it’s Asian American and Pacific Islanders heritage month and that means reminding everyone that America stole Hawaii for sugar money, forced Japanese ppl in internment camps, exploited Chinese workers while also denying them entry and set south east asia for fuckery w their imperialism 🙂
and atomic bombed Japan even after they surrendered, split Korea in two, and bombed the entire country of Laos secretly(but were exposed) and so thoroughly that avoiding bombs is a part of the school curriculum for children in Laos still To This Day
Let’s not credit just Chris Sanders for this. This happened because they cast actual Hawaiian Actors like Tia Carrere and Jason Scott Lee to play Hawaiian characters, and allowed the actors to have input into writing the characters’ lines.
This sort of authenticity comes from accuracy and authenticity in casting choices. The fact that Chris Sanders as direct/writer facilitated that does not mean he gets credit for the actors’ experience.
This is why diversity and representation in media matters.
Dude as a hawaiian, this is like straight up what my life as a kid was. My mom worked at those fakey luaus full time to pay rent. My mom is someone who is absolutely passionate and proud about being a hawaiian, living and teaching the ways our ancestors lived and taught.
See, we Hawaiians, we live by the way of aloha. And not by the way of “hello” “goodbye”, let me educate you. As Pono Shim, CEO and President of Enterprise Honolulu, the Oahu Economic Development Board, states absolutely perfectly “aloha is to be in the presence of life, to share the essence of one’s being with openness, honesty, and humility. It is a way of being, a way of behaving, a way of life. It is a commitment to accepting others and giving dignity to who they are and what they have to offer.” Aloha is more than hello and goodbye. Think of aloha as an abbreviation.
Akahai: meaning kindness
Lokahi: meaning unity
Olu’Olu’: meaning agreeableness
Ha’aha’a: meaning humility
Ahonui: meaning patience
This is something we all need to live by, seriously, we all should
the dropped sub-plot was that lilo hated tourists, which is why she goes around taking pictures of them like they were attractions instead of people; like how they took photos of locals
similarly there was a deleted scene where she scares tourists off of a beach by sounding a false tsunami siren to watch them run screaming
deeper in the lore that kid thats a prick to her, mertyle, is the daughter of the person who runs the megamart and crushed a lot of other local businesses- when they have to do a hula to tell a story mertyle actually uses it to describe the low prices, where lilo does a hula about a traditional creation myth that was important to her mother. you may notice both lilo and nani are on first name basis with both the coffee shop owner and the fruitseller, there is big disparity between the locals and foreign interest businesses relegating them to just be tourist industry
friendly reminder that lilo & stitch is indisputably the best disney film
Kelston Boys’ High School perform a massive haka in honour of the new Maori carving on campus
I live for this
This is the first recording of a Haka I’ve seen that manages to capture even a fraction of the true energy of it. And it’s because there’s so many of them that those boys would have been shaking the ground.
Seeing these boys in their modern uniforms and jackets and backpacks that say NIKE, participating in this ancient ritual, really just drives home what people mean when they say “I am not a costume.” The clothes here are not important. The energy and participation are important.