Our ongo­ing series on Native Hawai­ian and local Hawaiʻi writ­ers con­tin­ues this week with Adam Keawe Man­a­lo-Camp, the tal­ent­ed Native Hawai­ian writer and blog­ger. If you’re a reg­u­lar read­er of Ka Wai Ola O OHA, then you’ve no doubt read Adam’s won­der­ful­ly inter­est­ing, well-researched arti­cles about the his­to­ry and cul­ture of our people.

I’m a huge fan of your writ­ing, Adam. But for those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

The home­lands of my ances­tors are Hawai’i and the Philip­pines. My grand­moth­er grew up in Hon­okaʻa while my moth­er and I grew up in Kewa­lo with­in Papakōlea Hawai­ian Home­stead. My ʻiewe and piko are lit­er­al­ly buried at Papakōlea. I also spent a chunk of my life in the Philip­pines. As far as my research back­ground is most­ly in his­to­ry and anthropology.

Where did you grow up? What high school did you grad from?

I grew up with­in Papakōlea and am a prod­uct of Hawaiʻi’s pub­lic school sys­tem. I grad­u­at­ed from Roo­sevelt High School.

Who is your biggest supporter?

My hus­band. He’s been with me from the very begin­ning when I was get­ting my master’s in coun­sel­ing psy­chol­o­gy and veered off course to be a free­lance writer. The lat­ter and mar­ry­ing him were the best deci­sions I made (besides hav­ing kids)!

That’s awe­some. Why did you become a writer? What inspired you to write for children?

In gen­er­al, my ances­tors. But my moth­er always encour­aged me to write.

Why did you become a writer? What inspires you to write y0our posts and articles? 

I have always liked to write. The first time that a piece of mine was pub­lished was in the ʻŌʻi­wi Lit­er­ary Jour­nal, and I was grad­u­at­ing high school. The late Māhealani Dudoit had dis­cov­ered me through a long email chain where I was talk­ing about the impor­tance of King Kalākaua’s world tour of 1881. I was very self-con­scious because ofbe­ing māhū, neu­ro­di­verse, and hav­ing Eng­lish as my sec­ond language—Hawaiian was my first. Māhealani said she loved how unique my voice was and encour­aged me to keep writ­ing.  It took me a long time to real­ize that what I told in school were my weak­ness­es are actu­al­ly my strengths.

Then some eight years ago, I began writ­ing posts on social media and recent­ly my oth­er pieces and some of my research have appeared in Civ­il Beat, Ka Wai Ola o OHA, Nat­Geo, etc.

What do you enjoy most about writ­ing? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges in writ­ing your arti­cles and posts?

When I write posts, I think of them as love let­ters to my ances­tors and to my cul­ture. I do not have a social media cal­en­dar or plan things out. I write because some­thing inspires me to and I found a par­tic­u­lar top­ic inter­est­ing. I also write in hon­or of my grand­moth­er and moth­er who used to con­stant­ly fill my thoughts with sto­ries of their times and the times of the ances­tors. I know many Kāna­ka Maoli who read my posts may not have their kūpuna around or have been scat­tered through­out Tur­tle Island, and so I would hope some of my posts may be a small light to remind them of where they came from.

Social media can bring so much pos­i­tive atten­tion to indige­nous peo­ples but social media can also be chal­leng­ing. Some folx are on social media plat­forms sim­ply for clout or to attack peo­ple behind a wall of anonymi­ty. I try not to focus on those peo­ple but to focus on the folx out there who are search­ing for man­aʻo and want to engage in aloha.

I always learn some­thing new from your posts. What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your writ­ing career and what you would like to see pub­lished in the future?

I have a cou­ple of arti­cles com­ing out this year includ­ing pieces on Kao­mi. The pan­dem­ic sort of made me rethink my career and what I want to write about. I would want to write more local Fil­ipino and queer his­to­ries as well as more on Hawai­ian strug­gles from a his­tor­i­cal point of view. I would like to also write more fic­tion­al short stories.

I always ask the fol­low­ing of the writ­ers I inter­view: There are not a lot of sto­ries for local kids by local writ­ers. Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do to change that?

I think in gen­er­al there aren’t a lot of works for chil­dren by BIPOC writ­ers in gen­er­al. A lot I believe is the lack of access to pub­lish­ers as well as eco­nom­ic fac­tors. There are a lot of cre­ative Kāna­ka Maoli out there that I know of but due to the cost of liv­ing and oth­er expens­es, some see being cre­ative as a side has­sle as they feel that being cre­ative can­not sus­tain them finan­cial­ly. I myself would not know how to get start­ed in that field.

Do you have a web­site? Are you on social media? Do social media play a role for you as an author? Do your read­ers con­tact you? What do they say?

My link­tree is linktr.ee/adamkeawe That fea­tures links to some of my work and my blog. I got on Face­book about eight years ago, and on there I am admin for the Hawai­ian His­to­ry and Cul­ture group, which has 34,000+ mem­bers. Insta­gram I got on right before the pan­dem­ic and that is where I am more active. I also have Twit­ter but am not too active on there. All of my han­dles for my social media accounts are: adamkeawe.

In gen­er­al read­ers are sup­port­ive and engage in discussions.

What advice do you have for aspir­ing writers?

If your naʻau keeps push­ing you to tell a sto­ry, youʻre a writer. Nev­er be dis­cour­aged nor base your self-worth and your writ­ing on how many likes of fol­low­ers you have. In the end, you will con­nect with who you need to con­nect with.

Can you share a bit of your cur­rent work?

I have two pieces com­ing out soon. One is about Kao­mi and anoth­er is about my moth­erʻs best friend who was a transwoman in the 1970s.

What beliefs are your sto­ries challenging?

Patri­archy, set­tler colo­nial­ism, homo­pho­bia, racism, and anti-Semitism.

Where do you get your inspirations?

I draw a lot of my inspi­ra­tion from my ances­tors and talk­ing to oth­er Kāna­ka Maoli. But I also read oth­er writ­ers from var­i­ous gen­res includ­ing Joy Har­jo, Ninotsche Rosca, Noam Chom­sky, Langston Hugh­es, Audre Lorde, Stephen King, and so many oth­ers. Sci­ence fic­tion such as The Expanse, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Baby­lon 5 inspires me as well.

Your arti­cles and posts demon­strate a lot of research. Whatʻs your research process like? How long is your research for a typ­i­cal article?

Nor­mal­ly I have at least three sources per arti­cle. In social media posts, min­i­mum two.  Before I begin a major writ­ing assign­ment, I chant “E hōmai…” and ask to be guid­ed. I do the same pri­vate­ly before enter­ing a library or archives. I am mind­ful that research is cer­e­mo­ny and method­ol­o­gy is rit­u­al, and I try to bring that into what­ev­er I am work­ing on.

Have you ever con­sid­ered writ­ing a longer work, like a book or screenplay?

Yes. I would rather col­lab­o­rate though because of the time that it takes.

Can you share a bit about what you are work­ing on next?

I am col­lab­o­rat­ing with Kumu Lua Michelle Manu on a book about women warriors.

Women war­riors? I look for­ward to that. Adam, maha­lo nui for shar­ing your man­aʻo! To learn more about Adam Keawe, vis­it his Link­Tree.