KULEANA

A quest for justice in a changing Hawai‘i.

It may well surprise readers to learn, as journalist Goo did, that “there are now more people of Native Hawaiian descent—­53 percent of the 680,000—living outside of Hawai‘i than in Hawai‘i.” The reason, Goo writes, is simple: Most native Hawaiians don’t earn enough money to live in a place where the average home price is more than $1 million ($1.3 million on Maui). Money propels Goo’s narrative, which begins when her alarmed father announces that the state is drastically raising taxes on land held in the family trust after having been granted to an ancestor by the last king of Hawai‘i. Arriving at an equitable solution to this bureaucratic problem is just one thread of Goo’s narrative, whose larger story is really one of homecoming: Born and raised in California, an East Coast resident for decades, Goo must learn or relearn key points of the people’s traditional lifeways. The title of the book speaks to one such point, one’s obligation to both place and culture, less a burden, she explains, than a privilege: “For example, certain people had kuleana for growing taro or crops in a certain part of the island, or for taking care of a fishpond or teaching hula.” She explores many other concepts as she travels in the company of relatives, who take her, in one instance, to a heiau, or temple, whose purpose is lost to time; says her uncle, “Some people say dey did these tings there like human sacrifice and dat stuff, but we don’t know.” What is clear is that humans are sacrificed, at least metaphorically, for profit in a Hawai‘i made for wealthy outsiders; as Goo laments in closing, “Our culture won’t remain unless each generation—grandparent to parent to child to grandchild—­keeps it burning.”

A well-crafted work combining memoir, ethnography, history, and sharp-edged journalism.