We just got word that Doe v. Kamehameha will be heard, by the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in our building tomorrow. (The courtroom originally to have been used was flooded, I think.) Reading the notice reminded me of some of my thoughts weekend before past, as I was running and walking the Komen Race for the Cure.
Along the course and through the park, I saw a number of people wearing the Kamehameha Schools team shirt - "Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation" on the front, a portrait of Ke Ali’i Pauahi, who died of breast cancer, and the years of her life, on the back. Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop founded the Kamehameha schools with the goal of providing Native Hawaiians with the education needed to "compete with the other nationalities in all the ways open to them for getting an honest living; And so, in order that her own people might have the opportunity for fitting themselves for such competition, ...these schools were provided for, in which Hawaiians have the preference, and which she hoped they would value and take the advantages of as fully as possible."
All who attend the school, at this time, must have at least one Hawaiian ancestor. Other ancestry is diverse. As I looked at the numerous people who were wearing the Kamehameha team shirt, I reflected on the beautiful diversity present in each person, the team as a whole, the islands of Hawaii.... And I thought about the benefits and challenges of bringing together people of different ethnicities while maintaining the cultural and the biologic clades that bring beauty to the world. The people wearing the shirts, representing the Native Hawaiian school, had various colors of hair and skin, in every part of the spectrum. While their ancestors come from all over the world, what they have in common (besides the shirts) is Hawaiian ancestry.
I thought about a Native American woman I spoke with a few years ago, who explained that she was fiercely fighting for the survival of her people. Her strides in encouraging young mothers to seek prenatal care and breastfeed, reducing infant mortality, went beyond saving individuals - she was saving a culture, language, history. What, at the heart of it, is it that makes a “people”? How do we balance achieving integration and preserving the individual cultures and ethnicities present in the world? How do we make sure the group of people called Hawaiians exist, along with the unique characteristics that make them Hawaiian? How do I make sure that the unique characteristics that make me Black and Persian and the characteristics that make my husband Filipino are passed on? How do we achieve this while we all meld together? How do we make a delicious salad with flavors that blend while not tasting the same thing in every bite?
Consider the flowers of a garden. Though differing in kind, color, form, and shape, yet, inasmuch as they are refreshed by the waters of one spring, revived by the breath of one wind, invigorated by the rays of one sun, this diversity increaseth their charm, and addeth unto their beauty. How unpleasing to the eye if all the flowers and plants, the leaves and blossoms, the fruits, the branches and the trees of that garden were all of the same shape and color! Diversity of hues, form and shape, enricheth and adorneth the garden, and heighteneth the effect thereof. In like manner, when divers shades of thought, temperament and character, are brought together under the power and influence of one central agency, the beauty and glory of human perfection will be revealed and made manifest. Naught but the celestial potency of the Word of God, which ruleth and transcendeth the realities of all things, is capable of harmonizing the divergent thoughts, sentiments, ideas, and convictions of the children of men. (Abdu'l-Bahá)
Posted by Shokufeh at November 3, 2004 10:18 PM