KALIHI STREAM COMES ALIVE WITH OUR WORK AND COMMITMENT

KALIHI STREAM COMES ALIVE WITH OUR WORK AND COMMITMENT



Jeffrey Tangonan Acido



I grew up a couple of feet away from the Kalihi stream where there, when my cousins and I were young, we would fish for tilapia.



We didn’t use fishing poles. We waded into the clear water barefoot, in our shorts, and caught with delight with our bare hands, those small and innocent hands that felt what a living tilapia felt.



I didn’t like the taste of tilapia so I gave my catch to my grandfather.



The hardy man of the Ilocos who knew what the savory taste of that fish would stuff each of my catch with garlic, onion, and tomatoes and grilled it.



This was more then a decade or two ago, before the stream was filled with all kinds of contaminants or at least before they started to post signs of contaminations.



That stream was full of life: catfish, turtles, and other fishes whose names we never come to know.



By that bank of that stream, the old men and women—we called them tata and nana—would plant all kinds of vegetables and shrubs and trees that yielded all the greens and fruits we needed, the same greens and fruits that I remember were found in the barrio where my parents come from.



Now the stream is filled with garbage, broken bicycles and parts, toilets seats and parts, push carts from shopping centers.



Now the stream has lost its will to live and give off the fish—the tilapia—that I knew when I was a child, with its murky and oily water flowing with so much uncertainty by the slabs of stones and concrete on its path, with wild plants sprouting on the cracks of its cemented banks and side.



A makeshift house not so far away from the stream, and lonely and menacing and used for the ceaseless ceremony of meth abuse, stands by to guard whatever is left of my Kalihi stream, the stream of my young, the stream of my young memory of how is it to flow life’s currents, like the currents of that stream that came alive some years ago.



I am no expert on how rivers or streams work or how to plant papaya trees. What I see is the parallel stories of the youth in Kalihi to this once mighty Kalihi stream.



Somewhere along the way of my naïve, blissful, and idealistic days I was told to wake up, get a job and start to think like an adult or at least understand how the world works.



This kind of socialization started early. I don’t know when it started but I can remember it vividly during my high school years and on towards my college years.



I don’t know who was pushing us to do the kinds of things that stripped us of all creativity, imagination, and idealisms.



But I remember the many things said: they get stuck up somewhere in my head and they refuse to go away.



They said: “If you want a guaranteed job you must learn the Japanese language.” What they meant was since Hawaii is a tourist economy and most of our tourists are Japanese, we must learn the language of those who can buy ours souvenirs, who stay in our hotels and resorts, and who need pampering. After all, this is one definition of tourism: to bring in the tourists that will bring in the money for the economy to grow.



And then, of course, the bonus for the servitude: the tip from the tourist. The tip that validates our hard work, the tip that we must have done something right--smile bigger, bow lower, hide the emotions that make you want to live like a free person.



So instead of learning the Ilokano language I learned Japanese.



For every Japanese word I learned, I forget three Ilokano words I knew by heart when I was young. Quid pro quo: this is what this exchange was all about in my desire to flow with the currents of tourism. I did not understand that the Kalihi stream had its own natural life, that that life had to be sustained, in much the same that I had to sustained the life of my words, the words that would make me understand who am I as an Ilokano in America, as an Ilokano American in Hawaii.



As my fluency in Japanese got better, my conversations with my Ilokano speaking grandfather became one of pleasantries without substance, one that eventually came close to animal grunts, even as I became aware that I was losing my own language. I did not, of course, sense then, even if I was already feeling uneasy, my sense of self and identity. That feeling would come after, years after I realized I could not bring back the memory of the edible tilapia by the Kalihi Stream.



While my grandfather spoke with the eloquence of Ilokano, I drew in my mind katakana, hiragana and kanji characters; I listened but never heard his stories of hurt and suffering. Now our conversations consist of body language, pointing to the here and there, every once in a while I can describe how i feel to him, on bad days I wait for my mother and father to come home--my private translators.



They said: “If you want a stable job, good vacation time, and health insurance you should go for a state and government job—guaranteed good money—‘das how the Japanese and haole people are rich—they made it.”



So instead of pursing our passions for helping people, for creating a more just and safe society I focused on getting a good job with benefits.



I wanted to be like my Japanese teachers and the haole people at the capitol building. They told me that if they can do it I could do it as well. They told me that if you work hard in America and Hawaii, you would be rewarded. They told me that every body is treated equally. And since they made it, I wanted badly to make it as well.



I learned later that the Japanese people in the U.S. and Hawaii were put into concentration camps during WWII. The U.S. government and citizens made them feel ashamed to speak their language even while they took all their property away from them. They were considered as spies, potential terrorists, responsible for the bombing of Pearl Harbor. There were at least 120,000 Japanese descendants at that time; it did not matter that two thirds of them were American citizens. How could they say that they have ‘made it?’ knowing their history in the United States and Hawaii is filled with that deeply buried trauma? Can material wealth compensate for a damaged spirit and community? How can they say they made it when the same thing is happening to Native Hawaiians, Tongans, Samoans, Filipinos and Micronesians? Concentration camps now come in the form of homestead and housing projects and more subtle the education system.



When I left for graduate school in California I discovered that not all haole folks are rich. In fact there are more working class and poor white folks than rich ones. There are more working class and poor white folks than any other working class and poor racial ethnic minority in the U.S. The face of poverty is also white. That they were white mattered little when it came to poverty. Even rich and middle-class white folks practiced a kind of racism, perhaps classism, towards other poor white folks; that the term ‘white trash’ was used by rich white folks to separate themselves from poor white folks who live in trailer parks and other poverty stricken areas. Was this the idea of making it? Do we need to trample at other peoples humanity in order to make it? Are some people more equal than others? What is the measure of success?



They said: “if you want to get your education paid off while you travel the world, you should join the military—good benefits too!”



Instead of studying for the SAT to get into the university we were encouraged to take the ASVAB, the test administered by the U.S. military, a test that gauged our ability to serve in the armed forces. All we had to do was put in 4 years in the service and we can have all the perks of the U.S. military. I did not follow this path but many of my friends did. It’s been 7 years now since we finished high school and not one person among my friends who joined the military finished a four-year degree. Some did not get the money they were promised; many came home from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan wounded in body and spirit. Like their predecessors in Vietnam and other wars they suffer from PTSD and thus, unable to live the same life prior to their deployment. The recruiter told us that we may have to sacrifice their life for freedom; but it wasn’t said that they might have to take another’s life in the name of national security.



I want to say now to my fellow youth that we are not limited to these narrow paths. There is something peculiar about living a life defined by our ability to accumulate wealth and power. We are not defined by what we can buy or how much power we hold.





Let us rid the Kalihi Stream of the garbage that hinders its mighty path; of the drugs that slows the flow of its cleansing and nurturing waters. In less metaphorical terms—we can no longer be defined and limited by these choices. We cannot succumb to these obstacles that hinder our flowing on in life.



I want to say my fellow youth that we don’t have to lose the language of our ancestors at the expense of learning the language of business—namely English, Japanese and soon Chinese. Our language and our culture are more valuable than a business transaction.



We don’t have to lose our ideals, our visions, and our imagination in our work. We can work as community organizers and cultural practitioners. As community organizers, we can create spaces for other youths to express themselves and cultivate their talents. When the young dream of becoming artists, dancers, musicians, poets, writers, we can make sure that these dreams become a reality and not just empty dreams.



Our duty as cultural workers in Hawaii is to make it sure that the diversity that we are—this diversity that makes us—is maintained, sustained, and respected.



Our duty as cultural workers in Kalihi is to make that Kalihi Stream the stream of youthful vision again—the dream of a cultural plural life, the dream of a community that is sensitive to the culture and language of other people, and the dream of a community that makes it sure that all the streams of our life will flow to the sea forever in order to come—again and again—as a beautiful, living, running stream.