SO NOT ALOHA…

IT IS CALLED “THE POMONA ISLANDER” 

Typically, I will not rally my fellow humans, specifically my fellow kanakas, for anything that is on the personal level, but in this instance, we have a very sick old woman, her husband, children, grandchildren, all trying very hard to get things done for her benefit, and the thing that is standing in our way is a very illegal “contract” that was written by the people who own this place where my mother and father have lived for twenty years, or at least almost that long.

But the issues are not about the owners, because being this Kahuna Wahine that I Am….I am “being told” by my ʻaumakua that I am right – this is about everything that we are seeing happening in DC, and right here, in my midst, we are being handled wrongly, namely when accommodations CAN be made and are not even being considered. I know that it is dangerous for me to be putting this all in writing, but the bravery that I am feeling right now is stemming from the helplessness that these two haggathas have handed my dad, a man who has been through so very much from the time that I was barely 16.

My own childhood home was lost due to these same things that these women have elected to create for my parents. If I had my druthers, which I still might – I would have them BOTH charged with elder abuse. It is still early enough, and I am wise enough to even consider it. Unless I get what I know is fair, all bets are off – I know enough people in certain power to make certain things happen, and things that happen when I do them tend to be permanent.

We shall say that I take my ordination and my mandate in the state of California VERY seriously, and in that manner, I will get my way.

However, I do not want to go that route.

At all.

I am all for the side that says “letʻs work this out so we all benefit” and yeah, in this energy, it feels like I am going to be literally paying these women off with actual cash payola. I could be wrong, but I am doubtful. And if that is not the case, then I am right in that, they simply have no reason, in their convoluted thinking, to not grant a very old man who happens to be non-white, and his very ailing wife – another non-white, more time to complete what is the thing that she has always wanted…her little house to reflect who she is. I was told that this time I might need to “take off the gloves” and fight like a chick and well, this is what I call “the throw down” in intellectual terms where there are not a whole lot of people fighting. My mom is not a fighter, and my father used to be but, he is tired and his only worry is my mom.

This is the same worry that I, my siblings and my children, as well as her Hanai Ohana, all have. We want her to have her way, and namely because this time, it matters and it matters not only because she is my mom, but because the one thing that she and anyone who is her age deserves is the recognition that her grandkids are trying to give to her in the form of her home being what she wants it to be.

These two women are taking my dad to task over the parking of a trailer, which is the thing that my dad thought about for a while, knowing that he would be able to help my other half to get jobs, and my other half knowing that my parents would love it if he were able to put some work into her house, and at the same time, this Hanai Kanaka Maoli who we all refer to as “Kawika” is here, lending his knowledge to my son, Kahakuloa, and my daughterʻs boyfriend, Tommy, and Kahakuʻs hanai brother Christian, in regards to the thing that my mother, Sheila Soares, always wanted – a TOTALLY KANAKAʻD OUT PAD, and her eldest grandson was too happy to accommodate her.

She is his Grandma. She is the other mom that he has always loved and depended on and when it was that he could do something for her he jumped at the chance. So now we have this happy family thing going on and these women want to get in the way of it, all of it, over things that are in the “contract” that is not an actual binding contract that is actually fair and accommodates both sides. 

It doesnʻt. It isnʻt.

What it is is a document that reads very much more like a list of things that people who are paying good money to stay in this place are paying to people who just keep on keeping on with the abuses that have been doled out to this community by the management for as long as my parents have been here and have paid their dues in many more ways than just being here…for a long, long time.

My mother, the lady who GENERATIONS of people know simply as either “Auntie Sheila” or, in bigger, more memorable terms if you are NOT her actual blood – “Sister Sheila,” and of these two, the latter is the one that she earned, because even as she was the wife of the minister, my father, she still was the type of Preacherʻs wife who was part of her husbandʻs congregation – NOT only as Pastor Ronʻs wife. RARELY did my mother hold herself in higher esteem, as being better than, more than, un-equal to my dadʻs congregation.

…and each of those people – many who I still am in touch with – would agree with me in that they each and all knew that if there were going to be a set of people who would help, and if there were going to be a set of people who would go to the proverbial mat for them, it would be Brother (as opposed to “Pastor”) Ron and Sister Sheila.

Again…they would agree with me.

They would agree with me -EVERY ONE OF THEM – in that right this moment, while she is so, so physically ill that my mom, their hanai Auntie, Sheila – DOES NOT DESERVE THIS CRAP.

There is a pair of people in this community in which my parents have resided for as long as anyone can recall – there are two women who are putting our family to task over, of all things, a very poorly written, and equally confusing as well as misleading bunch of rules that are three years older than my youngest child who just turned thirteen this past July.

This past July these same two people were up my okole about when it was that I was going to be able to get rid of my ex-husband from the front of this community, even though she KNEW what I had just been put through by him – the only thing that mattered, now that I think about it was NOT THIS PLACE, but HER POSITION IN THIS PLACE as manager. According to the police, it was THEIR opinion, each and every time, that SHE would get the protection for what SHE deems HER responsibility, instead of the people who she states she does not want to have issues with. This is the way that things have always been run here – with the bottom dollar line in mind, and I have had enough of these people making all these rules that they have no idea do not hold water.

Just because it is in writing, it does not mean that it is legal (thank you Michelle for reminding me of this much) and just because this is how you want it to be, it does not justify the reasons behind why it is that they WANT TO do this TO my parents.

I looked at it…this document, and I suggest that everyone else in this joint do the very same thing. You might find out that all along, no matter what, indeed, your rights to quiet enjoyment were rocked more than one time, all in the name of the gas meter, or the damned tree guys or, my new favorite reason (read: EXCUSE)…because of the PARK RULES and rules that DO NOT give ANY KIND OF benefit to the MAJORITY of people who live in this place.

For the record – no, my intention is NOT to stay here forever, like a lot of people want to believe. If you were here like I am, you would agree with me in that these people NEED to accommodate more than (their words) the whims of the owner, and an owner who, in twenty years, my parents have not ever met.

These people here have never been really that inclined to actually do anything for anyone else OTHER than their damned selves or, yeah…”the owner.”

It is because my dad had the guavas to stand up, not only for himself, but also for the residents here who he calls his neighbors. My father is a veteran, is a retired educator and minister, and his entire energy is Aloha and the sharing of it. Daddy loves people, and he loves having friends. His family is everything. My mother is his life.

This is Daddy…Unko Ronnie….Brother Ron.

He is the epitome of “Hawaiian Unko” and I am pissed that these two haole women with no reason OTHER than that they can have decided that the rules here are more important than the health of the residents who they swear they do not want a problem with, even though this is exactly what they are doing – causing grief, almost to the point of being abusive, for my parents.

When other homes are having refurbishing work done in this park, no one bothers with asking how the people in the house are physically doing and go on the assumption that we are dragging our feet, and we are so not. Every time Mom has to go to the hospital, it taxes this household, and it does so because of one truth that is also the truth in many more minority households, and specifically Hawaiian households – work stops, and the family gathers around the sick person, and this is the truth of our house, too.

We are Hawaiians.

We live by the rules of and speak Aloha fluently here, and we have extended this much and at all times to EVERYONE with whom we come into contact. It is a complete aberration to the Hawaiian Soul to know that we have treated people in so lovely a manner that when it comes to the work that my mom desires being done, and we can get that work done for nothing, that is called being gifted with Aloha by others for whom she has done much for, as well. She has, they have, done so much for so many people, and right now, I am one of those people who is getting her on the good side and always I have been this for her….always been the one who has volunteered to get her back, and this time, I do not do this alone. 

They call me Mom, and he calls me Pineapple, and the rest of them call me Auntie or Rox or Mapu…does not matter – I do not come into this alone.

I might not have always agreed with her or my father, as many of those church congregants can tell you that this is the truth. What they can also tell you is that there is no one on this planet who deserves to be treated like a queen MORE than my mother, simply for the way which she treated people.

She was kind and gentle, even as she was firm with them, and they all loved her for it. I was told more than one time that “Sister Sheila is like my Tia” and to this day that same energy exists.

I do not have to ask them.

I know this is their truth.

Fast forward to now, when my mom, Auntie Sheila, Sister Sheila, is so so sick, and fast forward to now, when my father, Brother Ron, Unko Ronnie, is so very dearly emotionally and mentally and now physically taxed….

…and all she asked for was that her kitchen be redone.

It was not in need of repair – it was just old, and she wanted it done, and she asked that it be done. Yet they could not afford to keep hiring people who would find every reason as to why they could not (read: DID NOT WANT TO) finish the job, which left it undone.

Undone is what I am thinking certain individuals want me to do – to come completely undone over this, specifically knowing that I have issues, and specifically since they asked me – specifically SHE asked me – if I were going to do something for the community, pretty much, and get my kidsʻ dad to go away back in July. It was no easy task, and I was always very forthcoming, as well as honest, with these people, always giving them a reason why it is that things are as they are.

Things, as they are, are quite chaotic.

And this is where I am calling on the help of my fellow Kanaka Maoli.

I need for you each and all to PLEASE kokua me and SHARE THIS TO ALL YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA PROFILES…please….Auntie Sheila is very sick, and Unko Ronnie is not okay, and these two haole women do not want to think to be compassionate, because they think we have had already too much time.

My mother asked that the interior of her home be made new.  She wanted things to be different than they have been for years, and she wanted to not see the things that plagued our family for a very long time, and something that she, in her heart, knew that my sister and I would go to the mat for her because of. This is her home, and as her eldest child, it is my duty, I feel, to make certain that she gets what sheʻs wanted, what she still wants the very most: Her kids and her grandkids to be with her in beautiful surroundings, preferably her home. 

Now these two haggathas who KNOW that there is and HAS BEEN work being done on this house want to get rid of the work-space that is needed and placed out in front of Momʻs home to be towed, as though it wonʻt bring severe and undue harm to my mom, and more than even I can think to be the truth. Right now the work that has been done has been done by people who want her to have what she wants and these people are not stopping at anything, not even by the threats made by two women who wield their false power over people who they KNOW have ZERO ability to really fight back and they are taking an old man to task in a very abusive way.

If anyone in this house and on this planet knows anything about the machinations of abusers it is and will always be me and right this moment I am stating that those two women are abusers, of the elder sort, because they will not be reasonable in allowing that the work-space that is here be allowed to be here UNTIL THE WORK IS DONE. No one puts anyone else to task like they do and have done to my dad for years and I have had the hell enough already. I will not be the one, and neither will I allow it, that these people make my dad or my mom or anyone who is here working or living here – I will not allow them to do this to them and I am taking it to the court of public opinion, these things that are making these two women of “settler” descent do this to people who are of a browner shade of American than they are.

My father, again,  is a veteran, a former educator and a retired Christian minister, a grandfather and father and someone who would rather help, than bring harm to, his community. There is no one who knows him who can state otherwise.

My mother is the only Tutu lady my kids have and lots of other kids have ever had, and to have it be that the thing that the managers of this place want to do – take away my momʻs ONLY MEANS of having the work done, which is donated hands and backs and tools and years and years of experience, all of whom I am dearly and closely connected to. The people in charge of this place want to enforce things, and my thinking is that it is out of fear, out of a need to control, and out of a need for someone else to have their way at the expense of other people.

No matter what.

I am even gonna go there – I also think it is over money, which is the reason why I am planning to offer them some, just so that my mother can get what I know is her truest heartʻs desire – to be able to invite people into her home again, so that she can extend the thing that she has always, to anyone at all – her essence, which is not but that of the truest, deepest Aloha known to anyone….at all.

And it is very indicative of the thing that we are all going through right now with this current presidential administration in that the woman putting us all to task is the manager of this community.

It appears to me, and this after I have asked other residents – my parentsʻ neighbors and fellow community members – and they all agree with me in that it is wrong to put people to task if those people are in dire straights. Physically, my parents are being given undue stress, over I what I feel is nothing more than a symbol for them to wield their non-power.

I donʻt often let people know how much money I make but let it be well known now – I do not make a shitload of money but when it comes to helping others, it is almost as though the Universe hears my need and always my need includes helping other people. There is no one on this planet who knows me any other way than this way. I will help anyone. There is no one who does not know this if they also know me.

No….I am not looking for money. I am looking for support, for voices and for people to get the backs of these two lovely people who the world knows as “Unko Ronnie and Auntie Sheila.” I am looking for my fellow Hawaiians and the fellow community members to speak up and out in their behalf, and yeah – hell yeah if you are in any way at all connected to the legal community, the old people advocacy community, the community that is human and not anti-human.

This is what I need. If I am coming to the public for support, and you know me, then you know this is my truth.

And knowing me is not the thing that makes it the truth. Knowing me means also that you know my parents, Ron and Sheila, very well. I am sort of a private person, even though my working life is lived online publicly. I Am an ordained minister. I Am an educator. I Am everything that I am meant to be right now at this time in my life and the one thing that I have been known for, for years, is that indeed – I Am a most eloquent warrior, a most eloquently aspired feminist and of course, there is NOT ONE PERSON ALIVE AND ON THIS PLANET WHO KNOWS ME WHO WILL STATE DIFFERENTLY. This is where I will start the actual thing that I am trying to tell the reading world who has a heart.

Point blank and pretty much, the manager here in this park is about to take away my dadʻs means of passive income. The reason for this income is simple – as a life coach and student, a mom of three kids, a person who has to pay her bills and help out her parents with what little money she has… I Am again being put to task and this time by the managers of this place – a place that is named POMONA ISLANDER.

Yes, it is a mobile home park, and yes, it is named this and yes, my mom and dad have lived here for a long, long time – long enough to have seen three different manager pairs come and go and of them all, this pair has to be the very most…difficult…to deal with. The interesting thing about management in this place is that they live here rent free, likely in exchange for pay. That is fine. The problem is not their living or their arrangements, but, the idea that my mom is very sick, and they know it, and they are being ugly about it, over what I think is a money thing, because they think I believe them when they tell us that “the owner” is telling them this – that the work on the house cannot get done, because the work-station which is parked out in front of their house is there and there, according to the manager and the outdated “rules and reg” of this place – and rules and regs that cancel out each other….that it is there as an eyesore, when in reality it is there and placed there as a work space for the work that is intended here on my momʻs house.

It is where everything that is needed to get it done is contained, and they are taking my dad to task over how long it is taking to get the work done – they want to move it, and if it doesntʻ get moved, they have threatened to tow it, not caring one tiny little bit that my momʻs health is part of the reason that it is there to begin with. 

And really, these women are amazingly brazen in their actions, and incredibly…ignorant….to the rights as well as the laws in terms of the rights of people and their right to lots of things. I am sorry, but, when was it again, ladies, that you were any sort or kind of MD, and when was it that you were the cops, and when was it again that you were intending to steal the work space that belongs to my dad and my guy and if you take it, you are GOING TO end up being arrested, not just for theft, but more, for elder abuse.

When it came down to it, these managerial women here were the ones who decided that my parentsʻ home does not need what my mom wants done, which is the “luxury” of no more reminders of the abuser who was in her house and refused to leave.

Now these abusers are the ones in charge, it appears and according to THEIR understanding of these written wrongs as they are outlined in the rules and the like for this place. You might think that after all these years, and after the entire time that they have been here and NOT caused any problems for anyone, that these people would be able to be lots more…compassionate.

Yet, they are not. When they were told of my momʻs chronic (and getting worse) physical condition is what it is, one of their answers was “…and?” and the otherʻs was “So?” and all they are worried about, in my opinion, is not just money, which I am prepared to offer, but, control. And when we are talking about control and money and yeah…haole  folks…in the middle of a town that is PRIMARILY MINORITY….Pomona, California….on old people who, one of them is sick enough to be hospitalized, on average, at least twice a month since July.

Since July the only thing that she has said to me is that she would love it if her house could be redone.

So, being who I am, I did what I needed to do in order that this could happen for her. This was before my own money has been impeded, but, none the less, I still came through for her – WE came through for her, and now these two horrid women want to take that away from my mom, as if it is not going to make her condition worse and the one thing that I would like to know is when was it that we were any kind of problem for you in terms of the thing parked in front of my parentsʻ house and more – when was it that you two hags were allowed to write the LAW let alone the rules that neither of these two women seem to have read or understood.

Let it be well known that when you hand a contractor in the state of California a contract to read, if that contractor has ANY KIND OF MIND AT ALL, that person WILL TELL YOU when it is that the contract becomes null and void and does so within the language used in said same document, and a document that has, by my own seeing it, not changed one time in the time that these two people who I call “Mom and Dad” have been here….which is a very long time. In that time I have found that my father is not the only person who knows how to read things the way that they are meant to be read, and when I read what it was that they showed me, I read, too, that the things contained in that document are not easily supported by the laws in this state, and if they want to take me, specifically, to task, I am game.

It helps that I am not exactly stupid, neither scared, of two haole women in a town populated heavily by minorities who are sick to death of being told we are equal, yet still, when it is possible, ably seeing evidence of white privilege, with my Hawaiian parents being punished for being sick, old, and without us here, empoverished to a sickening degree, while these two haole women decide on their own that they will be who decides what my mom deserves from her kids, her grandkids and this young man who hails from another place and who their eldest daughter – me – calls The Maestro.

They will decide what is right for themselves, using the invisible owner who drives by our specific house once a week….and complains about the portable work-space that is NEEDED for the work at hand.

I bitch about my parents a lot – I would…I AM THEIR FIRST BORN KID who, as much as anyone else “first born” and “Kanaka” knows…we do not get to have a childhood until much later in life. I chose that my childhood would be spent perpetually on a college campus first as what I am now, which is haumana, to become what I AM BY BIRTH…which is Kumu, Kahu and everything else AKAMAI and given the right to Hoʻomana others, to empower them, SPECIFICALLY if they are not able, themselves, to do it, and more importantly, right this moment, with those in need of my particular gift of communication to the masses, and get the backs of two very kindly old people….Mr. And Mrs. Ronald and Sheila Soares…the pastor and his wife.

There is not a lot, even though I bitch a lot, that I will not do for these two people – I mean come on….they ARE my mom and dad, and for all of the things that I can bitch about, there are twenty times more that I can praise about, and this time, I get to be my own hired gun, my own advocate against the thing that makes me want to hurl, which is harming old people. I Love my parents, donʻt want to see them go through more and anymore now everything that happens in their lives can have major seriously ugly impact. I am trying to keep them around for when my sister has kids, and I am trying to keep them around so that the young people at the Arise program can learn the old ways.

Contained within the pastor and his wife are the things that we, as Hawaiians, need to know. My parents have loved the rest of the human population for the entirety of their lives. Now these two haoles are harming my parents and no matter what I say to them, no matter how much Kawika says to them, no matter how well they know Kahakuloa and the little man – they are being very….haole…and they would be, because that is what they are.

Those people who #AllUsGuys refer to as being damned haoles.

They cannot help but show, and I cannot help but see them being damned haoles.

Let me remind you, each of you, that I am not one who sees color, race, sexual preference….I am only one who can see these things when these are the things that are being presented to me, and from the moment I met this person called Cyndi, I felt like I did in kindergarten, which was very, very brown.

Making me feel like I was lesser than they were, but, at this time in my life as an adult, I ainʻt havinʻ it that way, and I ainʻt letting these..uneducated…women, of haole descent…take away what a small crowd of people who refer to these two old people as “Grandma and Papa,” “Mom and Dad,” and yeah…hell yeah, his friend, Ron….the guy who fathered his girlfriend.

This is all about Love, not control, at least for us and ours.

Typically I am not what I KNOW I am being right now, which is motivated by factors outside of my control, in this particular instance, that of race and skin color, but the more that I look at this tiny microcosm of society, the more that I know, for real and for sure, that this place is being thought of as their own towers bearing their name, much like a not-so-esteemed “leader” of this country wants to think that he is – which is empowered rather than ignorant to actual life and kept within a tight little bubble of privilege, and privilege that is not now and neither has ever been presented to my parents. They are due more than what most would be, for the simple fact that my parents have always been those sort who have followed rules, even when they do not understand them.

I, on the other hand, am not that peaceful person, or at least not that type of peacekeeper. I am the sort who will see the fight for what it will end up being, which is a victory for one of the parties. In this case, this is not a fight, but a time of revelation for two women who, I know at least one of them, has gotten away with this sort of thing for far too long. It is not theirs to take away the livelihoods of people, yet, in this one instance, their own words tell me that they donʻt give a shit – they will take away what they want to, and none of the residents have any say so about it. If you guys knew what my mom guys have been through, what I have been through with them, not just now, but ever since I can recall – it has been the three of us. I have been there, next to my dad, arguing, fighting with people for what is right, or against them, trying our best to make things fair, balanced for everyone.

It is, by his right, all I know, and right now, he needs to see that I listened to what was his message. His message was NOT about hating haoles – it was about making certain that people treated us fairly, like most haole people are still treated in comparison to those who are a browner shade of American born citizen, and when the fuck was it that we were EVER going to be equal to people like the two haole women who police this joint as though it were their own …orange hued kingdom…to put it very very nicely, and far nicer than I care to.

And no…for the record…and there are PLENTY OF YOU READING THIS RIGHT NOW who can and ought to attest to the idea that I LOVE EVERYONE, regardless of your origins – you are not your descendants. You are not your ancestral history – you are you and because you are you I Love You. You are all ….haha…you are all Hawaiian to me, and this is why I Love You – because you practice, actively, this thing called, and speak fluently, this language I have spoken as the only one that I know, even now, when I am so very angry – you are all very well learned in the art, the language and the energy that is Aloha.

It is why I love you so very dearly much.

Everyone who knows me knows this about me, in that I will ask people to help me if I know that they can, and now is not different. My momʻs house has been under repair for some time now, and it is taking time for us to complete the work, and yes – as has been mentioned, I cannot afford a whole lot, and already, I am who has been feeding the house for years now. Couple that with what little I make as a life coach, and more than that, the idea that I am on academic grants (scholarships) and of course, I have help from the county because my time in this town has caused me to see how the other half lives, and in that time I have found out that the broker the ass that you are, the browner you become in the eyes of the not-brown and yes, indeed, this is how this feels.

If these women knew that the thing that they are proposing is the thing that will end my parents and if they cared more about things than keeping in line these people who they would not bother with if they were not managers here, I would not be sitting here writing this.

Yet, here I sit writing this in hopes that there is some sort of something that I can do in order to keep her from basically stealing my work-space out front, and yeah – I am at that point where I am willing to work with them in terms of handing over some payola, because that is what this reminds me of – they want us to give up what is ours, and already, we have given up a whole lot, and in my case, almost my sanity.

So here we are, with these women picking on my elderly parents, and I already have my own words in a court of law in terms of another haole abusing them – it is not okay that they are doing this to my parents when my mom is so very sick. It is actually not okay at all, for any reason, or towards anyone, at all. 

And they did not care that she is as sick as she is, and I know that she is, because my father just texted me with her condition. She will not be home today. They are keeping her in hospital care, for however long she needs it.

And the managers here?

They told my dad, after heʻd told the assistant manager that my mother is so sick, and her words to him, exactly were “…and? WE feel you have had enough time…” without thinking that it costs a whole LOT to take care of someone like my mom. Her insurance is not covering all of it, and my father is retired, as is she, and so enter the rest of us.

The rest of us – my oldest son, my only daughter, my other half (in terms of someone being around at times for my dad to have someone who is NOT my 24 year old son…someone who understand what the man is going through…yes, my guy DOES) who are putting our time and energy into this project, and me who can barely afford this but who does not see the dollar amount and can only see her mother being so, so very ill…in fact the very sickest she has ever been in her entire life…in my entire life….48 years in 8 days.

Thatʻs a long, long time.

And when we gave these women this message, they were very condescending, very very…uncaring to the idea that here was this old man of 81 years whose entire life is now encased in the care and the worry that he is going through, and of course, he, too, wants her to have what she cannot have any other way than the way that it is being done at this time. At this time the work that is being done is being done as a labor of love. My parents have been through so much over the course of their almost 60 year marriage and in that time, I came along and I have been their warrioress, their Wahine Nui Loa, the one who came to their side, no matter what…every…single…time.

Now is not different. As long as they live and breathe, it will not ever be different. I will always be the one who champions them.

Always.

I have gone through so very much with them, for them, because of them. No. I do not owe them. I Am their eldest child, and in those terms, it is my Kuleana, as a Hawaiian person, to not allow ANYONE AT ALL to harm them.

My Kupuna would turn in their graves if I did not go to the mat for these people I call “Ma” and “Pops” and they would be disappointed in my lack of effort, in my lack of better use of my high IQ and my prowess for words and my gift towards research and my absolute power of communication and gathering the masses.

Then there is that whole….Kahuna thing. If there was ever one thing that my father told me, throughout my life, it is to NEVER LET MY GIFTS AND TALENTS BE AT WORK FOR EVIL, and this time, it is being used for the good of my mom and dad.

My mother has never ever been anything but lovely to one of these women, and the other woman has not ever even met my mom – all she knows is that I live here with them and that my mom is very, very ill, and to have these women who have no idea of who this lady is, and to hear them tell this lovely womanʻs husband that pretty much, he is not going to get to finish anything that has been started on behalf of this woman who he loves so very dearly much?

And now these women want to make it a big damned deal about this work-space being where it is, and they want to take it away – this, after everything that my father has done in his life, including, but never ever limited to the idea that he is helpful, offers help, and in return, people have been horrid to them?

This is my rallying cry – I am calling out to all my fellow Kanaka Maoli, and I am asking you all to please help me with this, because my mom is so sick, and my dad just wants her to have what we all feel she is due, which is a change of her surroundings. That we have not been able to do all of the work only points to the very obvious: That we are spending money on her health care, and we are being put to task by these two haole women who are somehow in the thought that they are able to enforce THEIR specific rule onto two lovely elderly Hawaiians.

And they call this place THE POMONA ISLANDER mobile home park….like there are no Hawaiians living in it or something – are you kidding me? LIKE I DONʻT KNOW THEM OR SOMETHING, and I promise I do. Once they see this?

They might want to dig an imu but….

What I would like to know is where it is written that since you are the manager of anything, that you have supreme rule and more than that – when was it okay that you would tell all of us that you do not want any problems with the residents, but, over whatever it is that you are doing this stuff for I do not know …you are not doing things the way that good humans do it.

I have to believe that you are lying, ladies, because the things that we have been told are things that you do not realize we are onto you.

At this time in our collective history, you would think that people would come together in a place like Pomona, and would deal with people – old non-white people, in a town which is 75% hispanic, let alone minority, period, and here are these two women who want us to believe that this is not about control and about power and these two are going to do whatever it is that they want to, all so that they can keep control, instead of what we all know they should do. Their excuses are many, but none of them hold water, and their reasons are completely unreasonable, simply because I have, personally, told THEM BOTH what is going on and the FACT that the movable work-space that is out in front of my parentsʻ house is somehow impeding THEIR lives.

We are being shown, at least in my opinion, the same thing that has gone on for a long time in the islands of my origin – that those who show up in the islands, since they believe themselves to be there because they were brought there by some outer force that is bigger and more holy than are any of these people who basically put food in their selfish pie holes (and while these two haoles pay no or reduced rent, while everyone elseʻs rents go up regularly….privilege? Wanna talk about it? Wanna hear my take on what I see from my brown side of the street in this very brown town, ladies, if I could dare to call either of you that?). We are, my ohana and I, being told that since it is that this paper that bears NO JUDGEʻS STAMP ON IT, and ONLY the very confused way these rules and regs were written, with ONLY THE OWNERSHIP IN MIND AND NOT ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT THE RESIDENTS….I would like to know when the hell it was that what we are doing for my sick mother here on this side of your version of a broke-ass orange-faced empire somehow makes your specific lives harder than any of the residents in this place, and residents who I have been told you do NOT want to have a problem with.

At the time that this was said to me, I took it as meaning that this manager of this place wanted to work with us all, namely when it is that you were, manager lady, told the things that were going on, that there was significant work needing to be done on this house, and how lovely is it that I have a son, a guy and a buncha young men who were ready to work.

I was wrong, apparently.

What you meant was that you did not want to have a problem with the residents understanding that you would get your way, no matter what, even if it means that you have to become abusive through means other than your own self, using only pieces of paper to make certain that you are right, because that is what this is about. What you meant was exactly what a dirty cop would mean when giving a directive masked as a question or statement. Unfortunately, you did not think for one moment that anyone who has lived in this place as long as my parents have would be connected with people who have some sort of pull.

That would be me.

I Am that person who is not going to allow other people to pick on other people, for whatever it is that they think they have reason or right to do so. You will no longer pick on my parents, and if the local government wants to get in on it, I invite them, all of them, to come and see what the hell I am talking about. And if you do not think that I do not know these locals in this town – do NOT forget that I am ordained, and as such, am a public figure with a whole lot of backing, namely in this town, because we here HAPPEN TO RESPECT PEOPLE, NAMELY HE ELDERLY.

The word is Abuelita and I DARE YOU BOTH to treat someoneʻs Abuela like you have been treating Kahakuʻs, Gracieʻs and Joshuaʻs Abuelita….their Makuahine….their Grandmother and their Grandfather.  I dare you, both of you haoles, to treat someoneʻs Abuela like you have chosen to treat my mother. You will find yourselves, may still well find yourselves, at the mercy of the local media…haha…of which I am part.

My mom asked for certain things to happen FOR HER BENEFIT, and my people chose to answer her call. It is not HER FAULT that she got sick, and you are choosing, outright, through your callousness and your words of attrition to people who you think you have some sort of control over, but you donʻt, to pick on an old man whose wife is very sick. Your power is just your perception, and what it really is is just my proof that I am right.

It is about money, about control and white privilege. Evidence is EVERYWHERE in this park, all the way down to the young helper named Isaac who is not exactly haole.

To all my Kanaka Maolis, and my Hawaiians at heart…

What I am saying to you all is that it is my opinion that the woman in charge of this place is using a piece of outdated paper to control the people who are employing her as well as the people who she is SUPPOSED TO PROTECT THE INTERESTS OF and she IS NOT. It bothers me a lot that right now that Mom does not get to come home today, there are people on this planet who, for whatever reason it is that they THINK they have the power to do, for every one of those people is a person like me who is not willing to fight.

I donʻt fight. I discuss.

If there is no discussion, and this woman, once it is that I go to her and give her MY terms, she will soon find out what it means when I state to anyone that “WHEREVER WE ARE, HAWAII IS THERE, TOO” meaning that the phrase UA MAU KE EA O KA AINA I KA PONO absolutely applies in this instance, because I am here protecting the land and the home that is my motherʻs from the threat of the work being done continuing on to be incomplete.

To allow that a piece of paper be the thing that overrides anything only tells me that there IS money involved. Money that I am prepared to pay, all to keep the work going, no matter how slow it has to go, because in this house we follow Hawaiian rules, and when Tutu Wahine is sick – THE WHOLE DAMNED HOUSE TAKES CARE OF HER, even in her absence and NAMELY WHEN SHE IS PROMISED THINGS – things that she so dearly wants. To tell her eldest grandson, my oldest child, that he cannot accommodate his Tutu Lady is when that boy turns deaf. And when that loving child turns deaf, it means that someone has been mean to one of the four women in his life, Selina not yet included (at least to my own seeing…of course it is too soon to state…keep reading please) – his mother, his sister, his auntie and hell yes – HIS GRANDMOTHER, Kahakuloa will do what Kahakuloa plans on, no matter what. 

It is the smallest price to pay, not just to get the work done for my parents but more – to reveal the truth, and the truth is that in my opinion, racism is alive and well in the hood, in Pomona, and I am made sick to my stomach by the very thought that they are actually thinking that they will get away with this privately.

To all my Kanaka Maolis from both sides of the ocean…please – share Unko Ronnieʻs and Auntie Sheilaʻs story.  These managers ought to be ashamed of themselves, choosing to pick on our Kupuna like this.

And hell yeah….Anyone Hawaiian knows better….my maiden name will be my legal name again, and my maiden name is SOARES….Portuguese….and in Hawaiian slang….PODAGHEE…and well, there is a reason WHY people who hail from Luso roots are accused of having PODAGHEE MOUTʻ

I will get my way, or, I will run my Podaghee moutʻ

Try test me…go…go try….

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