Through voices that challenge dominant cultural narratives, readers discover not just alternate histories and perspectives, but new possibilities for who they might become.
Like many others across Hawaiʻi, my family is “new” to the United States of America. My parents were the first generationto earn US citizenship. They arrived fresh off a plane from a small, South American nation where the weather and people are warm, Guyana. Collectively, we taught ourselves and each other to navigate often complicated American systems and ways of living. We spent too much of our days orienting ourselves toan unfamiliar nation while perpetuating our ethnic and national
cultural identities.
I was born, years later, in the Big Apple, New York City. Soon after, my mama sent me to her home country to be enriched by my maternal family in Guyana. Like many hardworking diasporic people, a village raised me. They often worked long shifts while advancing their education. I was shuffled among a collective of caretakers which included each co-parent, their siblings, godparents, and “play” aunts and uncles. With age, I became a latchkey kid, moving between school and home during the week and my aunt and uncle’s house on the weekends.
Despite growing up at the bloom of dial-up internet in the early ’00s, my single Caribbean father refused to allow TVs and computers to be my primary source of entertainment. Instead, he told me, “Pick up a book.” I would find one, drag my kid-sized recliner into my 4-foot-by-4-foot bedroom closet, hoist the green banker’s lamp off the dresser, and carefully place it on the floor of the closet before closing the door. In this small, dimly lit space, I left my home and traveled somewhere else page by page.
Eventually, I grew too big for the comfort of my closet. I soon discovered the library to be the next best place to camp out. My first library in South Ozone Park, Queens was situated in a predominately African American, Afro-Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean, and Latin American neighborhood. I devoured West African folk tales about the cunning spider Anansi, the Xhosa fable of Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters, and the anthropomorphic southern American story of Mirandy and Brother Wind.
Afro-Caribbean and/or American and/or Indigenous peoples are no strangers to stories being told about us without us.
As I matured and attended schools beyond my neighborhood, books shifted from culturally parallel tales to the Sweet Valley High and Harry Potter series. The colorful reflections of my culture, history, and perspective became muddled, monochromatic, and myopic. Stuck between the classroom’s conveniently neat, narrow history of the United States and the gaps in my Afro-Caribbean history, I got lost somewhere as a “third culture kid.” A term first articulated by Ruth Hill Useem in the late 1970s, Useem and other researchers observed the unique experiences of North American children growing up between the culture they were birthed into and another culture they spent significant developmental stages within. Although third culture kids are typically associated with children growing up as military dependents and missionaries, I shared similar liminal experiences between Afro-Caribbean, African American and American cultures.
The dense, disorienting fog lifted after I stumbled out of a predominately white American collegiate institution into WordPress blogs and books that illuminated the illusive, dark corners of my history and identities. I found bloggers through the Crunk Feminist Collective and authors like bell hooks and Joan Morgan who mirrored the love and pride in Black culture I had been missing for years. Starlight, seemingly from millions of galaxies away, finally making its way through the darkness. Through them, I found so many parts of myself I was first unable to articulate. The more I understood and discovered about myself and my history, the more my lived experiences made sense — I found the words.
“If you want to hide something from a people, put it in a book,” my dad often said. His sentiment hinted at cultural apathy towards reading and the historic, systemic punishment of enslaved African peoples who were forbidden to read. I learned the hard way that not all narratives are woven with love. Afro-Caribbean and/or American and/or Indigenous peoples are no strangers to stories being told about us without us. Oftentimes, our stories begin, not with the myths and legends we were told or read growing up, but at the harrowing first-contact with the people who subjugated us. In countless ways, many of us have a shared history of our cultures bound into systems that we were pounded, crunched and forced to submit to.
Invited to earn my master’s degree in Communication at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, it was essential for me to center Kānaka Maoli and Pacific Islander knowledge systems. Allying myself with the ‘āina while cracking my mind on critical texts made our solidarities obvious. Studying alongside Kānaka Maoli artists, thinkers, cultural protectors, and writers bound me closer in the collective struggle and
renaissance of our peoples. The ongoing Kū Kia‘i Mauna and Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 reinforced the importance of solidarity and insistence on resistance.
Reading sociopolitical and intercultural texts along with choke children’s books helped me uncover connections between Kānaka histories, perspectives, and realities analogous with the Black diasporic experience. Outside of the institutional classroom options, online syllabi like the Maunakea Syllabus, the #PopoloSyllabus, and Black Lives Matter: Anti-Racism Resources for the Hawai‘i Community were great ways to get started. I found anecdotes in poems that lauded the African American and Afro-Caribbean literary icons I gained strength and wisdom from. I encountered shared strategies of righteous defiance and other stories of self-denigration while trying to find ourselves beneath the heavy, thick, suffocating cloth of colonialism. New cousins of resistance and perseverance!
The ongoing demographic shifts across the Hawaiian Islands are creating generations of third and cross-cultural diasporic people who are growing up in the United States and internationally who will look for and need their stories. Increasing bans on books threaten the multiplicity of our truths that reveal the breadth of our experiences.
Yet still, there are physical places juicy and ripe with histories and perspectives of old, present, and future Hawaiʻi — literary homes, where we can go to find fragments of ourselves when we need validation, escape, tools, and community connection — a celebration of radical hope. When we look past the limiting stories, we can reclaim hidden parts of ourselves through richer, more nuanced narratives. These new tales that emerge exist because someone like us wanted our experiences to be witnessed and honored. When we know who we are, our history, and what we stand for, we can be steadfast in our values. At your local, independent, and private bookshops, and on the shelves of your public libraries, our stories are waiting for you.
A Mini-Compendium to Libraries, Bookshops, and Reading Spaces in Hawaiʻi
Oʻahu
Native Books at Arts & Letters
Thoughtful selection with a must-browse section on Hawai‘i politics and aloha ‘āina.
Da Shop
Cozy community bookstore in Kaimukī that specializes in popular national, international, and local titles for all ages.
Phillis Wheatley Free Black Women’s Library
Free and small independent library with a unique collection of works by Black women and femme authors located at UH-Mānoa.
Maui
Native Intelligence
Kānaka-owned boutique in Wailuku with select books on Hawaiian ‘ike.
native-intel.com
Hawaiʻi Island
Basically Books
Hilo’s independent bookstore since 1985.
Kona Stories Book Store
Charming store offering new and used books highlighting local authors.
Kauaʻi
Māhele at Kauaʻi Museum
Gift shop showcasing Hawaiian cultural treasures about the Garden Isle’s heritage.
Talk Story Bookstore
Indie retailer of new and used titles that is the westernmost bookstore in the U.S.
Statewide
Hawai‘i State Public Library
Fifty-one library system serving the pae ʻāina. Library cards are free for residents; available for purchase for non-residents. All visitors can use digital and print resources in-house free-of-charge.
Little Free Library
Global network of volunteer-led, book-exchange boxes. More than 45 locations are currently searchable online.
About the Artist: Nicole Maileen Woo is a holistic artist mama, hearthkeeper, energist and native New Yorker of African and Chinese descent. Using a wide range of mediums (analog collage, paint-ing, photography and more, she makes art that inspires connec-tion, upliftment, and healing reflecting her devotion to exploring the spiritual nature of humanity. Her work has been exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles, New York City, Beijing, and most recently in Honolulu at MOA Hawaii.