Excuse us, can you hear us or are we screaming silently while you’ve been trying to quiet us. . . wait, you don’t even acknowledge us. . .never allowing us to break free or tell the story of who we are. Snaring at us, making us a color, race, identity that we are not. Beautiful rainbow, identities that have been stripped away. . .and you’ve been trying to erase us for over a 100 years. . .we are original, royalty, proud of who you say we can’t be, because to most people there’s only two identities in this world. Upset when we speak because we are not valued or respected to be honored or seen. The silence in the statistics that never includes us because when they came over to steal us, they also tried to assimilate us. . .blending culture and erasing identity at the same time. . .our island tells a story of despair of what is going on there, gentrified. . . wait a minute, they lied. . .lied about the history. . .do you know what happened in 1893. . .better yet do you know happened before 1893 in Hawai’i? Genocidal actions and the genocide still continues while we are categorized to be intertwined with AA/PI, but we are separate. . .even when you try to assimilate us into a different identity we are still fighting to preserve what is left, digging up the ancestry and summoning those who are beings of the beginning of who we are, who you’ve erased, who you’ve forgotten, who you’ve forced to assimilate. . . but we refuse, even as our lineage and roots continue to die. . . excuse us, do you hear us?

Photo Cred: Nelson Chauncey