Storytelling.

As a Polynesian who has grown up on the east coast, I have had many interesting experiences and aspects continuously brought into my life. With all of my extended family members living out west, I never really had as strong an influence from them as they had on each other. So when our family could make it to a scarce amount of family reunions, I found myself acting and thinking differently than most of my cousins. I have come to realize this was so because my extended family developed their love for the culture with each other, while I have learned to develop my love for the culture within my home. My immediate family alone has been the sole resource of my culture, and I can undoubtedly say that I have embraced it as I have learned to live as a minority.

With a father who emigrated from Tonga as a child, he himself observed, even as a boy, that the Tongan culture is very different from the American culture. So as he grew up, there were things that he would pick and choose from each culture that he wanted to be a part of his life and his future family’s lives. The truth is, there are many pros and cons of each culture, and as my parents have raised my siblings and me, they have decided to keep an even balance of each in our home. This has blessed me in a myriad of ways, one of which is my expression of my culture to my peers.

Dancing hula for me has been an experience of beauty, love, and faith. My mother grew up in La’ie, Hawaii, and just as her talented and stunning mother taught her to dance hula, my mother has taught me. When I first started to learn hula as a little girl, one of the first things my mom said before I learned a single step or hand motion was "you tell a story." Whether you're telling your own story or someone else's, whatever you do when the music comes on is what you want your audience to know. Therefore, hula has brought beauty into my life through its expression of storytelling. As mentioned before, I am one of very few Polynesians who lives on the east coast, so opportunities to dance hula are infrequent. But every once in a while, I am given an opportunity, and thankfully, I have never turned one down. In school, I have danced hula for “cultural days” and talent shows, I danced for weddings, and on a couple occasions, I have taught hula at birthday parties to young girls, which is always exciting. However, whether I am dancing in a talent show or on the front lawn with a group of seven-year-olds in hula skirts, the feeling is the same. I feel beautiful.

Love is shown and felt while dancing hula. I feel the love of the story I am telling, the love of my culture, and most importantly, the love I have for my family. This love plays a role in the faith that I have developed through dancing hula. My grandmother was a beautiful, graceful, and impeccable woman. Every wonderful trait she had was portrayed in her dancing, and she became well known amongst her community in Hawaii for her talent in hula. To the dismay of several people, especially my mother, my grandmother died of breast cancer while my mother was only thirteen years old. However, her beauty has carried on to my mother, and it is always evident in my mother’s dancing hula. Though I have not met my grandmother in this life, I can feel her beauty and love through every step and flow of my hands. As I dance hula, I have faith that my deceased grandmother lives in me. Knowing this increases my love for hula, my family, and my culture, and every time I dance, this is the story I tell.