Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 6, 1 Iune 2011 — THIS HAWAIIAN WANTS TO RETURN HERE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THIS HAWAIIAN WANTS TO RETURN HERE

Ernest Kaai fmds L.G. Kaainoa in Australia, who tells ofhis wish to see his homeland again Translation of article By Puakea Nogelmeier

After being away from Hawaii for fifty years, and perhaps unknown to his family, if any of his family is still living here, Ernest Kaai sent a letter to the civic association Mamakakaua telling about the desire of L.G. Kaiinoa, who resides in New South Wales, Australia, to return to his homeland if he could get some help from Hawaii's people to cover the costs of his return. As explained in Ernest Kaai's letter, L.G. Kaiinoa is now 72, and because he is quite elderly, the govemment has granted him a pension of four dollars a week. Ernest Kaai says he found Kaainoa in a plaee called Murwurlumbah. He left Hawaii as a

youth and has lived there until becoming an old man. Kaainoa married a woman, but she died twelve years ago. He is somewhat frail now, unahle to do hard work, but he has a pension of four dollars that the government gives him eaeh week. Mr. Kaainoa is actually mueh appreciated by the loeal people there, and on meeting with Ernest Kaai he revealed his desire to return to his birthland, if for no other reason than his wish that his bones be left here in Hawaii. Kaainoa is still fluent in Hawaiian, with some lapses, but he has great command of English. In Kaai's explanation in his letter, he and his young musicians were waiting at a plaee called Tweed Heads

for the arrival of the ship to take them to Murbah. Onee the ship had arrived and their luggage was stowed, then they saw Mr. Kaainoa, who had eome all that way to meet Kaai and his group so he could weleome them to the town where he'd lived for fifty years. When they met, he extended his hand, saying, "Aloha,

aloha, aloha!" His heart was overwhelmed, clearly expressing the extent of his aloha by the flow of his tears, with others joining in and weeping together with him. Onee his feelings of affection were under control and he stopped crying, he talked with them, asking about people here in Hawaii, and since Kaai did not know them, he had nought to offer. He thought, however, that Kaainoa was asking about the Hawaiian chiefs. For two nights Kaai and his troupe sang and relaxed at Murbah, and on those nights they would see Kaainoa sitting in the very front of the theater, and when the singing would stop, he continued to stamn his feet on the

floor, as though he were very proud of his own people's singing. The purpose of Mr. Kaai's writing to the association of the Mamakakaua members, through their president Mrs. A.P. Taylor, was to seek some assistance, perhaps by asking the other Hawaiian associations to join in this compassionate endeavor of returning Kaainoa here to Hawaii, and then his bones could rest on the soil in the land of his birth. To fulfill this plea, Mrs. Taylor met with the president of the Hawaiian Civic Club and the secretary of the Kaahumanu Society, and in the coming days the information will reach the other Hawaiian societies about assistance for this fellow native. ■

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NUPF-PA KUOKOA, HOKOLUiU, T. H. POAHA, HAPAKI 5, 1925.