In 2015 Hawai‘i Public Radio asked me to create a sixty-five-part program on the Hawaiian philosophy of aloha ‘āina. The phrase, most often translated as “love for the land,” encompasses the Hawaiian worldview: It emphasizes connection, respect and reciprocity between humans and the natural world and at its deepest level understands that there is no separation between the two. The series traces an arc from the arrival of the first humans in Hawai‘i millennia ago through to the present day. The opening episodes explore the meaning of aloha ‘āina; episodes six through twenty-nine trace the evolution of the human relationship with the land when it was inhabited solely by Polynesians; episodes thirty to fifty span the tumultuous years between Captain Cook’s arrival in 1778 through to protests in the 1970s against the bombing of Kaho‘olawe; and episodes fifty-one to sixty-five explore modern-day efforts to revitalize the practices of aloha ‘āina across the archipelago. If you're interested in the Hawaiian nation, I recommend episodes thirty-five to forty-six, which track the period of the nation's formation and growth through to the overthrow of its monarchy in 1893 and America's claim of the Islands five years later. During these years, as Jon Osorio notes in episode forty-four, aloha ‘āina "comes to be the message that is trying to bind Hawaiians together to oppose the loss of an independent government.”
Within these episodes you will hear the voices and thoughts of many of the deepest, most progressive thinkers in Hawai‘i today, among them Osorio, Kekuhi Keali‘ikanaka‘oleohaililani, Sam Gon and Walter Ritte. Each episode lasts for one minute and forty-five seconds; favorites are highlighted with a double asterisk like so **. If you don't have time to listen to all sixty-five episodes, I suggest looking for the asterisks and starting there.
The image above, of kalo leaves in Waipi‘o Valley lo‘i, is the work of photographer Franco Salmoiraghi. The theme music for the series is Liko Martin's “All Hawai‘i Stand Together,” recorded by Project Kuleana. You can see and hear the song in its entirety here.
