SHP’s O’ahu Immersion: Ecological and Cultural Education

Sacred Heart offers several service immersion trips over the summer, including Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Jamaica. Each trip is designed to combine service and cultural education in order to foster a connection between students and the place they visited. No program does this better than the Hawaii immersion trip.
Hawaii has long been an incredibly popular tourist destination for its beauty, weather, and food. However, while tourism generates 12 billion dollars for their economy every year, it’s also suffocating local communities. Large businesses have capitalized on the profitability of Hawaiian tourism, establishing resorts, luxury homes and other tourist attractions that displace native Hawaiian communities. The industry has become such a large part of the economy that 35% of the Hawaiian population is employed in jobs relating to tourism. Moreover, when COVID-19 struck and entry into the island ceased, the tourism industry declined. This decline resulted in large spikes of unemployment in Hawaii, reaching nearly 40% by mid-May in 2020. Unfortunately, Hawaii has become reliant on an industry that has stripped the land of its resources and marginalized local communities.
For thousands of years before the tourism sector, Hawaii had an economy and society based around one of our key themes on the trip—sustainability. Ancient Hawaiians, sectioned the islands into ahu pua’as, socio-economic land divisions that were structured around the island’s geography.The islands are really mountains that have risen out of the ocean, thus making a majority of the island’s mass under water. Since the Hawaiian islands are mountains, they contain peaks and hills within their interior. When the islands experience rain, the rain water collects at the top of these peaks and hills, where natural watersheds collect and filter the rain, allowing it to slowly trickle down to the ocean. Ancient Hawaiians were able to track the paths of rainwater as they traveled down the mountains. The islands were then divided based on these streams of water. Each ahu pua’a would have enough water, collected through rainfall, to sustain their own community. Additionally within each individual ahu pua’a, the population could cultivate livestock, fish and taro. The divisions created by ahu pua’as were significant, and leaving one’s ahu pua’a was very rare—a once in a lifetime endeavor. In order to maintain the ahu pua’a system, the communities within them had to harvest taro, capture fish and farm livestock in a sustainable manner. This meant only taking the resources that were needed at the time. Since Hawaii’s climate is warm and temperate all year round, communities didn’t have to prepare for a winter; there was no reason to harvest a large reserve of food and strip the land of its resources.
As with all societies, the environment influenced Hawaiian culture. In particular, the significance of taro within Hawaiian communities was highlighted during the trips. The legend behind taro was explained by one of the teachers, Kumu Keahi (kumu, a word meaning teacher in Hawaiian). Taro holds great significance within the Hawaiian community, as it has been a staple crop for hundreds of years. The legend of the taro crop follows Papa, the earth goddess, and Wakea, the sky god. Papa became pregnant and gave birth to her daughter, Ho‘ohokukalani. Ho‘ohokukalani herself became pregnant and gave birth to a still born baby. The baby was then buried, and from his grave, the leaves of the taro plant sprouted. Ho’ohokukalani’s next pregnancy was successful as she gave birth to Haloa, the first human male. Thus it is believed in Hawaiian culture that the taro plant is the older brother to humanity. The taro plant feeds communities and in exchange those communities plant and harvest taro. The legend behind taro impels the farmers to take care of the crop and communities to eat it with reverence. Kumu Keahi compared the importance of eating taro to Hawaiians as someone receiving the eucharist.
On the trip we were fortunate enough to get to harvest taro, which was then given back to the community. Having been educated on the cultural importance of taro, the group entered the service with intentionality and respect. As we drove to the farm, we exited a freeway and turned onto a small dirt road. The road twisted through thick shrubbery, obscuring everything but the vans ahead. After several minutes of driving, the vans exited the winding roads and pulled out before a beautiful expanse of fields. After arriving we were greeted by Kumu Dean, the resident owner of the farm, who then led us through the taro patches to where we would either harvest or clean taro. Despite being very labor intensive work, the taro harvesting was incredibly enjoyable. The kumus cultivated a respect and reverence towards the taro plant from the myths they taught us, and the group was able to admire the beauty of the farm while completing fulfilling work.
Beyond the ecological aspects of the experience, the service learning program places an emphasis on cultural education through engaging with practices and learning from two cultural practitioners residing on O’ahu: Kumu Tate, and Kumu Keahi. Throughout the entirety of the program, our kumus regularly revisited one overarching theme: the power of the individual voice. On our first night, we were introduced to a Hawaiian proverb—the underlying message permeating each subsequent cultural practice and act of ecological service. “I ka ‘ōlelo nō ke ola, i ka ‘ōlelo nō ka make,” reads the proverb, its English translation roughly corresponding to: “In language there is life, in language there is death.” Often, our kumus would reapproach this proverb as a reminder to each of us that our words—especially those spoken—have an unmatched weight in the world. We regularly dissected the inextricable relationship between culture and language, a concept particularly significant to Hawaiian culture, considering that written language was not introduced until Roman Catholic missionaries arrived to the islands in the 1820’s. As a result, our kumus outlined that the spoken word was—and still is—granted a significance largely unmatched by Europeans. Throughout our time on the island, we regularly reflected on the ramifications of this divergence in the understanding of language—especially as writers, it can be difficult to allot the same intentionality to speech that we do written word. Our kumus even pointed to a prevalent English proverb which illustrates the vastly different understanding of speech—“sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me—” a saying which not only undervalues one’s speech, but jeopardizes its integrity, granting it little value as it enters a space.
As we encountered each space, we were regularly prompted to embody the practice “kilo,” which is to observe and experience a space with all of one’s senses. Often, as we practiced kilo, we were struck by the countless sounds—the unique bioacoustics of O’ahu—which surrounded us. As we simultaneously developed a deeper respect for spoken word, we cultivated an elevated reverence for the almost tangible-seeming human voice. Being encouraged to fully engage with a space, as well as understanding the gravity of our words, each of us were able to develop a deeper appreciation for the natural space we inhabit, as well as the people we share it with.
While Sacred Heart offers endless opportunities, this service learning program offers students an unparalleled window into cultural education, environmental service, introspective growth, and connection with other members of the SHP community. As articulated by Ms. Diane Sweeney, Science Department Head and one of the founders of the program, “After experiencing the spirit and importance of this land and its inhabitants, Hawaii will cease to be a place to use for your enjoyment, and become a place that you enter with reverence like a guest into someone’s home that you have great love and respect for.”