a weekly public affairs radio program, Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond, at WESU, Middletown, Conn., which is syndicated through the Pacifica radio-network.
[Kauanui's first book- Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Indigeneity and Sovereignty]
Dr. Kauanui on the dangers of having Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders subsumed under the general ethnic categories of Asian-Pacific American (APA) and Asian Pacific Islander (API)
The problematic terms “Asian-Pacific American” (APA) and “Asian Pacific Islander” (API) not only offer no recognition that Pacific Islanders already constitute a pan-ethnic group that is distinct from Asian Americans, they also efface Pacific political claims based on indigeneity. For example, indigenous Pacific Islanders who have ties to islands that were forcibly incorporated into the United States (Hawai`i, Guam, American Samoa) have outstanding sovereignty and land claims, based on international principles of self-determination, which get erased by the categorization with Asians. Hence the frameworks for understanding the ills affecting Pacific peoples and their political claims are shaped by imperialism and settler colonialism, not simply civil rights.Read more articles by Dr. Kauanui HERE
--Dr. J. Kehaulani Kauanui
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Words from the Wise-- Dr. Konai Helu Thaman
Dr. Konai Helu Thaman is a Tongan native Scholar and Professor at the University of South Pacific (USP) in Fiji. She holds a BA in Geography from the University of Auckland, an M.A. in International Education from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and PhD in Education from the USP.
Dr. Thaman's PhD Dissertation entitled ‘Ako and Faiako: Cultural Values, Educational Ideas and Teachers’ Role Perceptions in Tonga was based on studies of the relationships between cultural values and educational ideas and how these were reflected in teachers’ perceptions of their professional role. She has conducted research, consultancies and published widely in the areas of teacher education, curriculum development and culture and education and has held senior administrative positions in the USP including Director of the Institute of Education and Pro Vice Chancellor and Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor.
She is a Fellow of APEID (Asia-Pacific Programme of Educational Innovation for Development) and a member of several international and professional organisations including the UNITWIN/UNESCO Asia Pacific Higher Education Network and the Joint ILO/UNESCO Committee of Experts on the Application of the Recommendation on the Status of Teachers (CEART), and the Asia Pacific Regional Scientific Committee on Research in Higher Education. She serves as the UNESCO Chairperson in Teacher Education and Culture. She is also a widely published poet. Read more HERE
The following is a quote taken from her keynote address at the Center for Pacific Island Studies Conference in 2003. Her talk was entitled "Decolonizing Pacific Studies: Indigenous Perspectives, Knowledge, and Wisdom in Higher Education"
"...my western education has not caused me to shift from a belief and reliance in the supernatural...I am a Tongan woman of the commoner class, and although schooled in western ways, I continue to see myself as part of an organic unity, not as a chance result of natural selection at work in a world devoid of supernatural guidance..."I have always loved Dr. Thaman's work and how her words articulate a reality that is based on indigenous Tongan thought that claims knowledge existing and arising from the supernatural. It claims multiple ways of knowing and thinking! It aims to deconstruct the western thought and idea that literacy equals intelligence. Her words have helped me to expand my thinking beyond the walls of my classrooms and to envision and redefine education in a broader sense. It ruptures the idea that formal education is the only space where knowledge is created and produced!
you say that you think
therefore you are
but thinking belongs
in the depths of the earth
we simply borrow
what we need to know
these islands the sky
the surrounding sea
the trees the birds
and all that are free
the misty rain
the surging river
pools by the blowholes
a hidden flower
have their own thinking
they are different frames
of mind that cannot fit
in a small selfish world
(Konai Helu Thaman, “Thinking”)
Monday, November 17, 2008
Words from the Wise-- Dr. Haunani Kay Trask
Haunani-Kay Trask is an indigenous leader in the Native Hawaiian sovereignty movement. She is widely considered an authority on Hawaiian political issues, as well as an internationally-known Indigenous human rights advocate. She has represented her nation at the United Nations in Geneva, at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, and at various gatherings throughout the Pacific, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. She has authored four books, including From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i, widely considered a masterpiece of contemporary resistance writing. Trask was co-producer and scriptwriter of the award-winning documentary, Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation . She was the first full-time Director of the Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa in Honolulu. Currently, Trask is Professor of Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawai'i-Manoa.
There are so many wonderful quotes from Dr. Trask, but I have chosen the quote below because it speaks of the alternative to the crazy violence that we see happening all around us, that alternative being-- creating art!
This was her response to those who have criticized her as being too outspoken, too abrasive, too angry, and too militant, when it comes to fighting for Hawaiian Sovereignty.
"We are not happy natives...the anger is actually a safety valve...what's the alternative? I'd rather make art than, you know, commit murder"
--Haunani-Kay Trask
Monday, November 10, 2008
New Segment-- Words from the Wise...
Every Monday I will begin the week by posting some wise words from someone in our Pacific Islander community.
This week I am quoting the words of Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Te Rina Smith (Ngāti Awa, Ngāti Porou) who is an internationally renowned Professor of Education and researcher in Māori and indigenous education and is one of the leading
scholars on indigenous research methodologies. She currently serves as the Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Waikato.
Her critically acclaimed book Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (Zed, 1999) explores the intersections of imperialism, knowledge, and research and is one of the most cited text on indigenous research. 
How do you mobilize people who fear change, who fear shifting the status quo, and how do you suggest to them that as a minority they can win? That they can win a political argument? That they can win a political struggle? There is this deep cynicism about change...what many of our activists have done is to move that great cynicism and that sheer passiveness around change and that sense of grim determination to stay as we are because to rock the boat is to make it worse...as activists we need to be able to take all of that and activate it, mobilize it and make it work in particular ways...what my generation has learned is that the next step in resistance to oppression and injustice is the step of mobilizing and activating in particular ways that move communities forward...The confidence of knowing that we have survived and can only go forward provides some impetus to a process of envisioning --(Dr. Linda Tuhiwai Smith)
We are at a time in our history where we can no longer stand idly by while our young Pacific people are dropping out of school in alarming numbers, the incarceration rates of young Pacific Islander men continue to triple, the brown-on-brown violence continue to be an every day phenonmenon, the numbers of native language speakers diminish daily, and the idea of learning about our own history in mainstream classrooms almost seem impossible. We continue to suffer from third world statistics when it comes to health care, poverty, and the list goes on and on...
If we want to create a different kind of future... the time is NOW!
Posts
