Kalaʻi Miller: Aloha, I’m Kalaʻi Miller.

Welcome to Home is  Here.

Looking to reconnect with his culture and birthplace Keoni Kaholoaʻā took a job  as an interpretive ranger here at Volcanoes National Park.

That job has led him to a deeper  understanding of who he is as a Native Hawaiian and given him the opportunity to share his  culture and inspire others to do the same.

(chanting) E hō mai ka ʻike mai luna mai ē Keoni Kaholoʻaʻā: My name is Ranger Keoni Kai Hikiawaweʻula Kaholoʻaʻā and I'm an interpretive  ranger here at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.

An interpretive ranger interprets our  surroundings.

We talk about the birds, the plants, the volcanic activities.

We talk about the spiritual elements and everything  that's within this particular space.

(instrumental music) I started my career here about 12 years ago  after a long career in the army and in the reserves.

I was looking for a way to connect or  reconnect, and the park was an opportunity for me.

We all got to get along.

If  we want to survive in life, we got to learn to be like these two plants  and live in harmony with each other.

And if we can’t figure it out, then survival  looks bleak.

So, that’s a great message.

My ʻohana, we’re from Waipiʻo.

During the time, I  was growing up, the push was to leave the valley.

It was to be to be successful, I have to leave  the islands.

Eventually the army came calling.

Culture was presented to us and we had that  growing up, it wasn't the focal point.

And so, I wanted to reconnect, because during my military  career, I met folks from all over the world, and I learned their customs and their traditions,  and it was amazing.

And then at some point towards the end of my career, I started to reflect,  and I said, I know other people's cultures, but I'm not too familiar with mines, so I  want to come back home and reconnect to that.

There was a job fair that I attended, and there  was a friend of mines that was working here at the park, and he asked me, what are you looking for?

I said, well, I'm looking to reconnect with my culture.

And then he proposed the park is a great  opportunity for that.

I had a preconceived notion of what the park was, and so I wasn't really  interested.

But then he kept on pushing.

So, I applied, and a few months later, I got  the call, came up here, had an interview, and I got hired right on the spot, which was  scary for me, because I didn't know my culture, and now my job is to interpret my culture.

And so there was a huge learning curve for me, which caused anxieties and stress.

But at that  time, we had really good interpretive rangers that literally held my hand and walked me through  it, and introduced me to cultural practitioners, and gave me the opportunity to  spend quality time with them.

The journey is the reward, in my  opinion, because you get exposed to all these different things,  and you got to invest the time, you got to invest that, you got to put in  that effort.

But our culture is amazing, and I've learned so much, and I've been able  to connect not only here this place, but other places.

I've been able to connect with Waipiʻo  at a much deeper level than I ever had before.

I remember when I was young, my great  grandmother used to tell stories about our connection with Pele, and those  stories are meant for our ears only.

But it's interesting how when I'm on this journey,  I start remembering things from the past and then I go and I speak to my my kūpunas that are  still alive, and I ask them, hey, you know, what about this story?

What about that story?

And then they give more context behind that, behind the story.

And so, understanding my  relationship with this place, with tutu Pele.

This place is extremely significant.

Obviously, we have tutu Pele and my last name represents an aspect of her, and that  journey of connecting to her spiritually has, has changed my whole perspective of who I am as  a person and how I perceive the surroundings.

Understanding my relationship with this  place, with tutu Pele, and not only her, we’re talking about Hi'iakaikapoliopele,  Nāmaka, and Kāmahoali'i has brought me closer, not only to this place, but also with my ʻohana.

And so, my journey is not just my journey, it's my family's journey, and I love  sharing everything I learn with them.

My last name, Kaholoʻaʻā, literally translates  to the flow or movement of jagged rock.

The name itself, connects us to her, to tutu Pele.

But I've learned over the years that it's much deeper than that, and there's family stories  of situations and incidents and instances that directly connects us to her.

And I didn't know  that before, you know.

And so that journey opens all these doors.

And then all these questions  come up.

And then so I go and seek my kūpuna for validation of these thoughts.

And  it's amazing when you can connect, and I think a lot of the kanakas that  are searching and are on the journey, they’re trying to connect, and once they make  the connections, they you feel fulfilled.

The connections makes me feel paʻa to this place.

It's validation.

So connecting to the space makes me feel like I am part of the space, and including  visitors and allowing them to connect with me in that time and space just validates that what  I'm doing is pono, what I'm doing is correct.

I'll be out on a trail and with a group of  visitors, and I'll do an oli and and, and before I actually do the oli, I let visitors  know, Hey, pay attention to your surroundings.

Listen to the birds.

Pay attention to the  wind.

And after the oli things happen, you know, the wind picks up, or the birds  get real quiet, or they get real vocal, or they fly around us.

To me, those are  indications that the elements around us is recognizing our presence and validating who  we are in the time and space that we're in.

(chanting) E hō mai E hō mai ka ʻike mai luna mai ē Connecting to a space is the foundation for  someone to start to care for a place.

I mean, if you don't care for anything, you're  not going to, you're not going to be motivated to take care of it.

And so a great  example is, I'll tell visitors, look around, what do you see?

And many times they'll say, I  see trees.

I hear birds.

I see clouds.

I see the sun.

And then I tell them, Well, what I see is  my ancestors.

Literally, this tree next to me is my ancestor.

The wind is my ancestors.

The sun, the cloud, the volcanic activity, they're all part of my ancestors.

And so if  people start to look at their environment as such, then they will be more inclined to care for the  space.

And our role as humans in our environment is to care for the spaces that we are in.

That's  our role.

It starts with caring with the space.

I think it's important to share our  culture, because everyone has culture.

Everyone comes from an indigenous way, or  in indigenous tribes.

Some of us are more closely connected to those indigenous tribes  and beliefs and ideas and concepts, but the goal is to expose visitors to an indigenous  thought and in hopes that that motivates them.

Our job as interpretive rangers is to paint that  picture and to let them know that, hey, the ground that you're standing on is sacred, but it's also  fragile.

It's beautiful, but it's also fragile.

And these are the steps that we need to do to  maintain this fragile and beautiful landscapes so that you can return and be able to see this  place as it was the last time you were here.

It's important that visitors understand that when  you come here, please come here with respect and please be mindful of your footsteps, because  footsteps can be very detrimental to a place.

So be mindful of where you're going, where you're  walking.

Be mindful of your thoughts, because your surroundings can be affected even by thought.

My journey over the last 12 years, I'm a different person.

I came up here with a lot of anger, a  lot of frustrations, a lot of not understanding who I who I am, and so this process has made me  look internally and to the root of who I am and what I believe in, and it helped mold me into  a more productive person, a better husband, a better brother, a better father, and I think at  the end of the day, that's what I was looking for.

(chanting) E hō mai Kalaʻi Miller: While most folks come to Volcanoes National Park to see the lava, it’s  also a great place for stargazing.

Whether it’s comets or constellations, the night sky has  always fascinated humans.

For one Oʻahu man, that fascination is guiding  him through a new path in life.

Nick Bradley: If you know mythology and the zodiac, Gemini is known as the twins.

And  the two brothers are named Castor and Pollux.

(instrumental music) I got into astronomy as a curiosity.

I was about middle school, so I think 12 or 13 and I found a book on constellations.

The constellation book just helped me find what  stars are connected to which constellations.

And in the book, you read about the stories of  the constellations, as far as Greek mythology, Hawaiian mythology, how they use the  stars to navigate.

And then deeper, there's star clusters that you can find.

And it's  like, wow, I want to see that.

And so, I had a little-binoculars.

I remember specifically right  near the constellation Scorpius or Maui's fish hook, there's a really bright star cluster, but  it's just barely out of view as a little blurry object in a little-binoculars.

And for the longest  time it's like, what is this?

I can't make it out, but it looks interesting, and finally got  a chance to look through it, through a big telescope.

It's a giant star cluster, and  it's just wow.

What else is out there?

And basically, that curiosity just kept growing.

One day my friend asked me to help him  with a stargazing event in Waikīkī to view the blood moon lunar eclipse in  2019.

He needed a second telescope, so he asked me to help him.

And the event was so  much fun.

We had 200 people come out feature on the local news.

The next week, I registered  my own business, and haven't looked back.

Our public shows are free, open to the public, no registration needed.

We’ll set up one  or two telescopes looking at either the moon or the planets.

And people just line up  and one by one they’ll view the telescope.

The average person never looks through a  telescope, much less through a large telescope.

And so, we have these families.

The kids are  amazed.

The parents are even more amazed.

They become kids as well.

And it's just, you see that  from everybody who views and it's just amazing.

And what I love about it is people are  asking me questions.

That's when I know, yeah, people are thinking about what's in space.

I do like to think about 2,000 years ago, what did  people think when they looked up at the night sky, and if you've ever seen the Milky Way  through a dark sky, it looks amazing, but they didn't have the science to understand  it at that time.

So, I think it's like, man, it must've been so how does this all work?

I  can't even imagine what they were thinking.

But observing the sky for a long time, over  generations, then you can kind of understand where they get their stories, as far as creating  constellations, figuring out how the seasons work, matching up with different stars or  the moon phase.

And for the Hawaiians, how they use the moon phases to figure out what to  plant, when to plant, when to fish, what to fish.

While they're sailing on their canoes, looking  up in the night sky, you can't help but wonder, how did they see the sky?

How did  they figure this out?

And they were extremely smart and observational.

They're the scientists of their time, and we still see the same  stars they saw 1,000 years ago.

When people come to our show  what I would love for them to take away from it is that feeling as  of curiosity, just as I did as a kid.

Not only can you see the rings of Saturn, but  what are they made out?

How far away are they?

I've seen so many cool things, hundreds  of galaxies, star clusters, nebulas, shooting stars, meteor showers.

And now  you're getting the feel of the scale of the universe and really how small  we are, but that we are part of it.

I like to say, it’s universal.

Stargazing  and astronomy, it’s universal for everybody.

We all have questions about space and it’s just a  great platform to share that experience with them.

And when anybody is overwhelmed and thinking  they don’t know anything about astronomy, what I say is, hey just bring  your curiosity.

We all started from scratch and all you need to  do is look up, ask some questions.

I’ve actually used stargazing as a  stress reliever to go out and enjoy the sky.

It puts things in perspective.

Not  everything money and the thing I always tell myself is just have fun.

The cliché we  only live once and I want to have fun on what we’re doing and how can we create  that and make it a living out of it.

And so, I feel extremely grateful to be getting  all these opportunities from learning in the sky, and being able to share my  knowledge with the public.

And it’s just a full circle moment and  it really brings things home for me.

I think about what Carl Sagan used to say, we are  star stuff.

So yes, when we look out in the sky, we are just small specks of dust floating  in space.

But we are made from the stars.

All our atoms and our bodies.

We’re stars, so  we're stardust.

And it's an amazing thought.

Kalaʻi Miller: Whether it’s slippers or aloha shirts, certain  things you wear just say “local.” Here’s how two other iconic looks  became staples of Hawaiʻi style.

(instrumental music) Andy Reilly: When people think of Hawaiʻi, they think of Hawaiian shirts.

And there's a long history and importance tagged to Hawaiian shirts.

But there's so  many other products that were invented, created or designed in Hawaiʻi that  people don't realize it comes from here.

And one thing I found out, everybody has a story  about palaka.

Even if you just talk to friends, neighbors, that everybody has  a palaka story.

I think it's because it's so embedded in local culture here.

When we go back to what the origins of  palaka were and how the word came about, there was a scholar at the University of Hawaiʻi  and he wanted to understand how the name palaka arrived in Hawaiʻi.

Probably the original  meaning was a translation of the word frock.

So, a lot of the sailors or workmen who are coming  to Hawaiʻi, on boats, their type of shirt was this kind of a tunic-like garment usually made  out of cotton.

And it's thought that maybe somebody asked, what is that?

And they said,  frock, and it became palaka as a translation.

Then after some time, we start to  see the fabric like this type of fabric arrive that may have come  from England may have come from the United States.

And palaka was  independent to the name of the fabric.

It's a really dense weave.

It's really durable.

So, it made a good fabric for people who were working in agriculture, that paniolos those who  were dealing with cattle or plantation laborers, because this wasn't something that was  going to be easily torn.

One thought is that it really appealed to Japanese consumers  because it reminds you of indigo from Japan.

There was a man named Arakawa, who in 1906 started  working on the plantations as a waterboy.

He also saw a need to sell other products, including  clothing.

And he taught himself how to sew and began making shirts and jackets in  this palaka fabric that he had.

And so, Arakawa's became the largest rural department  store in Hawaiʻi.

And it was headquartered in Waipahu, where the plantation was.

And so,  these clothes were very durable.

They were appealing in design, and a lot of  plantation laborers started wearing them.

This one is actually from one of the  plantations.

And it shows the early versions of palaka here - the design - but  you can see it definitely was made as a jack shirt or jacket that would definitely be  useful to people there.

I think this one is from the 1940s.

But what's unique  about this one is that this one is, comes from Japan, and it was made by  a distributed by Union Supply Company.

If we look at some other examples of the shirts  that we have here, we have this one that I found at a resale shop that I just really liked,  because I think it shows the progression of palaka as a design element once you have in the  flower design here and the stenciling that's here, that it shows now we're getting a little  bit more creative here.

There's not really a specific date on this that I can find.

But it definitely looks to be homemade, I do want to bring this one up.

Now this  is not palaka.

It's more of a gingham here.

But during the Hawaiian Renaissance  one of the designers was Alan Akina.

And I love this because you can definitely  see that it was inspired by palaka.

I like this because this really shows that during the  70s Palaka Power in the Hawaiian Renaissance, it was about looking at who the people in  Hawaiʻi are and finding style through that.

If we look at where fashion trends  originate, there's a what's called the trickle up theory.

We've heard the  trickle-down theory that fashion starts in, you know, with the higher echelons of  society and then makes its way down into the lower echelons.

But the reverse  of that it starts with the working class.

One thing that I was interested in learning about  was on the mainland, and in Europe, you hear a lot about flour sack clothing.

The flour sacks, were  used to make clothing out of necessity, especially during the Great Depression and World War II.

And it was just the plain cotton flour sack.

So, I was interested that Hawaiʻi, I haven't seen flour sack clothing here.

But you know what I see, rice bag clothing.

Karon Serain-Darnall: I think for mom and dad, um, growing up, it was very difficult for them.

So, mom actually used to do these rice bags, making underwear.

And I didn't know  this until she was speaking with Andy.

My entire collection is, has been created by  my mom, I did not sew any of these dresses or crocheted any of the tops.

My mom  made 100% of my garments.

And you know, it all started when I was in my 30s when I  started having these dresses being made.

But prior to that, rice bags were rice bags.

My mom used them for home use.

And she used them to strain guavas to make guava  jelly.

And we used them for dish towels.

But pretty much all these rice bags were  mom’s gift to me to make all these dresses.

When someone would see the dress, they would  ask if mom would sew them and if she would sell.

But mom, mom has not sold one dress ever.

Because she said if you ever sell a garment, such as this, then it  doesn’t come from your heart.

Now I treasure them.

Especially now that  I can no longer get any more.

It's very, very special because it’s priceless.

Andy Reilly: The big result that I want people to take away from this is to understand  the influence of the magnitude that the Hawaiʻi fashion industry has had on a global scale.

I  want people to understand that the immigrants who came to Hawaiʻi each contributed something  in a different way to help create local culture.

I do think that generally we lose  touch or we are losing touch with understanding where our clothes come from  because you can just go to a store now and get pretty much anything.

You can go to  Amazon Prime and have anything shipped to you.

But if you find something that  your grandparents wore or made, it, I think it has more of a connection to your  history or to the place where you’re growing up.

Kalaʻi Miller: Mahalo for joining us.

PBS Hawaiʻi  continues the tradition of storytelling, because of your generosity.

If you’d like to  support our mission, please visit pbshawaii.org and click on the donate button.

For Home  is Here, I’m Kalaʻi Miller.

A hui hou.

Keoni Kaholoʻaʻā: I just tell kanakas in general, just just go on that journey.

And however long  it takes, that's your journey.

Don't rush it, because the elements will speak to you when  they're ready, when they feel you're ready, and they know if you're invested or not.

And you  know, don't shy away from it and just live it.

Nick Bradley: The biggest challenge always with our stargazing shows  is the weather.

It's quite unpredictable.

The clouds move so fast, sometimes you get  rain, but also makes it fun and challenging.

Andy Reilly: This one we have here and I just love this one because you know it's like a play on palaka  as well.

It has the large print scale of it.

But then also we have the appliques that were made  in the style of Hawaiian quilting at the time.