FACING UP TO CULTURAL STEREOTYPES
By JEFF GERE, printed in STORIES (Spring ’95)
The Western Storytelling Newsletter
For years I’ve been collecting and retelling true contemporary supernatural tales told to me by Seniors on Oahu. When I tell these stories, I sketch the setting and the tellers and ‘become’ them in gait and speech, using the local pidgin dialect. The stories, both funny and scary, remain popular here in Hawaii with all ages and varieties of ethnic audiences. And this collection keeps growing.
On a 1994 tour of Los Angeles with blind Hawaiian teller Makia Malo (survivor of Hanson’s Disease, or leprosy) our set with the Long Beach Storytellers closed with a question-and-answer period. In it, my right to tell these oral histories was questioned. A similar problem came up at the Pacific Islands Festival in Long Beach. At a Hawaiian Ho’olaulea Islander gathering at the Carson Civic Center, I stood backstage as Makia finished his set. The Hawaiian stage manager turned and asked me, “what you doin’ bruddah?” I replied, “I’m up next, gonna mo’olelo, tell stories.” “ Huh?" he siad. "You aint BROWN enough to talk here bruddah.” I was being held accountable for the grim white ‘haole’ history in Hawaii. Whites (me) came to Hawaii with our God, killed the whales, infected the people, grabbed the land and government, and got rich on sugar. I did that. I must face this history daily in Hawaii. I'm held accountable. Who ELSE can be held accountable? I understood. Hurt and offended, I turned and sat down. It’s amazing to me that I’m as welcomed and celebrated as I am as a storyteller in my island home, but not on the mainland by some whites and some browns.
So I started to think on this. Do I have a right to tell Hawaiian tales in Hawaii? Does one's ethnicity give one a right that excludes all others? Do people who live in Germany, or speakers of German, tell Grimm Fairytales better? I’ve seen tellers reinvent Anansi tales gleaned from a book, while I, sharing Hawaii’s contemporary folk tales shared with me, am looked upon with suspicion. Yet how else would you hear these stories? You would never hear the tales I tell from the original tellers: you’ve not earned the right. And they did share them with me.
Abby, an old woman in the Waimanalo Alu Like Meal Center told me a long story about a stone which changed its shape to prevent a murder. The context addresses cross-cultural love between a Hawaiian girl and a Japanese boy. Fascinating! While the woman spoke, I took a few notes. She noticed, asked, and I explained that these few words would help me remember her story. She paused, scowled, and finally said, “I no mind you tell da story, so long you tell ‘um right. Hell, da story gonna die wid me anyway- my kids no care- so you tell ‘um. But you gotta tell ‘um RIGHT.”
If it is not my place to tell these tales, if these stories were never meant to be told outside the family, then why do the Elders share them with me? I am not Hawaiian, but I feel myself to be a part of Hawaii. I’ve spent twelve years of adult life here. My friends are here. My children have no other home. I’ve been taught the cultural contexts by asking and reading and asking more. I’ve worked to understand. And I accept the stories shared with me as gifts. They’re just too good NOT to tell them, they're exceptional dramas, oral literature! They’ve gripped me and my audiences for years. ‘Culture’ is not simple or fixed. It is not nostalgic. Culture is what IS! It may be fixed behind glass in museums, or bound on shelves in libraries, but it sings and drives and swims on the streets. Culture is an active, breathing, living communal creation. I am proud and honored to share these tales.
And yet, I am NOT Hawaiian. There is an aspect, sensibility and orientation that is Hawaiian which I’ll never have, can never understand. I toured with Hawaiians for years, and I'm fine with this. Still, it’s the STORIES, the STORIES are so good and they’re NOT being told! And there’s that nagging, gnawing little voice which all crossers of cultures come to know if we’re honest with ourselves. It accuses me of trespassing, of putting on a grotesque parody, of being superficial, of being a predator, a shallow thief with a clever mouth. I'll NEVER be brown enough! Well, after a month with this nagging voice, I decided to go find out if it was true.
I returned to the Alu Like Native Hawaiian meal center, spoke of the Los Angeles trip, of the challenges to my telling, and that I‘d returned to get their opinion. I told them Abby’s tale, and she was there. When I finished, a heavy old Hawaiian man in the middle of the room stood up. “I dunno about everybody else, but as for me… YYEEAAHH! You go, bruddah! Dat was GOOD!” The Center’s director, to applause, asked me to come back monthly. Old women came up to give me leis. Abby beamed, stuck a paper with her phone number on it into my hand, and said, “I got A LOT o stories!” A frail, thin, white-bearded man took me outside and told me stories for over an hour. After each tale, he made me repeat the tale and list the tales he’d told me earlier. Why? To make sure I tell ‘um right.
I cannot change history, but I can add to it my own life’s tale. Yes, we storytellers should feel uncomfortable, should remain aware of ourselves as privileged guests when we venture into the narratives of other peoples. And we should work hard to understand these 'others' when we put their stories on our tongues. I celebrate the tales and tellers of Hawaii as performer, promoter, and public servant. It is one of the highest callings of my life. You're welcome. Aloha.
NOTE: I reviewed this article again in 2009. It was written in 1995. I made only minor changes- the points it presents still ring true. I still tell lots of true supernatural of Hawaii. I’m working on my 4th CD in the Haunted Hawaii Series.
