by Kay Curry
Northwest Asia Weekly
Ha’aheo Auwae-Dekker (right) with her mother Henrylyn Kau’i Auwae (Photo: Ha’aheo Auwae-Dekker)
“My name is Ha’aheo Auwae-Dekker. I’m graduating from Seattle University in a month…I’m a 22-year-old filmmaker. I’m the second of five children of my great mother. I’m from Moku O Keawe on the Big Island of Hawaii.”
The fledgling, upcoming filmmaker speaks with confidence. She is not going to be in the movie. She sees Hollywood and the film industry as a wasteful manifestation of capitalism. In high school, she found the idea of taking a film class at the center school pretentious. She prefers drawing and painting. Then, at 17, she joined the apprenticeship program for Real Girls, a now-defunct Seattle organization “primarily dedicated to bringing marginalized voices into filmmaking in an industry dominated by white men. I do When it arrived, I absolutely fell in love with it, and I keep doing it.”
As a film student, Ha’aheo created a documentary, the first she’d screened outside of class or to her family. The short film, titled “Malihini,” which means tourist in Hawaiian, is on the festival circuit as a central documentary at the Seattle Asian American Film Festival in March 2022, and recently screened at the National Young Talent Film Festival. Ha’aheo made the film for herself in a social justice film class, but her professor encouraged her to share it, saying, “You’re doing harm to the world by not showing your work.”
In the film, Ha’aheo interviews her mother, Henrylyn Kau’i Auwae, while the audience watches several layered scenes – driving, at home, in the yard and in the house, where Henrylyn performs hula and once Banned from dancing by white missionaries.
The movie’s setting seems simple — any of us has probably done something like this for a school project — and yet, it’s anything but simple. The questions asked are about the soul, and the scenes, while seemingly random, are purposefully stitched together to create a mood and message. Ha’aheo and her mother drive through the city at night. The unique vibe of empty streets and colored lights when you’re talking about important things in the car. The city is vague, and we understand that the city is not home. At one point, the camera landed on a sign — “Asia Square” — just as the daughter asked her mother, “Do you consider yourself American?”
Henrilyn’s answer: No.
Ha’aheo Auwae-Dekker (Photo by Ha’aheo Auwae-Dekker)
“I live on this continent. Yes, I was born in America, but I was born in the Kingdom of Hawaii.” She added: “I still respect this land. I still respect the people, the guardians of this land.”
Ha’aheo told The Weekly when the issue was raised: “I don’t consider myself an American. Hawaii was illegally occupied and overthrown by the United States. [in 1893]. Before that, Hawaii was an independent country. I am a child of that independent country. “
Ha’aheo considers her status as a Kanaka Maori (a native Hawaiian) political in nature.
“Because I’m Hawaiian, I have to live as a political figure, because my existence is always politicized.” She was reluctant to allow herself to “alliance” with a corrupt system.
Ha’aheo’s activism is well-defined. When she hears the question, “What’s a good way to travel to Hawaii ethically?” Her voice quickens with enthusiasm.
“You can’t be a tourist in Hawaii ethically… Tourism is essentially the backbone of capitalism. There’s no way to be a sustainable tourist because tourism depends on resorts, it depends on waste, it depends on appropriating native land.”
She reminds non-Hawaiians to respect borders, especially when tourists only exacerbate the pandemic; in her view, when platforms like TikTok give people the “insidious” notion that they have a right to information.
“Don’t expect Native Hawaiians to answer you…often, non-natives go into space with this non-reciprocal energy…they’re ready to take it in a way that makes them feel good about themselves…but they’re not ready Give back…if you can provide that kind of return…then we have something to gain.”
Ha’aheo wasn’t always as confident as he is now. Ha’aheo grew up on the mainland and struggled with “not enough Hawaii.” Half-white, she felt “sandwiched between two worlds” and “not enough.” For Hawaiians, the connection to the ‘āina (land, family, home) is crucial.
“When you’re Hawaiian, you’re asked three questions,” she explained. “One, which island are you from? Two, who are your family members? Three, what high school did you go to? I’ll never be able to answer all three questions.”
In the film, Henry Lynn talks about the difficult decision to leave Hawaii, which she regrets despite the opportunities it gave her children. When the family moved to Seattle in 2012, they encountered a “Seattle Freeze” — it didn’t help that the Hawaiian community was more fragmented than they had encountered in other states.
“All my aunts and uncles in California were Hawaiian, Tongan or Samoan,” recalls Ha’aheo. Here, “the closest Pacific island community is Tacoma,” while elsewhere there are “small pockets.” Families do their best to keep in touch.
While she also modestly maintains that it wasn’t enough, Henrilyn worked hard to spread Hawaiian culture.She has taught Hawaiian and is currently the owner of the airport Ola Mai I Loko Mai
Way, with her son Elijah, specializes in Hawaiian massage, or lomilomi. As mentioned in the movie, she is a knowledge keeper. “I don’t teach, who teaches?”
After the family arrived in Seattle, Henrylyn taught hula at what was then the Nikkei Horizons. “Hula dancing is an extraordinary way to stay connected,” shared Henri Lim. “It’s a way of keeping us grounded in who we are as a people,” she elaborates in the film, “that’s part of what Ha’aheo emphasizes…that feeling of disconnection. [from] The culture of your grandparents and who you are, genes. On “Malihini,” Henrylyn’s hula dances like water. She smiles, as if full of awareness of the legacy of what she’s doing and the joy she shares with her family.
I miss my ‘āina every moment,” Henley Lim said in the most moving part of the film. “I’d pack up and move today if I could. “
The Hawaiian way of life is under threat. More and more Hawaiians are becoming like the Marihini, forced to leave the islands because of the high cost of living.
“My mom said in the film, ‘I feel like I’m in a foreign country, in a foreign country.'” The film’s title was born when Ha’aheo realized the magnitude of the problem. “I came up with…to describe a Hawaiian experience that’s perfect for today.”
To support Ha’aheo’s latest project, visit indiegogo.com/projects/baby-teeth-a-short-film.
Kay can reach info@nwasianweekly.com.
