How Hawaiian culture made me the person and entrepreneur I am

Hawaiian culture is innately focused on ʻohana and a kuleana to aloha ‘aina.  One creation chant tells us the story of Papahanaumoku, Mother Earth, who birthed the Hawaiian islands, and that her daughter Hoʻohokukalani birthed the first Hawaiian person; thus ‘aina is our ‘ohana. Nurturing ‘ohana relationships is a central tenet of Hawaiian culture, so it only makes sense that aloha ‘aina is as important to us as it is.  It is important to us not only to care for our land in the way that one ‘olelo no’eau puts it, “He aliʻi ka ‘aina, he kauwa ke kanaka,” (The land is chief, man is its servant. ‘ON 531), that land has no need for man, but man depends on land for livelihood.  More specifically, it’s ingrained in Hawaiian culture to care for ‘aina in a way that humans would care for our own ‘ohana, because that is quite literally what our oral history tells us ʻaina is to us.

Growing up in Hawaiʻi, I have seen firsthand the impacts humans have had on the environment.  I remember in my small kid days, Kāohikaipu (Bird Island) across from Makapu’u had thousands of birds constantly flying over it and nesting on it.  Nowadays, seeing birds there is rare.  I can’t help but think that the fate of those bird populations was similar to that of the familiar image of dead sea birds half decayed with their stomachs full of plastics their bodies could never digest, only for those menacing plastics to reenter the environment and kill again like some demonic serial killer on the loose.

I’ve gone diving and cleaned up plastics directly out of the ocean, floating with the current or settled amongst rocks and dead coral. And I’ve cleaned up hundreds of pounds of plastics washed up on our beaches.  The way my mind works, I need to know everything about something before I make a decision about it.  With that being said, I can be passionate about companies that make poorly-educated decisions on culturally-appropriated design inspiration or environmental impact.  It blows my mind that there are people in the world who could make such major decisions that negatively impact the lives of human beings, animals, and the environment as a whole without being fully knowledgeable of what’s at stake, or not even caring about what’s at stake.  I’ve taken the time to educate myself on the issues surrounding plastic consumption, watched numerous documentaries, read countless journals and articles, and experienced pollution firsthand to know that this is an issue that must be addressed lest we suffer a demise we dealt ourselves.

I always had an entrepreneurial spirit about me.  In middle school, I made wallets out of folder paper and masking tape to sell to my classmates.  I enjoyed going with my mom whenever she had things to sell at the swap meet, eager to ensure customers were tended to.  I could often be found at her side at each of her three jobs (two of which were retail sales positions) she worked while raising me.  I watched her interact with customers, so it was basically second nature to me when I got my own retail sales job.  I was always fashion-conscious too. I started my first sketchbook in fifth grade, about the same time when Disney had premiered The Cheetah Girls movie, because eleven-year-old me was so inspired by their coordinated, complementing but not matching outfits.  I even remember being upset whenever my grandpa picked me up from preschool in his jeans and rubbah slippahs (which he did frequently), because I hated that pairing and thought that rubbah slippahs only belonged with shorts.  Love you, Grandpa. I had my fair share of wearing my own clothes I sewed too, including one of my prom dresses (cringe). Then I went on to earn my Bachelors degree in Fashion Design and Merchandising from UH Manoa.

I never grew up speaking Hawaiian.  Like many of you, I knew basic words and phrases here and there, some songs, and despite my mom dancing in Merrie Monarch shortly after she found out she was pregnant with me, the only hula I ever really danced was for May Day.  I went to Explorations and Kulia i Ka Pono like most kids, but after that, I totally forgot most of it.  In high school, I was required to take two years of a second language.  My mom wanted me to take Mandarin, because that was a world language I could likely use quite a bit.  I objected, and decided to take four years of Hawaiian instead, and she supported my decision.  (I also took two years of Japanese while I took Hawaiian years 3 & 4, because I did recognize the usefulness to speak a language used a bit more internationally.  My Vice Principal called me into her office to talk to me about the difficulties of learning two languages at once, and to ask me if I was absolutely positive that this was what I wanted to get myself into.  I basically made a Hermione Granger Time Turner moment of it and convinced her I could handle it, which I totally did, because I took everything else I could possibly take and I wasn’t about to waste a whole period of my Senior year in high school not using the time to learn anything. What a kid I was, lol.)

When I went to college, I took two more years of Hawaiian to round it all off, and again, once I graduated and left that environment, I fell out of habit of practicing ‘olelo.  At some point in my mid 20s, I had a sudden realization of the fragility of life and family history.  I was driving home from work, zoning out and exhausted from slaving away at my job in the corporate retail world.  I was listening to YouTube on my phone, as it played slam poetry after slam poetry performance by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio,  listening for the umpteenth time to her performance for then-President Barack Obama called Kumulipo.  In that performance, Jamaica says, “Our tongues feel too foreign in our own mouths, we don’t dare speak out loud.  So we can’t even pronounce our own parents’ names.  And who will care to remember mine if I don’t teach them?”  It was then that I realized I had been unknowingly distancing myself from the kupuna who brought me here, as I was caught up in a lifestyle of high fashion, consumerism, and forever chasing paychecks that Western society conditioned me into thinking was the source of happiness and success.  Within a year, I got my ala niho, a genealogy tattoo running the length of the outer leg, traditionally tapped by Keli’i Makua so that I would never forget and would always have my ‘ohana with me.  That awoke in me a burning flame, like a light switch had been flicked on to live a life centered around culture.  And that flame hasn’t stopped burning since.

And when I fulfilled my lifelong dream and graduated with my MBA from Shidler College of Business, I knew that my purpose in life was to mesh three important aspects that make up who I am: fashion and business, the environment, and Hawaiian culture.  That was my key to happiness at its core.

And so Kumana Activewear was born!  It is my mission to use this platform to build awareness of crucial environmental issues, create a safe space for people to learn and practice aspects of Hawaiian language and culture, all while operating a transparent and accountable business that raises the bar for what consumers should expect out of businesses.  It is my goal to prove to the business community that for-profit companies can and should conduct business in ethical and sustainable ways, without depleting nonrenewable resources or exploiting laborers in underdeveloped parts of the world.  The world is seeing a rise in conscious consumers, and the more pressure we can collectively put on larger corporations to improve their business practices, the sooner we can improve environmental and labor conditions around the world.  Businesses have the responsibility to add value to all of its stakeholders, and the environment and each human in the supply chain are part of any business’ stakeholders.

Aloha a e ola pono no,

Kawehi