One of my FaceBook friends recently posted a "tasteless" example of Native American culture. A storefront Indian at a Grand Canyon store with a colorful headdress made of candy. Not only was the candy headdress tasteless, the Sioux indians who wore the feather headdresses were not from the area. A double hit in commodifying a culture.
I am often faced with all the kitschy Hawaiian items found in ABC stores, Walmart, and every other tourist frequented store. How do "tiki gods" made of "lava stone" portray my culture? How do "warrior helmets" made of seeds portray my culture? How do "fishhooks" made of plastic portray my culture? What do coconut bras have to do with my culture? Where does it all end? In addition you can go to any swap meet in Hawai'i on any given Saturday and see "warrior helmets" with headdresses made of Rastafarian colors made by local folks, or Samoan carvers making "Hawaiian tikis" or "Hawaiian walking sticks". No offense to the carvers, just to the kitschiness of the items.
To some it is how things have always been, to others it's just funny, to some it's cute, but to me it continues the long held stereotypical images of Native Hawaiians as "happy natives" who don't mind any of this. None of these provide any real insight into Hawaiian culture, its traditions and values, its depth, or its sophistication. It becomes an uphill battle to change these sterotypes in great and little ways and to re-establish the importance of these cultural ideas and iconic images.
But one must pick their battles. I am not the culture police, I just do what I do. I choose to support that which is cultural and avoid that which is not. I choose to try to further Hawaiian education and culture. I choose to try to learn as much as I can about my culture. I choose to do this for the rest of my days.
What do you choose?
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