01/24/2026
Aunty Lynette’s Debrief:
Wai'anae Film Festival Screening of Mākua Homecoming & Mākua: To Heal a Nation
The films were about Makua Beach and folks reclaiming Hawaiian land in 1983 and 1996. Short films produced by Puhipau and Joan Lander. So good to see all those young faces, some of whom I know (or knew). During the panel discussion afterwards Poka mentioned early organizing efforts and the need for a unifying theme to connect people and place and history. Why were kanaka on the beaches 40+ years ago when the film was made? Where do kanaka go, in our homeland, when a foreign power (America) simply takes over with violence and military power, a peaceful and neutral country? And imprisons our Queen? And then, over time, teaches us a different history, a fake history, that tells us that there wasn’t a r**e but a marriage, and a century later most of us are all happy face. So we try to get over it. Pretend there isn’t trauma. And if you, kanaka, end up houseless, addicted, sick, in prison, and jobless, it’s your own fault. S**t happens. Everybody else is doing okay. And we reflect on what’s happening today. The bully now focusing on taking other countries. They practiced on us and it worked. Not an honorable country. More a renegade and big time bully. Take Venezuela. Take Greenland. Practice makes perfect and everybody hates you. Tradeoff because you making money and you have power. But you still ugly and ugly is your preferred state. Some of us know Hawaii as state in the US is just a story, made up bu****it to justify a theft. We’re not dead yet, thank goodness. Some of us know and research helps us remember. Yes, that was a rant because kanaka being houseless in our own country is an effect of over a century of hewa imposed on us by a bully country that lacked a moral compass then and now. That’s seriously fu**ed up.
(Continued in comments)
