Library Card = Knowledge

Okay, so I succeeded in having an entry solely devoted to spam (see below). Now, let's talk about some other things.

I hadn't mentioned, but I cut my hair maybe two days into our move. I realized quickly that this place has perpetual ponytail weather, and I wondered what was the point of having all this hair if I would never see it and never use it. So I used Anna's faux-layering technique and chopped of about 13 or 14 inches. My hair is just long enough that I can pull it all into a ponytail if I want. And it's just short enough that when I leave it down, it doesn't get sweaty on my shoulders and back. And now that we have internet, I can look up the address to Locks for Love and mail it off.

Also, I use a lot less shampoo and conditioner now, and my showers take much less time. So that's another bonus.

...

We've been in Hawaii for almost two weeks. It was time to get a library card. So yesterday, Michael and I pulled out our trusty map and located all of the purple squares marked "L." We also checked the phone book because we knew there was one somewhere around King Kamehameha's statue but we couldn't find it marked. Anyway, we found one within short-walking distance from our house. So we completed The Daily Sunscreen Routine and set out.

The Daily Sunscreen Routine, for those of your who were wondering, is exactly what it sounds like it might be. I'll point out here that perhaps the most important word in that title is Daily. I don't really like wearing sunscreen. I don't like the way it feels and I don't like the way it smells. So it used to be that I would only wear it when I knew I would need it (just before I went on a 10 mile run, just before I went to the lake or an outdoor barbecue, just before I went on a protest march, etc.). Now, however, it goes on before I leave the house. No matter what. I have worn sunscreen every day, all day long, since I have been here. It strikes me as odd that I will always have to do this, but I know I will always have to do this. Even with all the sunscreen, I'm already tanned. I'm perhaps more tanned than I've even been in my life, excepting the months following that severe sunburn I got in Belize.

Anyway, we went to the library. We don't have local IDs yet, so we had to provide bills as proof of residence. We registered, got our cards, and then asked if they had museum passes you could check out. It turns out that very, very few (like, maybe one) museums in Honolulu are city or state run. They're all private. So no, there are no museum passes at the library. But the lady suggested that we call the museums about their free-days, and also get info about annual passes, which are especially good if you're expecting lots of visitors in a year.

We poked around a bit. I discovered that the library near our apartment has the entire Dune series, which I have always wanted to read. I checked out the first book, Dune, because it's been seven years since I read it. I wanted to refresh before I moved on.

But the first book I picked up, actually the first book I pulled into my hand when I started looking around is "From a Native Daughter" by Haunani-Kay Trask. I opened into the introduction and could not pry my eyes away from the pages. Trask is an activist and advocate for Native Hawaiian rights. I read the first few pages of her introduction and debated, seriously debated, whether or not I should read the book. On the one hand of the debate was the learning the Native Hawaiian history and perspective from an angry, well-spoken, and highly knowledgeable activist. I really value such knowledge and insight. As a child of the dominating class, my education has so oftentimes glossed over or ignored completely the struggles of the people we have conquered and oppressed in our quest to obtain and retain our power. Some (white people) would argue that an angry minority activist is not going to give you a true depiction of history either. But I would argue that the story deserves to be told from both sides, especially since it has been proven over and over that the winner's history is *never* completely accurate. And as far as the history of Hawai'i goes, the only side of the story I ever heard in school was "Hawai'i finally became a state in 1959." And there was much rejoicing. Yay. As a child it never occurred to me there might be more story to it than that. And very clearly, there is.

So, holding this book in the library, the other hand of my debate on whether I should check it out and read it was the fear that I would read it and hate myself, as a white woman, for coming to this stolen land. In the end, there was really no debate. I owe it to the people who should own these islands to know how it was that I got here. One of my major goals in life is to NOT be one of those white people who simply accepts and benefits from the privileges given me, but to instead by a white person who pays attention, who gives a damn, and who does something about it. Furthermore, I realize upon reflection, there is no home I can go back to that had not been conquered by our forefathers. Ours is a heretage of conquest. I can ignore this past, but this past remains.

I checked the book out. The introduction is a brief history of American colonization, military domination, a depletion by 90% of the native population in 70 years due to imported diseases, the overthrowing of the democratically elected ruling government, the installation of an all-white government where only English-speaking wealthy property owners could vote, the refusal of President Grover Cleveland to annex Hawai'i after an investigation revealed the extent of the force and corruption involved in the ceding of powers by the Hawaiian Queen to the United States, but how the Native Hawaiian government was never reinstated, how the islands were annexed by McKinley in 1898, how the military declared martial law for seven years during and after World War II, and how Hawai'i became a state without a vote of the people or even a vote in Congress because there was not enough support from either-- from Native Hawaiians for the obvious reasons, and from Congress because they were wary of accepting a "colored" population into our pretty white country. (And god, I have to apologize for using that word, even in quotation marks. Trask used it in her book and it reflects white people's concept of minorities at the time, but I still feel dirty having it in my blog.)

It is really no different than any other story within the creation of this great nation. I'm glad I picked up this book, almost randomly, off of the library shelf. It is a fitting place for me to begin my Hawaiian journey.