Legacy of uplifting Native Hawaiians | VISIONS IN THE DARK: LIFE OF PINKY THOMPSON | Pacific Pulse+

[00:00:05]So, Grandma Gardy, when she got pregnant with daddy, she announced to everybody that it was going to be a girl.

[00:00:17][music] So, she decorated the room in pink. She got pink blankets, pink clothes, and [music] all of her family and friends brought pink gifts for him.

[00:00:25]Well, when she delivered at the hospital, the nurse wrapped him up in the pink blanket and said, "Here's your pinky."

[00:00:32]So, obviously, he wasn't a girl. And his name was Myin Bennett Thompson, but he was always known as Pinky.

[00:00:43][music] >> [music] [music] >> My father was born in in and he lived in Leva Heights and uh the family was a poor family but they were wealthy in many other terms and part of it was coming together as family so they would have lua and the family [music] would be there. Every child is couple every child is sacred. Every child needs to be taken care of and that's what I think was foundational in his mind.

[00:01:32]His mom and dad would take in orphan children or children that came out the youth correctional facilities and they would be uh kind of like hanai children for a while cuz they never have a home.

[00:01:43]They don't even know their names but they're going to sleep next to them that night. They're going to be eating with him that night.

[00:01:51]>> It'd be him and his brother and sister, his parents, and maybe 10, 12 other kids every night. And they didn't have any money either. So his parents, my grandparents, would not eat. They'd wait till all the kids finish eating. If there's any food left over, they would eat, too.

[00:02:08]>> When they saw mom and dad only drink water for dinner because they're out of food and that tomorrow we eat guava when we go to school. So that being next to children that need us the most that society typically serves the least um I think was enormously influential in the path that my father would take for the rest of his life.

[00:02:37]>> He went to St. Louis until 9th grade and then he got a scholarship to play football at Punoho.

[00:02:46]He ended up at Punoho not cuz he's asthma, but he could play football.

[00:02:50]>> And the way mom tells the story is, you know, here's this cute Hawaiian guy coming into her class and she um was attracted to him right from the beginning.

[00:02:58]>> Handsome Hawaiian new guy in ninth grade. He had all kinds of whies just crawling all over him. [music] and [music] he came in the home room. We were in the same class. I thought, "Oh god, look at that goodlooking Hawaiian boy." So I wrote him a note and said, "You're cute and I'm Lara." Three rows back.

[00:03:35][music] He'd been in a boy school all his life.

[00:03:39]was think he was so embarrassed but got the message.

[00:03:47]And one of our assignments was [music] to catch butterflies. He would take us up to Chantless with these butterfly nets and we'd catch all [music] these bugs.

[00:04:03][music] [music] It was great, you know. It was just great. [music] I wouldn't let him go out with anybody else.

[00:04:22]>> He was pretty much yours.

[00:04:23]>> He was mine.

[00:04:34]>> Yesterday, December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy.

[00:04:48]the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked.

[00:04:57]>> He's a junior in high school. He's playing a a game in Maui. And then the next morning, the Japanese bomb harbor.

[00:05:06]It took a while to get everybody back and forth because there was blackout, there was martial law, there was no airplanes [music] flying.

[00:05:17]The military assumption was that the Japanese have crippled the [music] United States fleet and that the logical thing they were going to do is invade.

[00:05:28]The football team were given rifles.

[00:05:30]They didn't know what they were. They didn't know how to shoot them. and my [music] father was stationed on some beach uh on the northern side of Maui and to shoot at somebody he don't know with tools he don't know how to work with it was it was a crazy [music] time scary time his father said okay you need to go to war you fight for your dirt and you fight for your home and if you make shame no come home you know rough time to give everything up for your homeland and for your people. And if you don't do good, if you make shame, no come home. And so my father carries that with him.

[00:06:16]He wanted to join the Navy.

[00:06:22]He wanted to be a Navy pilot.

[00:06:25]So he went to the recruiter guy and he took one look at him and said, "No, you're not going to make it, kid. You're too dark. They'll have you in the galley peeling potatoes if you try to join the Navy. They're not going to allow you."

[00:06:41]>> They enlist him in the army. They thought he was Native American, so they uh make him first scout.

[00:06:50][music] In England, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his [music] deputy commanders chart the liberation of a lost continent.

[00:07:03][music] [music] There was a Catholic priest who gave the prayer to people who may not make it across the beach. And that Catholic priest didn't say believe in the Catholic way of looking at religion, but to reach inside of each one of you and bring forward those things that you do believe in. And I think that that single moment shifted, my father, where you were free to believe any spiritual belief that was important to you at that moment cuz you may not go home.

[00:07:51]And the chances are you're not going to go home.

[00:08:03]He don't talk a lot about that time, but you know, it was extraordinarily rough, especially [music] for someone that young.

[00:08:15][music] German sniper in the tree shot him in the head. So right below his temple and it went through his left eye, took it out and exited his nose. I mean [music] because they didn't have telephones from Europe, right? They only had telegraph.

[00:09:01]And when when dad was shot, um the uh grandma had a dream that he um that he came that he came home and he walked in the back door and he had ginger on. And that was the dream. And it was um the telegraph came and said he was seriously wounded and probably wouldn't be coming back. And she told the family no I already saw him. The gingerlay meant he um that he was wounded like that that was his lot to him and and that coming in the back door means he's the same door that he came home every time.

[00:09:46]Oh, he ended up in uh a hospital in Framingham, Massachusetts.

[00:09:52]It was a hospital that was focused on veterans with head wounds.

[00:10:01]They were each given one telephone call free, but they he couldn't call home to Hawaii because [clears throat] was it was just too foreign for uh for those people. So he called me at college.

[00:10:20]No, I think I just cried the whole time.

[00:10:22][clears throat] He says, "You know, Nino, um, I had that bandage on my head for two [music] years." And he said uh he says it's in the blackness of the of that bandage that I understood the power of vision and the need to be very crystal clear and [music] very simple about who you are, where you're going to be, what are you going to do with your life.

[00:11:00]>> And there uh was a doctor named Hat. H A T.

[00:11:06]And when Dr. Dr. Hat came [music] into his room. Dr. Hat spoke to him in Hawaiian.

[00:11:14]Dr. Hat came to the islands in 1924 to start the Shriner's Hospital for Children. And so he spent years and years and years with Hawaiian parents and he learned the language fluently.

[00:11:29]You know, we grew in that grew up in that [music] era and we didn't know anything of Hawaiian except pow and mo and and so pinky didn't know how to react and but he just was so moved.

[00:11:45]>> I think his identity as a Hawaiian became stronger and stronger through that experience. [music] And when [music] it was time for Pinky to be discharged, Dr. Hat said, "What are you gonna do?"

[00:12:03]And he said, "Well, I want to go to college." He said, "Good. You go to college."

[00:12:07]>> So my dad understood that in order to come home, you had to be able to make change and you needed an education to do that. So he went to college and then got his degree in social work. [music] And so this this this again this issue of justice kapun nai children are sacred many of them abandoned many of them abused and so the choice of social work was to put them on the front lines again it was going back to war [music] and so you see the statistics right dying younger more in the prisons all the bad social economic medical health stuff you it's it's measurable so my father understood tood dysfunction of Hawaiian families. My father understood in a very deep intuitional way about the [music] inferiority complex of native Hawaiians. Nothing to contribute. Too stupid, too uneducated and lazy, all that stuff. It's an issue of shame that being [music] Hawaiian was to be shamed.

[00:13:14]And so, so you wouldn't talk about it.

[00:13:16]If you tried to honestly go and approach an issue, family would say, "Boy, we don't talk about that.

[00:13:34]He was so determined that he's one of those guys that you couldn't stop him.

[00:13:39]He had a mission, man. His mission was to improve the conditions of Hawaiian, pure and simple." What came of that [music] that hurt and that anger was this this ability [music] of his and this commitment that we [music] have so much we Hawaiians to offer to the world that we've [music] just got to do it and we've [clears throat] got to get over this business of we're not good enough because we are. [music] >> He He was always searching in the social work world for better [music] solutions.

[00:14:40]>> [music] >> And then I was old enough, yeah, I was a little bit old enough to start seeing it and and and its impact on those people who [music] are in the trenches or in the front lines watching children die um in the front lines of our own homes, in our own society, on our in our own in our own And I remember crystal clear in my head.

[00:15:10]Um, and I know how old I was. Um, I was 11 because [music] his his case, this boy by the name of Sam was 11 also.

[00:15:21][music] I never met him. U, but my father's responsibility was to take care of Sam. He was clearly an angry [music] boy. He was clearly a big Hawaiian. He's clearly very strong, powerful. um unhappy. He's a a mirror [music] and a reflection of probably his father.

[00:15:43]>> My dad's life [music] became consumed and how do you figure out how to help somebody in that in that state so [music] desperately trying to break this kid of his pattern.

[00:15:54]>> Dad comes home, mom hugs him. He's crying. He says uh um that's that Sam killed himself today and um and my dad said, "I knew he was going to do it and I couldn't do anything about it."

[00:16:16]>> And he said, "Something's wrong.

[00:16:18]Something's [music] wrong. Something's missing." That sometimes our children are so abused when they're young that their whole world is about violence.

[00:16:27]Their whole world is about dysfunction.

[00:16:29]Their whole world is absent of hope.

[00:16:36]>> He was devastated. You devastated, you know, he tried so hard to help this kid and then and that he might have felt that he failed at that point in time. He started to figure out some of the stuff that he was trained on and thought he knew well wasn't working. No matter how much money we throw at them in programs, there's something missing. There's a piece missing. No matter how much we give them in [music] in in financial aid, how much we give them in programs, if they're not rooted in being proud of who they are, there are instances like Sam, you can't do anything. I know he's going to do it and I couldn't do anything about it. that that time and that recognition with Sam even as tragic as it may be again was [music] turning point he couldn't do anything about it so he kept searching he kept searching that that's where um the um impetus for early childhood education came through all of that obviously cuz I remember him. He would just say, "Let's forget [music] all the other generations, focus on the kids, and over time it'll all work out.

[00:17:58]>> You have to nurture these kids. You have to provide environment so that the kids can grow and prosper and feel good about themselves.

[00:18:08]If you don't take care of the child when they're very very young. If if all that you teach them is violence and anger and dysfunction and no hope, that's what they become when they're young. If you don't have love, if you don't have care, if it's not clean, if it's not healthy, that children become what you teach them. And so my father understood that the most important school is the house.

[00:18:30]And the most important teachers are those responsible taking care of those children. And he knew it was broken.

[00:18:39]>> [music] >> Aloha means both farewell and greetings.

[00:18:42]And Hawaii bids farewell to 40 years of frustration and failure in attempts to win statehood and joyously greets its new status as a full-fledged member of the union, its 50th state. Land of the hola, of sugarcane and pineapple with its polyglot population brings a colorful culture as its heritage and contribution. The big day was a long time in coming, which means that [music] much more to celebrate.

[00:19:10]>> State changed a lot of things, but in many ways, the problems facing Native Hawaiians and the people of Hawaii stayed the same. Well, I think Governor Burns at that point being two years into being a part of the US, I think he understood the system and he felt it was important to bring Hawaiian and local leadership up into those roles that would be prominent in Hawaii and help guide us.

[00:19:41]Governor actually brought him in as administrative assistant.

[00:19:45]One of the wonderful memories I'll always carry was the close working relationships that our congressional delegation had with our Native Hawaiian leadership. Um, and I think Pinky uh personified that relationship so well.

[00:20:05]There were many reasons why Pinky and the senator were were very close. both being World War II veterans, both being wounded in that in that effort, [music] in that conflict.

[00:20:17]>> Keep in mind that I was declared to be an enemy alien because of the [music] bombing of Pearl Harbor.

[00:20:25]And it took a little while for people to realize that we're just as American as they are, [music] that we're willing to sacrifice ourselves, that we love our country.

[00:20:39]And Pinky [music] embodied all of that. So his trail and my trail were almost parallel.

[00:20:47][music] When you're in a hospital, for some of us, it gives us time to reflect. [music] Then you begin thinking on why was that 92nd division made up of only African-Americans? [music] Why was this regiment from Puerto Rico just Puerto Ricans?

[00:21:07]442 was Japanese Americans. [music] They were segregated. You can take that either and say I give up or hell with it or do something about it.

[00:21:22]He did something.

[00:21:24]He formed Aluleik.

[00:21:28]>> It really all started with Alule. Um Alle was given some money again through the [music] efforts of Pinky and the congressional delegation to do a needs assessment. There hadn't [music] been a needs assessment done of what were what did the community feel the native [music] community feel its needs were.

[00:21:46]and it identified areas of concern in native rights, in education, in health, [music] housing, and economic development. Those were the five areas of concern. That became a work [music] plan to address each of those areas. We were a very small group then. There were only five of us with uh Mrs. Rubin that was our executive director and of course Pinky was our president.

[00:22:12][singing and music] We've used a process of empowering hand up rather than hand out and uh allowing the individuals to be enabled to do things by themselves um rather than being dependent on Alulik or any other organization.

[00:22:42]Grandpa knew that to support [music] and raise a child in the best environment possible um a stable home was necessary. [music] One of the most important elements to a stable home I think is to maintain stability [music] from a financial perspective. Stability at home, happiness at home at the parent level and it [music] trickles down to the kids. Pinky had a a structure about how to do that. Focus on the kids.

[00:23:14]They are the ones that will will blossom.

[00:23:33]>> [music] >> My last senior year, I was doing a series of papers on American imperialism.

[00:23:50]That's when I first learned about the overthrow of the monarchy. And I said, "How come I didn't know this?

[00:23:58]How come I didn't know about the annexation?

[00:24:02]We never had second thoughts about not learning the language.

[00:24:08]They were preparing us to be good and industrious American citizens. And to be good Americans, we might have to be bad Hawaiians.

[00:24:21]This is about 19667 [music] and I'm principal of Nanao.

[00:24:27]Lots of problems.

[00:24:32]The learning styles of local kids a little different from what teachers on the mainland would expect. They're more active. There's more motion in the classroom. You have to have a higher tolerance for noise for sharing. They learn by sharing.

[00:24:49]It was difficult for teachers to see that, you know, sharing to them was cheating. That became an issue with me because if you don't understand and know your students, how can you teach, you know, and if your students don't know and understand you and how can they learn?

[00:25:09]But Pinky [music] Thompson comes into my life again, how can I help you? Because he could understand what it meant when a kid is in [music] the eighth grade and only reading at the third grade level. He didn't have to do [music] research to tell you that that kid is one step out.

[00:25:33]The curriculum is still steeped in western tradition. Hawaiian studies, Hawaiian language, Hawaiian Hawaiian culture and history was not that important. Pinky was one of the first people to try to convince a department of education that they needed to have a Hawaiian studies department.

[00:25:54]Pinky was saying to the Department of Education, "If you can't do it, then we're going to do it some some other way. If you don't want to do it, you don't reluctant, you don't have the money, that's okay.

[00:26:05]We'll create a a special committee from the governor's office." And that's the kind of stuff he did.

[00:26:16]The parents couldn't believe what they were hearing because curriculum [music] meant a textbook developed in Wisconsin someplace, some some workbook that [music] some PhD got in California, you know, and you learning how to spell Mississippi instead of Nakuli.

[00:26:33][music] >> Daddy recognized education as one of the keys for strengthening the Hawaiian community. we adopted [music] a mission of creating a a safe and healthy Hawaii.

[00:26:44]So, anything that kind of fit under that broad umbrella of a mission, he [music] was willing to do even if he was stretched to the end of the earth.

[00:26:55]He was driven by wanting to figure out [music] how to best help people. Totally driven by that. And that's again the early childhood education notion came out of this drive to figure out that something that he could leave behind that made sense that's going to help future generations.

[00:27:18]>> The biggest book in education in Hawaii is that we do not begin when education needs to be there the most. We're there way too late.

[00:27:31]The world is changing so fast in many critical ways. Education is not being able to be keep up. So my father brings the ideas of early childhood education back to Hawaii.

[00:27:43]I pick up the paper and in the front page of the paper this article and the title was Pinky, who are you kidding?

[00:27:51]And and it was just this article just attacking my father for what do you mean brain synaptis and connection nurturing the brain? If the connections aren't made, they can't be made later on.

[00:28:03]There's all this kind brain development stuff. And my father was was really campaigning as a single voice for early childhood education. I'm in my 20s. I'm like enraged and who's this guy attacking my father. So I'm like stomping out the door saying I'm gonna go find this guy. I'm going to have I'm going to go fight with him.

[00:28:24]My dad grabs me. He goes, "Hey, sit down. Stop it. Don't even waste your time." And I was like shocked. I was thinking, "Well, you're not hurt. You're not embarrassed by being on the front page that you're getting criticized."

[00:28:38]That's what's going in my head. He goes, "Don't waste your time. If you believe it's right, then you stand up and go do it. And don't worry about what anybody else says.

[00:29:01]by the [music] 20s when he was growing up. His mother was suppressed from speaking Hawaiian, you know. So that was like he was watching all of that stuff.

[00:29:13]There was a family decision made in a Hawaiian family to not teach culture, [music] to not teach language, to not teach genealogy, to almost to choose to forget who we were. Maybe there's a hundred generations before them that everything was passed on who we were and all of a sudden in our family that's where the break was. And that break was in many families in that time. And I think in my father it was the issue of responsibility, [music] you know, setting things to right. Uh the the issue of his life being about that kana that he needed to take [music] to help heal the damage to his people.

[00:29:56]>> You've been the moving force behind the Polynesian Voyaging Society. What are your feelings about that?

[00:30:02]>> I subscribe to what is being done. the the idea of recreating history and trying to find out how our people came to be uh is very important to me as as well as I feel to the Hawaiian people particularly but certainly for the people of Hawaii and that's the driving motivation behind me aside from the fact I want my son to come home.

[00:30:23]>> Thank you very much. And >> the Polynesian Voyaging Society when it was created you know I mean the concept it was to really challenge a thought that was being circulated throughout the you know scholarly world you know like the Kiki those theories was based on a drift downwind sailing uh didn't give any credit to a knowledge skilledbased voyaging or exploration where you know you could actually go out and be skilled enough to navigate, find your way along a path and then make it back home. A big drive and purpose was to relearn that the actual genius of wayfinding of Polynesian voyaging.

[00:31:23]Alo [music] my [music] [singing] boy. [music] [singing] >> Oh, it was magical. It was magical. can imagine you know um your whole life you grow [music] up you hear the stories of the kuna and and the stories of how these islands came to be settled and it's all um conjecture I mean you got to imagine in your mind what that might have been like [music] [singing] >> when emerged on the scene it became u being able to see what that that really was like and actually feel it by getting on board the canoe so it was just a whole new uh era for Hawaiian consciousness. Yeah.

[00:32:36]>> [music] [cheering] >> There was those that a larger part of the society just like didn't understand what is this uh you know so what I I don't get it and there was another part of the society I think really didn't want Hokailay to be successful I think they feared that kind of cuz it's going to change everything.

[00:33:24]That day was like was heavy weather and it was blowing for quite a bit. You know, the wind was over 30 knots. That's well past small craft warnings into gale warnings.

[00:33:34]The the seas were like fully developed which means that I mean you know you got swells out there of 20 30 feet and you know it's white. The water's white because of all the wind and the white caps and the wind was strong. That's a strong wind.

[00:33:50]>> It was like storming and they took off.

[00:33:53]We came home and daddy got all of his maps out. He put all over the table. I mean, he had everything out there and he was figuring out how fast they were going. So, how far they were went out in that weather the canoe uh one hall, the starboard hall filled up with water, swamped and then and then she um um flipped. Yeah. Huli So Edia Ecowo, a legendary waterman and lifeguard from the Northshore who spent his life saving people in the ocean was on board at that time and in his life of saving people wanted to go save his friends and family that were on the canoe. So he took a surfboard and went to look for help.

[00:35:06]The wind was so strong. It was out of the north. It was cold that um we call it ehukai that u there's so many infinite amount of white caps and crushing kind waves that every time the water turns over it throws salt into the air. What we call ehokai. It's like a fog. You cannot see the horizon because it's like this thick fog of salt that's that that becomes the horizon.

[00:35:33]You couldn't see a wahoo. You couldn't see Makai. couldn't see Lai and um you know Eddie set out on the surfboard um to paddle to Lai and so you got a man that uh willing to stand up for everybody else [snorts] and go get help for an island he couldn't see.

[00:36:04]So, while Eddie was out at sea, a Hawaiian Airlines flight actually spotted the flares that they sent up.

[00:36:25]>> There are still the three officers who are remaining with the vessel at this time. They are Captain David Lyman, the first mate uh Sterling and the communications officer U Mr. Paya. Okay, there is one individual at this time who is unaccounted for. He is on a surfboard and that is Eddie Aika. after the canoe um you know disabled and hulied and then uh the news finally broke right after we were rescued with the coast guard and they brought the canoe back in and you could just see it. A lot of people really in their in their in their hearts, you know, was thinking that, you know, this is the beginning of the end or this is it.

[00:37:13]Oh, [music] and then especially with the loss of a life, you know, it was just it was even tenfold that this whole thing was just I mean, is it worth it? Right.

[00:37:41]If you ask about the time, the time was broken.

[00:37:45]There was no vision. There were no dreams. There's no hope. It was all replaced with shame and with guilt and pain, sorrow, and anger. And um and it was statewide, statewide.

[00:38:00]So it was also a measurement of of really how much Hoka meant to the hope of tomorrow and what it was could and should do. But at that moment in time, its legacy was tragedy at a level that nobody could ever imagine.

[00:38:24]Anybody?

[00:38:33][clears throat] >> Oh, you know, I'd like to just go over the reason for our making this a very extensive trip.

[00:38:41]>> Again, the one that pulled us [music] out of the ashes was my father.

[00:38:48]uh when Hokua was being re [music] rebuilt after the swamping Pinky coming aboard as a new president for the Polynesian Voyaging Society. Pinky was very hands-on. I mean we were going through a very traumatic time and spiritually we were very wounded and it took a real special kind of person to actually help us lift ourselves out of that that tragedy. What he showed us was we had to rebuild ourselves. We had to um become very clear about the vision of where we want to go and create some kind of a mission to get us [music] there and to be very strategic about how we got there. Dad was, you know, going to Congress, raising money, you know, through Danny Noi's office. Million bucks. They're getting a million bucks to to help a canoe sail around the Pacific. You know, the Congress guys are going crazy. You know, what's up with this?

[00:39:37]And I remember hearing dad and I know talking about this in their early days.

[00:39:41]The driving force for them was we're going to do this, but we have to make it successful and to be done so that it can be something that Hawaiians can be proud of.

[00:39:52]My father sits me down. He goes, "Okay, I know." He says, "Um, [music] you got only one job. Your job is to learn." And he him going do everything else. That's why I will always and I say this out of [music] great respect and out of humility for Mao and for Gordon and for Abe and [music] everybody else. Still my greatest navigator is my father because he navigates us out of the deepest and the most [music] painful places of the human existence and he and he brings not just hope, he creates success.

[00:40:28]>> [music] >> One of Pinky's really um biggest gifts was his ability to put together teams.

[00:40:36]When we would travel to these places, it was a very strong representation, [music] making sure that the cultural protocol was appropriate and that we were respectful of the people that we were we were visiting and who were hosting us.

[00:40:52]And then there would be the governmental component of it. Meeting with the ministers of the places where we were and having that kind of exchange, formal exchanges between the governments and the leaders of the areas that we were in.

[00:41:07]>> They knew that the cultural significance [music] could be huge, could be huge not only for Hawaii and Hawaiians, but for other indigenous people in the South Pacific and throughout the Pacific region.

[00:41:20]and her voyages [music] um was a big part of the Hawaiian Renaissance which started in the 1970s >> in the Hawaiian Renaissance when the culture was being was being celebrated.

[00:41:30]It was being opened up and embraced and learned about and you know cuz there was a an idea that was like being germinated and spread around like the Hawaiian culture. It was you know this is how it was. It was always put into the context of past tense and that's how it's going to be.

[00:41:49]Right? When the Renaissance came along, the thing was swinging around to it is the Hawaiian culture is, you know, it's just a matter of us embracing [music] it, learning about it, practicing it to whatever degree and um celebrating the beauty of it.

[00:42:05]>> There was a reawakening of Hawaiian consciousness. It was an explosion of Hawaiian culture. [music] Um, and the community throughout the state of Hawaii was activated.

[00:42:15]Individuals started feeling this new sense of pride [music] and understanding of their culture and their past and and wanting to voice concern of the issues that are facing the Native Hawaiian people.

[00:42:35][music] right and we're going to unite.

[00:42:39]>> We say we're right and we're going toite.

[00:42:43]>> Are we right OR WRONG?

[00:42:47]>> Are we?

[00:42:50]>> So, one of the big questions back then was, well, where [music] can their voices be heard and who's going to listen? And I think um I think that was a big question in my grandpa's mind.

[00:43:01][music] >> We knew actually when he was frustrated.

[00:43:05]He knew cuz he had come home frustrated and he had a very angry side about him at times when he wanted something done done so desperately he couldn't get it done.

[00:43:18]He developed a very close working relationship with Senator Noi's [music] staff. Pat de Leon was the staffer who was able to take the power that Senator Hanoi had, his boss, the vision that Pinky [music] had, bring them together and look for federal programs uh that could include incorporate uh Native Hawaiians or if they didn't exist to create them. He had a lot of help with another gal named Patricia Zel who was American Indian lawyer with a real understanding of relationships in the American Indian Alaskan Native Native Hawaiian communities.

[00:43:57]>> It was Pinky who went to [music] the senator and said first of all we need federal resources and we need to have a study that shows that those federal resources are necessary or we're not going to make the kind [music] of progress that we need to make.

[00:44:10]>> Pinky never rested. He was a 24-hour guy. [music] He would call you perhaps at 9:00 at night and say, "Hey, what do you think about this idea?" And [music] do you think we could put some paper concept paper together really quick and you're half asleep? And you say, "Oh, okay. We try."

[00:44:28]>> These two acts that ultimately became the Native Hawaiian Healthcare Improvement Act and the Native Hawaiian Education [music] Act were pretty much following parallel tracks. So he saw that healthcare and education were [music] integrally related and you couldn't address one set of challenges without addressing the other.

[00:44:49]Pinky came up to [music] Washington with great regularity to accomplish all of these things.

[00:44:56][music] When you live in an air conditioned house and you drive an air conditioned car to work and you [music] work in an air conditioned building, you don't know. You have no uh ability to fully empathize with people who don't live lives like yours. And [music] you certainly can't know what the answer or solutions are to the challenges they're facing. We said, "No, we've got to [music] go where they are and sit down and talk through and fashion provisions of bills."

[00:45:33]>> When the committee finally put a bill together, the committee came out and held hearings on on each of the five islands and and not just once, but several years in a row.

[00:45:41]>> Those testimonies were community coming [music] forward and sharing their monu.

[00:45:48]You had aunties and uncles and young kids really pour their hearts out in terms of where they saw their future, where their concerns were, what their needs were.

[00:46:03]There [music] was some very moving testimony in which parents said, "Our experience in the education system was so miserable, so [music] painful.

[00:46:13]people, you know, the teachers thought we were stupid. If we didn't catch on right away, sort of relegated us to the back of the room. I don't go to my child's school because when I go when I go into that building, all those terrible memories come back to me and it's very [music] painful and I don't want my child to have that same experience. Don't treat my kids this [music] way. Don't treat my kids the way I was treated.

[00:46:38]I can remember particularly Senator Noe just kind of sitting back in his chair [music] going, "Wow, that really needed to be said." When members of Congress understood how severe those problems were, they started going, [music] "We've got to do something about this.

[00:47:17]In [music] both cases, true democracy, if you will, building systems from the ground up that are relevant to the people's needs, [music] not to what works most easily for the federal government, um was was a whole new way of approaching [music] these these things. and and people uh in Indian country [music] began to look and hear about this and go whoa this is where we would like to be this [music] is what we would like to to have ultimately >> Pinky was very instrumental in [music] the founding of the Papola Lokahi organization my father started the early childhood program at Kamehameha schools got 31 preschools the largest provider in [music] not only the state but I'd bet in the country in terms of any secondary school.

[00:48:07]You know that that that elevated us to [music] another level. that took us.

[00:48:26]That took us to another level that uh a lot of people have never been to where uh where we could really do things.

[00:48:38]We could really do things So when they went to Wangi and daddy saw the Marai and the larger community come out and how everybody gathered there and got together as a group. Daddy was super inspired by that. And I think at that time he told Nino, "We really need to do this in Hawaii.

[00:49:47][screaming] >> [singing] >> So he saw the mud eye as a gathering place for native people where you could greet visitors. You could bring your people there for healing. It really was a physical manifestation and a physical center for cultural endeavors.

[00:50:18]I want to thank you also for giving us the opportunity in the rest of Polynia to write those pages of our history and to film and put on film those pages of our history that have not been written yet.

[00:50:40]And then so then we go into the to have dinner inside the dining hall area and that was the moment that was the very moment uh where it all became clear to him again the need for something for your people.

[00:50:54]It's a place where family comes and you can be safe and you be fed that it goes exactly back to he was a child [music] right back there. Where is the safe place for the Hawaiian child to go?

[00:51:08][music] So, Kaiva Kilamoku was created and is our place. It's our place for Polynesian Voying Society. It's our place for commitment schools. It's our place for [music] the community.

[00:51:24]Everybody is welcome there.

[00:51:42]>> [music] >> Oh, hey And my father said, "This place is a place that you need to bring people together. You need to bring to talk about." That's [music] why this is a place that we know that I understand that is a commitment not just to Hawaii, not just to Hawaiians, but to the Pacific. And that [music] my father knew that in the end, Kaiva Kilamoku was ultimately supposed to be a place to heal.

[00:52:25][music] >> [music] >> Well, Pinky, we never believed in the word impossible.

[00:52:47]You know, that's a copout because you can say, "Well, we I'd love to do that, but it's impossible."

[00:52:54]As we've said, if there's a man-made problem, there is a man-made solution.

[00:53:00]>> His strength was in getting people to believe in a vision and dreams and to come up with a process to make those those dreams a reality.

[00:53:11]>> But Pinky became [music] a mentor to all of us, interacting with other people and affecting other people's lives. That's when you see certain types of people who just like rise.

[00:53:32]So even after his passing, you can see his legacy move on and live on in all these organizations in Hawaii and making a positive change even until now and I'm sure into the future.

[00:53:57]You know, Ninoa makes mention of Uncle Pinky being our best navigator. Yeah.

[00:54:03]So, when you're navigating at night, for me and for a lot of uh navigators, that's the most accurate time because you've got a thousand clues around you, all these different stars, and you know, you really feel that connection and through that connection. It's ancestral by its very nature, but it's also a bridge builder by its very function.

[00:54:25]So you know the main role of the navigator is in your mind you have this vision of your horse but Uncle Pinky as a navigator he was like a true leader you know because he had these visions >> [music] [music] [music] >> Well, I'd like to express my to all of you for convening this gathering in order to find a way. It's our duty and our responsibility to make clear that uh learning is a process that's ongoing and that our ancient people brought with them a great deal of wisdom that has a place in contemporary society today.

[00:55:39]Hey [music and singing] Allah, [music and singing] huh?