I cant tell you how many times I’ve picked up a “Hawaiian” story that reflects & affirms my experiences w/ trauma & come to find it was written by a non-Hawaiian. It is insulting to have our pain, as well as our healing, be leveraged as plot points that add “depth” & “intrigue.” https://twitter.com/pomaika__i/status/1299620534313861121

*that I thought would reflect, oops @ twitter editing

Most recently I had this experience w Sharks in the Time of Saviors. Damn did I want it to be “the great Hawaiian novel” or w/e it was billed as. But nope. The author wrote as if they were kanaka. That ruined it for me.

I wouldn’t pretend to know your community’s history with trauma. Why pretend to know mine? Clearly it’s for the money and the fantasy of it. People love to fetishize Hawai’i (& Natives in general) and a whole industry has cropped up around that.

For me this fetishization is extra personal when people learn about my family. The profiteering is never ending. “Have the Aloha Spirit, be like Duke, don’t complain about colonialism, it’ll scare the tourists.”

These tactics run deep. Stop telling our stories for us.

Check this thread for info on the many ways this writing is inaccurate. https://twitter.com/fangirljeanne/status/1299393600984199168