Week 8: Constantly widening my worldview to include marginalized communities and culture that are more meaningful and rich than U.S. “culture.”

This week we saw Kumu Hina. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It shows the importance of telling the stories of people in their native culture, teaching that culture to the younger generation, and the personal lives and struggles of those people. I got to learn more about native Hawaiian culture, which is something no one gets to learn about. It makes me think about misrepresentations of Hawaiian culture and the things I heard about Hawaii when I was younger: it’s a vacation spot, it’s paradise, it’s where people go for honeymoons, for getaways, and to surf. It’s not a big mystery why we don’t know about native Hawaiian culture. I think of colonization, capitalism, different types of oppression, and US exceptionalism. But I always tend to focus on the oppression side of things, thinking back to previous seminars I’ve been in and the papers I’ve written last year. Most of my comments and paper topics were about colonization, white supremacy, and forms of oppression. So right now I want to focus on more positive stuff, just for this post. Although in the back of my mind I do think about how I know nothing of Pilipinx culture and that is also something no one gets to learn about. But anyway… Kumu Hina reinforced the notion that there are many ways indigenous communities are continuing their culture and fighting back against colonization by reaching out to the younger generations and teaching them about the meaning and pride of their culture. The film also focused on gender identity, which is so so sooo important. It gives us all an education on what mahu is and hopefully as more and more people watch this film, can let go of their obsession with the gender binary and focus more on people’s spirits, energies, and freedom to express their authentic selves.

In other life news: I’m so ready for the break. See you in Week 9.