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Hawai‘i Island for reason; Hawai‘i has something that speaks to many and resonates within many. It
<br />obviously resonates within myself and my family and where I work. Our program allows for us to
<br />make connections not only through the system but from our own familial connections to these places,
<br />and allows the access of intellectual and spiritual exchange on many levels. Hāpaiali‘i itself has
<br />provided the platform for us to begin processes and begin new traditions as well as maintain old
<br />traditions. Our culture evolves just like all of our environments and our force evolve with what
<br />happens. We as a people, we as a culture, evolve to allow for us to grow and to foresee and to build
<br />and to reach our potentials. Without having the spaces to do so and not having the space to allow
<br />these exchanges limits our own experiences. I also come to the table as a mother. I have three
<br />children of my own. I have visited Hāpaiali‘i in numerous occasions, for hula, for protocols, for
<br />ritual, for the exchange with international peoples as well as our own peoples here from Hawai‘i. All
<br />of my children have experienced Hāpaiali‘i, from in the womb until more recently my son, who is
<br />now ten, being in ceremony on Hāpaiali‘i. He is living it. He is creating his own memories, and as
<br />my, as all of us who experience those things. I would like to see Hāpaiali‘i, Kahalu‘u, maintained so
<br />that we have and can allow for these exchanges to occur in the future, and so that my son, ten, twenty
<br />years from now, my daughter who has only experienced it in the womb, can participate and bring
<br />their own families and friends and communities to this space and to share in that exchange as well.
<br />Mahalo.
<br />
<br />TAGAB-CRUZ: Aloha. Aloha, kala mai no ke kua \[to the audience.\] Aloha. My name is Noél
<br />Tagab-Cruz. I live in Hilo. Like Jacqueline said, I work for Hawai‘i Community College under I Ola
<br />Hāloa. And every year for the past couple of years we’ve had a ceremony at Hāpaiali‘i, called
<br />Māmoe. This is the culminating event for our graduates in our program. What we do is we are
<br />celebrating the end of one journey and the beginning of another one on Hāpaiali‘i. And while we do
<br />have a formal, or a university, graduation, the importance of Māmoe is that they celebrate their
<br />culmination in a native Hawaiian sense. You learn on this land, you are here for a certain number of
<br />years, learning from our college, why wouldn’t we have a graduation ceremony on this land that has
<br />nurtured our learners? And it’s a celebration for our learners, for the families, for our community,
<br />because as all of us know, it takes a community. And some of you may ask why is Hilo in the house?
<br />Why not? Because what affects people here affects us in Hilo. And, gentlemen, you have an
<br />awesome chance to show the community in Kona, in Hilo, around the world that protocols and
<br />education and indigenal lifeways are important. So mahalo for this opportunity. Ola Kahalu‘u.
<br />
<br />McCORMACK: Aloha mai kākou. Kala mai a‘u ke kua \[to the audience.\] I’m Ryan McCormack. I
<br />come from the Ahupua‘a of Waikahekahenui in Puna on this island. I am currently an instructor in
<br />the Hawai‘i Life Styles Department at Hawai‘i Community College at Hilo, also the coordinator of
<br />First-Year Experience programs there. And I’m also a kumu hula and a Hawaiian culture
<br />practitioner. Also as a former educator at Kua O Ka La Hawaiian Charter School, we also brought
<br />students to the complex down in Kahalu‘u. And so I can definitely speak to the educational value of
<br />the place. The genealogical, ecological, historical resources of Hāpaiali‘i have well been advocated
<br />already, and I just want to echo the thoughts of everybody else who has already come before in the
<br />regard. But as has been alluded to by my colleagues, we have used the space, we have been hosted
<br />by the Kahalu‘u ‘ohana in the space, at a ceremonial space. And as has been mentioned, this place is
<br />a wahi pana, which in our language, you know, the word “pana” has to do with significance, it also
<br />has to do with the pulse; to us the place is alive. But pana also means a rhythm. So to me wahi pana
<br />is a place that brings us back into a rhythm, individually, collectively, and unites our rhythm with that
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