Poki‘i Seto - “ʻO ka ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i ka ʻŌlelo ʻOia‘ai‘o o Kēia ‘Āina”

Huliko'a Kaiāulu is a scholar speaker series created as an opportunity for Wai'anae Coast 'ohana to embrace higher education and celebrate examples of advanced learning in the community. The series was developed through a partnership between Kamehameha Schools' Community Learning Center at Nānākuli (CLCN), MA'O Organic Farms (Mala 'Ai 'Ōpio) and UH Hawai'inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge.

Scholar Poki‘i Seto, who was born and raised in Wai‘anae, presents “ʻO ka ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i ka ʻŌlelo ʻOia‘ai‘o o Kēia ‘Āina”, which looks at ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian Language) and the connections language makes to culture.

“The voice of our kūpuna, the Hawaiian language, is the true language of this ʻāina,” says Seto. “It is this practice of speaking our native tongue that will bring healing and reconnection to Hawaiian consciousness and awareness. We must share this work to continue to speak, connect to, and revive our ʻōlelo so that it will not disappear. The language breathes life into us, it lives through us, and our connection to the ancestral memory of Hawaiʻi lives in the sharing of our ʻōlelo.”