A Nation of Our Own, Spoken Poetry by Chris Oliveira

pupu-a-o-ewa-logoNative Hawai­ians have a rich oral tra­di­tion that spans over a thou­sand years. Our sto­ries are told in many forms: songs, chants, hula, leg­ends, ʻōle­lo noʻeau, and word play. Mod­ern Hawai­ians con­tin­ue our ancient tra­di­tion by weav­ing their sto­ries into beau­ti­ful spo­ken poetry.

Chris Oliveira is a flu­ent Hawai­ian lan­guage speak­er and a ded­i­cat­ed Hawai­ian activist. Hail­ing from the Waiʻanae Coast, he is the Vice Pres­i­dent and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Koa ʻIke, a com­mu­ni­ty non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that focus­es on place-based, ser­vice learn­ing edu­ca­tion­al ini­tia­tives and stu­dent exchanges.

First pub­lished in 2014 by Pūpū A ʻO ʻEwa, A Nation of Our Own is a pow­er­ful, provoca­tive lamen­ta­tion on the loss of our sov­er­eign­ty dat­ing to the 1893 U.S.-backed coup dʻe­tat that over­threw our indige­nous gov­ern­ment. Maha­lo nui, Chris.

Watch our inter­view with Chris

A Nation of Our Own, by Christophor Oliveira

When will there be an end to this occu­pa­tion, a nation of our own choosing

Imbed­ded in the pop­u­la­tion were wait­ing for retribution

Sus­pend­ed in ani­ma­tion by paper­work so confusing

Their faulty doc­u­men­ta­tions for fak­ing a revolution

Pre­tend­ed the annex­a­tion with a blem­ished joint-resolutions

The same old oper­a­tion they’ve been using since since back with Newlands

A gen­er­al paci­fi­ca­tion intend­ed as restitution

But we want repa­tri­a­tion and the rein­state­ment of our constitution

Now we con­tend with the aggra­va­tion, the sen­tence is destitution

With the falsest of alle­ga­tions imple­ment­ing our execution

We suf­fer from mass enslave­ment they prof­it off institutions

Were put in for mis­be­hav­ing, but their guiltʻs already been proven

Much more than edi­fi­ca­tion were offend­ed and disillusioned

So we focus on edu­ca­tion and noth­ing less for our future

Look to our past in admi­ra­tion in rev­er­ence for our kupuna.

Cred­its: Post­ed with per­mis­sion by Chris Oliveira. Per­for­mance record­ed by Lee­ward Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege Edu­ca­tion­al Media Cen­ter; inter­view video by Rok­ki Midro.

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