If you walk a full day in my shoes, especially after knowing me just from this blog or my book, you may be surprised to discover that you will not hear very many Hawaiian words said. When you do hear them, they are usually sprinkled singularly and quite sparingly within predominantly English sentences, just as you might use the barest pinches of a spice when adding it to your food.
Today there is a spirited renaissance of the Hawaiian language, however mine was a generation which grew up in a Hawai‘i where nothing but English was ever spoken. Sadly, it was a time when the kūpuna (the elders in the islands who consider baby boomers to still be “the older children”) did not speak much Hawaiian either; we were welcoming Statehood and becoming American, and we wanted to fit in. We were proud of our heritage, but we were also curious about learning a new one, and we wanted to belong.
And it wasn’t just Hawaiian that faded into the background ages of ancestry only. My childhood was a time when Hawai‘i was being flooded with newly arriving settlers from China, Portugal, Russia, the Philippines and Japan too, not just those from the United States. The elders spoke all kinds of different languages, but only to each other, and not to the children or grandchildren.
There seemed to be this unspoken agreement that we would all learn English and nothing but.
My memories were much more pleasant than shown in this cartoon, but the result became the same ... learn, and only speak in English.
One thing I vividly remember, was how often the kūpuna would say that we children all talked too much.
They were quite impatient with us, for they wondered why so many English words became necessary when we tried to explain or describe things. They were learning them too, but they were more easily satisfied than we were; they stopped before we did. Often, as I pressed her for more, my grandmother would shake her head at me, and say, “Please stop with all your questions child, just go to see it for yourself.”
So I would. Yet I would always go back to her to explain what I saw, and even more English words would tumble out; my questions would multiply. She would laugh at me, she would smile and hug me, but she would still just listen, and refuse to explain more, feeling that enough was enough, and that my own words were ample for us both. Most times, she would end our conversations by sending me away to “Go tell your parents, so they can hear too.”
Thinking back and remembering these conversations, similarly multiplied with others of her generation, I now feel I have yet another blessing to be thankful for; this wonder of growing up feeling that her brevity and my interpretation made such melodious music in words turned into values.
This month, one which I am calling the 3-Way Promise of Mahalo: Appreciation, Gratitude, and Thankfulness, is a good example.
But you know what? I think my grandmother would smile now too, to hear the way this all turned out for me.
Postscript: If this is your first visit to Managing with Aloha Coaching, you can read of our intention with Sunday Mālama here: Sunday Mālama: A Beginning. A trackback there will easily help you return here.
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