- this is the second time i’ve seen this!! 🙂
- mahu -> third gender (hawaiian)
- hina wong-kalu -> hula teacher at lahau lokahi
- colonization fucked up hawaii’s aloha
-> US missionaries condemned hula + other practices
-> “after 200 years of colonization… we are still here” - “there’s nothing wahine about my voice” -> hina teaching the boys how to chant with strong voices
- kanaka maoli (native hawaiian)
- kumu + her student are both “in the middle”
- met her (ex) husband on tonga
-> she can translate lots of different islander languages - struggling with passing (as a woman)
-> “i’ve had this voice my entire life… i’m both… sucks to be a mahu sometimes” - hina’s ex – “i’m starting to understand america. everything here is all about money”
- the fact that the students ar halau lokahi get to learn native hawaiian language and culture in school is such a privilege
-> don’t take that for granted, kids - hina identifying as mahu as authenticity + respect for family (same as heck)
- “all we want is… for someone to give us the aloha we seek”
- hina going on road trip with friend + husband to visit other mahu friends
- mahu from city vs. mahu from rural areas
hina’s perspective on not telling the students where they have to go gender-wise - hina monitoring diggings to prevent burial grounds from getting tampered with
- the end performance will always make me teary eyed
-> “she’s the kumu to us boys” you damn right!!!
discussion notes:
- informality and comfortableness
- preserving her culture through being herself, being mahu
-> transness outside of white culture - she felt like an auntie when she talked to us last year @ evergreen
- talking about transness is hard unless it’s in a cultural lens
-> not necessarily easier but more accessible that white trans issues - “racial paradise”
- complexity of race and multiracialness
- PI spaces vs. non-PI spaces and presenting differently in each space
- hina’s understanding of her culture as a strong presence
-> it’s not completely our faults that we don’t know our culture, it’s our elder’s faults for not teaching us - hina advocating for indigenous folks at the same time as PI folks
- not taking colonization into account when ppl say that POC are transphobic/homophobic
->Â laws in other countries against LGBTQ+ folks as a result of colonlization - erasure of POC/indigenous trans ppl
- labels in other cultures/languages not always translatable
- transgender is an english word used as an umbrella term for people who don’t identify as girls/boys
-> trans people existed before the word trans was created