All Hawai'i Stands Together by Serena Lum of Ewa Beach, Hawai’i

All Hawai'i Stands Together 

by Serena Lum

Ewa Beach, Hawai’i 

When I first began searching for something that represented my culture, I came across a plethora of videos that I wanted to share about events that had a profound meaning to me. They each held their own amount of mana, knowledge, and meaning that brought upon a different kind of chicken skin and chill. Although not being able to share each one of these videos, I was able to find one video that did an amazing job at representing a part of each of these videos as a whole.

The plethora of videos that I mentioned earlier highlights the strength and sense of community that our people still hold even after enduring decades of injustice and wrongdoing. The #Jam4MaunaKea video, although only named after one Hawaiian sovereignty movement, represents so much more than that one movement. The video, which encompasses a part of each video’s mana, is a representation of Hawaiians uniting worldwide after years of being brutally stripped from their culture, language, religion, and identity. I chose this video because of the mana it holds and the deep messages it meant to show the world. We, as a nation who have been wronged, are still standing and I think that it’s important for the rest of the world to know that. We do not seek war to justify the wrongs, we do not hold our anger against others for what our people had to endure; we simply are looking for a way to keep our culture, language, and religion alive for our future generations to experience. I find the ability to hold peace and aloha as our top priority, even after enduring so much pain, is full of mana and means so much in this world that’s filled with hate. I also chose this video because of how it held the value of community to such a high standard. The video did not just include Hawaiian people in Hawaii, it included Hawaiian people and other native allies across the world. This sense of value for the community did not just benefit Mauna Kea, it benefitted all the Native Hawaiian movements across our state and all of those native movements taking place across the globe. Our movement set off a demand for change for all native people around the world and I think that it’s very inspiring. This video represents that wide sense of community and empowers all native people to take a stand because the native Hawaiian movements are a testimony to the amount of support that they would receive from other native peoples.

I appreciate this video because being Native Hawaiian is something that I hold very close to my heart and seeing my people take a stand and igniting a spark that encourages other native peoples to take a stand is inspirational, to say the least. Being of native heritage is empowering in itself because we are connected in mind, body and soul to the amount of knowledge and mana that every native ancestors held. We may not hold as much knowledge and mana as our ancestors, but we must acknowledge the strength and mana that our generations do have. 

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Ul5xp4PTg