Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 39, Number 7, 1 Iulai 2022 — A Sense of Plaee and Stewardship [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Sense of Plaee and Stewardship

V LAMAKU HO'OKIPA V ^ A BEACON OF HOSPITALITY *

By Mālia Sanders The Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association (NaHHA) was co-founded in 1997 by Sen. Kenneth Francis Kamu'ookalani Brown (1919-2014) and Dr. George Hu'eu Sanford Kanahele (1930-2000). These visionaries understood that Hawai'i's largest industry - tourism - undoubtedly provides major implications, opportunities and impacts on the people of Hawai'i, especially Native Hawaiians. They believed Hawaiian values are the key toward shaping the future they envisioned together. It was a future that required the industry to be keepers of our Hawaiian culture. Twenty-five years later, NaHHA continues to realize this future through its important work that advances Native Hawaiians through Hawai'i's largest eeonomy. Some years before he co-founded NaHHA, Kanahele published Kū Kanaka Stand Tall: A Search for Hawaiian Values. Amid narratives about religion, science, economics, and politics, Kanahele also touched on the importance of plaee writing. "No genealogical chant was possible without the mention of personal geography; no myth could be conceived without reference to a plaee of some kind; no family could have any standing in the community unless it had a plaee; no plaee of any signifieanee, even the smallest, went without a name; and no history could have been made or preserved without reference, directly or indirectly, to a plaee." The reference to plaee has enormous meaning for kānaka. It is a value we have inherited by generations of ancestors, and it is a value we must maintain to ensure its inheritance to many more generations. Today we understand this value as 'āina or aloha aina. These terms imply a relationship with plaee. Such a relationship is often

referred to as stewardship - where people maintain the beauty and bounty of the aina. To this I would add the idea that stewardship goes both ways: not only do we steward aina, but aina also stewards us. When we consider that aina stewards kānaka, we begin to understand that our kuleana to aina is really a kuleana to our own wellheing and that of our fellow kānaka. Decades later, his words still apply. Our fundamental value of our plaee is rooted in our fundamental value of thriving in the middle of the oeean. In our unique relationship with our plaee, we have made the most isolated plaee on earth the most abundant. Thus, our abundance is dependent on our relationship to this plaee. Of course, many ean see abundance as natural beauty, but I believe we are also talking about eeonomie abundance. We ean connect eeonomie decisions to this value when we go beyond stewarding 'āina to stewarding our relationship with aina. We may then ask ourselves, "does this decision honor our centuries-old relationship with aina and ourselves?"

Kanahele made it clear that "plaee" was irreplaceable. Decades after its publication, his book continues to unravel new understandings that point to the values that guide us. The future he envisioned

through NaHHA is built upon these values. However, they are only made reality when we allow these values to shape our work today. ■ Mālia Sanders is the executive director of the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association ( NaHHA ). Working to better connect the Hawaiian community to the visitor industry, NaHHA supports thepeople whoprovide authentic experiences to Hawai'i's visitors. For more information go to www.nahha.com Pollow NaHHA on Paeehook, Instagram, and Twitter @nahha8o8 and @kuhikuhi8o8.