Book Recomendation: Kuleana

For some people, defining yourself based on culture can be easy, living in the same place where their ancestors did, and knowing that their children will follow in the same way. For others, this process can be more complex, more messy.

Sara is a journalist living on the East Coast. One day, the tax on her late grandma’s land in Hawaii increases by 500 percent, making it economically unviable to continue paying it. This book-memoir follows what comes next: how her relationship with Hawaiian culture evolves and changes, from early adulthood, the COVID pandemic, parenthood, and even the death of the older generation.

What makes this book really interesting is that Sara is not 100% Hawaiian in the traditional sense; she is half-Hawaiian, was raised in California, and lives on the East Coast of the USA.

This gives rise to a plethora of questions:

• Am I Hawaiian even without living there?
• Am I Hawaiian even if the locals consider me a mainlander?
• How can I feel connected to Hawaii while being hundreds of kilometers away?
• How can I show my children how important the culture is?
• How can I maintain the family land, when nobody in the family wants to live there and the taxes keep rising?
• How to keep the extended family united even with contentious inheritance of land?

For the ones that cultural roots, extended family and attachment to the land is part of their identity, I highly recommend this book.