Moving from Windward Oahu to Ewa was a culture shock for Hoola Hou ia Kalauao’s founder and farming director Anthony DeLuze.
He made the move about 20 years ago, and described the adjustment as nerve-racking and frustrating when he realized that the new city he found himself in was significantly more disconnected as a community and to the land.
“It was hard to find peace and a way to unwind from all of the rat race,” said DeLuze. “All of these stresses and not having a place to really connect.”
His frustrations made him question whether others felt a similar sense of disconnect, and he began seeking ways to create a space for community. When the opportunity to restore a 2.5-acre parcel of land near Pearlridge Center presented itself, he realized the potential for a solution.
DeLuze and his family began restoring that land about 15 years ago, and it now hosts the loi (taro patch) he calls Kaonohi. The name belongs to the subsection of the Kalauao ahupuaa (land division) where the farm is located. About two years later, he opened the work there to volunteers, and put together the community organization called Hoola Hou ia Kalauao to oversee it.
The organization’s name refers to restoring life and identity to Kalauao, DeLuze explained.
“For me, it was very important to bring back the recognition and the name of the space,” DeLuze said. “There’s power in names … and how can we service something if we don’t know its identity?”
Hoola Hou ia Kalauao regularly invites volunteers to the loi to help with tasks such as clearing invasive species or to “hehi” (stomp down on) areas that are being prepared for kalo planting, said the organization’s program manager, Dani Espiritu.
Other aspects of the program aim to perpetuate cultural knowledge through the sharing of stories. This includes passing on Kaonohi’s history as a place of abundance, despite it being located in an urbanized area.
“They may be covered in concrete and they may be covered in buildings, and our community may need some reminders in terms of those things,” Espiritu said.
Miki‘ala Lidstone, executive director of Ulu Ae Learning Center, has been bringing her staff and students regularly to volunteer at Ka‘onohi since 2016. The experience has been transformative for her staff and her students, the latter of whom range from ages 5 to 14.
“When they stomp that mud … they know they’re bringing up nutrients,” Lidstone said. “They know that mud is going to produce food, and they know that’s powerful.”
Lidstone even finds her staff embracing the work, returning to the farm in their free time to complete tasks that students occasionally aren’t able to finish.
The volunteer work at Hoola Hou ia Kalauao also incorporates important values and lessons such as encouraging participants to see farming as honorable work, and having a genuine appreciation for crops that are grown there, Lidstone said.
In modern society, many have inherited a disconnect from land and culture, Espiritu said. However, the beginnings of a ripple effect are already apparent in the volunteers who not only continue to return, but now bring their family members to join them, she said.
“We want this to be a lifestyle and a practice, and also to be accessible to those who might be scared to take the first step,” Espiritu said. “Seeing Hawaiian and non- Hawaiian families be able to enter into that (loi kalo) and just spend time together, I think a lot of the issues that we face could be remedied by things like that.”
To learn more about Hoola Hou ia Kalauao and how to volunteer, visit tinyurl.com/4vcpkw7a.
Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.
