These two articles, together and separately, brought shocking realities to the surface of how culturally, socially, and environmentally suppressed and torn apart the Hawaiian land has become as a result of forced US policies. Having the first article explain The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, and the extensive narrative by Trask concerning how the act has been instilled with the Hawaiian islands, or rather the reasoning behind such extreme proposals for the respect of the Mother Land for the natives, brought to light the issues of US policy, and the intersecting of two different foundations of society; Apple Pie America, and the Mother Earth society of the Hawaiian people. These proposals that were stated in the Principles of Environment Justice were at some points dramatic and almost unreal to me…yet when reading the connecting article by Mililani Trask it became clear that these statements and proposals were not in the least dramatic at all, but extremely necessary for the natives of Hawaii. The more I read, the more appalled I became, and speaking from a tourist perspective, I realized my own contribution to the disrespect of the Hawaiian culture and physical land. I remember my trip to Hawaii, the summer of my sophomore year in high school. I was touring with my church Bell Choir on the Big Island, and everyone was very warm and welcoming. Yet this article brought to mind a now disturbing thought. When Trask mentions how tourists in Hawaii want the natives to leave the beaches, because they are “in the way”, I thought how rude! But when reflecting on my own trip there, I remember contributing to such ignorant conversations, contributing to the waste on the land, and not seeing the true native Hawaiian culture for what it truly is, and not grasping how much we have taken from them as a peoples. I also compared much of the statements that are declared in this environmental and cultural protection act to how we as citizens that live in the states treat our land- and we do none of the sort. So much of global America is surrounded by production of material items, material items that we truly have no idea of where they came from, we do not look into the production, the processing, and the waste our society and culture create because so much of the time we are protected by ignorance. Not to randomly go off on a tangent, but I feel as though so much of the readings in Woman’s Lives reflects how much we as an American culture rely solely on ignorance to keep us safe and innocent of so much of the destruction we create. The fact that Hawaiian natives were basically stolen of their land, and the culture is not respected by there “fellow” Americans is something that the current generation needs to recognize, because with recognition comes change, and change is necessary for the respect of this land.
Image from: http://hawaiiwego.com/11-hawaiian-oceanfront-vacations.jpg
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