Relay: Need a Little More Aloha

A phrase came to my mind last week. I have not thought of this phrase in the six years since I moved back here to the East End, and yet there it was, quite unexpectedly. Before I tell you the phrase I need to give you a bit of background.

I grew up here on the East End, in Montauk and East Hampton. I graduated from East Hampton High School. My father chose to live out here because of the surf, moving to Montauk in the late ’60s to raise a young family. Both my parents were “military brats,” and they spent their formative years living in Hawaii, where my dad met my mother and also learned “the sport of kings,” surfing. My parents owned the first surf shop in Montauk in the early ’70s called He’e Nalu, before its time, as my father often says.

Growing up, the television show “Magnum P.I.” was a weekly highlight in our household due more to the scenery of palm trees and aloha shirts than for Tom Selleck’s cultured mustache and sweet car. Our family took only one “big” holiday and that was to Hawaii for three weeks. I had just started 10th grade. I fell in love with the place and dreamed of going back.

After I graduated I did a short stint in the Marine Corps, and when I was 19 that dream became reality and I spent my first winter in Hawaii. I ended up spending the next 20 years living on the islands.

Hawaii is known as the Aloha State. Aloha literally means “breath of life.” Locals will say aloha as a greeting and as a farewell or goodbye. Aloha is a way of living and treating each other with love and respect. The spirit of aloha permeates the culture, and is a driving force in government, business, and everyday island life. Aloha can be conveyed from a distance by a smile and a “shaka” — the shaka more commonly known here on the mainland as the “hang loose” symbol, formed by closing the hand then sticking out the pinky and thumb, giving a slight wave.

As a newcomer to the islands, aside from the incredible colors and tropical fragrances, you may feel overwhelmed by the number and combinations of vowels in the names of places and streets. The Hawaiian alphabet contains five vowels (A, E, I, O, U), seven consonants (H, K, L, M, N, P, W), and the ’okina, which is a backward apostrophe and signifies a slight break in the sound. There are other small nuances but when you see a word such as “humuhumunukunuku’apua’a,” “kalanianiole,” or “Kawaihau,” I think you may get my point. My first reaction to these strange words was to make fun of them in my own form of Hawaiian speak, “hawakahakahikihikiho, wikiwikitikitiki.” My father reprimanded me, “Learn to say the words correctly!” This was my first important lesson in aloha.

As much as the spirit of aloha permeates the Hawaiian culture, there is a very strong sense of localism that can at times be extreme. The first time Capt. James Cook, credited with “discovering” the Hawaiian Islands for the Europeans, came ashore, his arrival was celebrated. Cook and his men were lavished with gifts of food, crops, livestock, and women. Upon his return to the islands he was bludgeoned to death before he reached dry sand.

There is a Hawaiian word that encapsulates this localism and brings me to the phrase that inspired this narrative. The word itself is “haole,” pronounced in pigeon form “how-lee,” which literally means “no breath.” Traditionally this word was used to describe those of European descent or foreigners. Haole can be used in merely a descriptive manner or can be used as an ethnic slur.

The word implies that the foreigner is ignorant to local ways and literally has no spirit. This is quite the antithesis of aloha.

What I learned in Hawaii, often called the melting pot of the Pacific, is, aside from blood lineage, being local is not so much measured by length of time or ownership of property but by the degree to which one assimilates the spirit of aloha. As a newcomer, aloha starts with humility and respect. Not just respect for others, but respect for the “ ’aina” (meaning land, pronounced “I-na”). An awareness of one’s surroundings and a big smile go a long way.

So, in the words of the hugest Hawaiian in a crowded surf lineup, the phrase that resurfaced in my mind was “F’ing haoles, beat it!”

Have an aloha day.

Matthew Charron is The Star’s digital imaging specialist.