Resolutions are for Cowards

Resolutions require resolve and that's where most of us go wrong. Horribly wrong. We flail, we lag, we lie to ourselves. Don't say, "I resolve to..." Your subconscious is already rolling on the floor laughing at you. With that said, here are three things that I have always wanted to get a handle on, so this year I have scheduled time (pay attention now) to get them done. And I have also set aside extra time to research best practices and life hacks because we need all the help we can get! (That and an excuse to peruse Pinterest, YouTube, and a billion online blogs in the name of research.)

So before I get cold feet, here they are, my three major life-changing projects of 2016.

1. Slay the budget monster in my head. You know, the one that says you lack the discipline to put together an emergency savings account and that only goddesses can budget to zero. More lies.

2. Home-cooked meals. And I don't mean Taco Night. I'm talking about hard-core stuff like monthly meal planning, bulk cooking, and clean your crock pot Gina because it will save your life stuff.

3. Organizing and executing a cleaning schedule with a little help from the keikis. This is revenge for them rating me a 10 on the pushover scale. I'm also lumping exercise into this project because I hear cleaning counts as aerobic activity. Not that I know much about that either.

Keepin it real moment. While it'd be cool to just write a post or two about each project and get move on to some other fun stuff , that too would be cowardly. No sweeping anything under the sofa here. Welcome to my hale where we learn from other people's #failwhales.

Due to my flagrant use of Pidgin English at random moments, I'd like to recommend Pidgin to Da Max, a humorous look at our beloved island lifestyle and language. They're also a lot of online blogs that take the outside in point of view like dis one. And you intellectual types might appreciate this primer ova hea.

And because I hate those random, creepy ads that pop up all over the place on other blogs, these are not affiliate links. No money is being made here, at least not by me. But, if you like what you see and wanna PayPal some love dis way, shoot me an email for more info.

Chicken Skin

You know that feeling you get when you feel a breeze touch the back of your neck? And then you realize that you're alone, the window is shut and the fan is off. That prickly feeling all over your body. That's chicken skin.

Hawai'i is full of mysteries, ghost stories, and stuff you too scared to talk about. Ancient warriors marching through the valley. Stone statues that move in the night. Don't blink.

That's one thing I never understood about mainland TV shows and movies. What's with all the sitting around the campfire waiting for something to come out of the woods? Don't you people know better than to test the unknown? Ghost Busters was a comedy. The ghosts were funny. The guys were funny. Real life is not funny.

Ghost stories have their purpose. Parenting by fear. Cars that stall on a highway because you tempted fate. If you hear them marching, fall to the ground and hide your face in the dirt. You are not worthy to see them. Wait until all you hear is your heart pumping ice through your veins and your breath is so shallow you gonna pass out. Then wait some more.

Try chance em.
Shoots brah!

Famous last words of daredevils. No way bruddah. Not me. I have chicken skin because I am chicken. I wanna live. Ghost stories in Hawai'i are what haoles call urban myths, but ours are based on history. History is fluid. We know what we know until we figure out that we were wrong.

So how you know dey not real? 

Safer to believe that they are and respect history than tempt fate.

Back in the Saddle

What do your parents always tell you after you fall?  Get up!  Don't give up.  So after a long moment of silence, we're back.  I must give props to where they are due.  I have been a fan of Ree Drummond's blog, The Pioneer Woman for some time now.  Not that I am a great cook or anything, I just love to watch other people cook.  Ask the keikis, they'll tell you.  I am the master of the three ingredient meal.  Pasta, sauce, and cheese please.  Peanut butter, jelly, and bread.  You get it.

But Ree makes it all looks so simple.  Blogger, writer, accidental country girl.  So, why not me?  Cue cheesy Sound of Music track.  At this point my self-esteem was channeling Sally Fields anyway. "Yes, you really do like me!"

Then there are all my Facebook friends from the YKYFHW page.  Yup.  That's code for, "You Know You From Hawai'i When..."  We fill that up all day with pictures of our favorite foods, places, and have long conversations about all kinds of stuff.  People from Hawai'i love to talk story.  Most of us are living here on the Mainland (that is what we call the continental United States.)  Some are living in other countries.  All of us take time from our daily lives to bust out da pidgin English and hug it out over the Internet.

So armed with my new found inspiration, I decided to get back on the carousel.  Honestly, I have ridden an elephant at the circus, but never a real, live pony.  And frankly, after seeing the unthinkable at the Little Rock Zoo, I don't want to get near a horse (mare or otherwise) for a long, long time.  And the elephant thing, well, you don't forget that experience too soon either.  It is very sensory, if you know what I mean.

I hope you like the redesign.  Just trying to keep it fresh.  We have a lot of catching up to do so hold on to your seats.  The holidays are my favorite time of year.  There are so many wonderful traditions to share with you from small kid time.  And, now that we live Little Rock, we have even more goodies to share.

Until next time, peace, love, and Alooohaaa!

What is high school for?

First read Seth's blog:

What's high school for?

Perhaps we could endeavor to teach our future the following:

• How to focus intently on a problem until it's solved.
• The benefit of postponing short-term satisfaction in exchange for long-term success.
• How to read critically.
• The power of being able to lead groups of peers without receiving clear delegated authority.
• An understanding of the extraordinary power of the scientific method, in just about any situation or endeavor.
• How to persuasively present ideas in multiple forms, especially in writing and before a group.
• Project management. Self-management and the management of ideas, projects and people.
• Personal finance. Understanding the truth about money and debt and leverage.
• An insatiable desire (and the ability) to learn more. Forever.
• Most of all, the self-reliance that comes from understanding that relentless hard work can be applied to solve problems worth solving.

So now the question is...How to start teaching the basic skills in a simpler form to elementary and middle school students so that they can build on what they have learned once they get to high school...

Regarding the drop out rate...a band aid on an arterial bleed will not be effective.  Keeping the knife (societal dangers and influences) out of the reach of children while stopping the most insidious form of child abuse (negative parental influences) is step one. You cannot water a plant growing in toxic soil and expect it to flourish simply because you have given it nourishment.  Solutions must address family groups and not just the children. 

Think prevention vs triage.  Preparation for greatness is a lot easier to teach vs treating the effects of long-term exposure to hate and discrimination.

I believe that any group working with young people needs to take a long, hard look at Seth's blog and ask themselves...

The Numbers Game

Something interesting landed in my inbox today.  Read it first and then see my thoughts below.

HispanicAd Newsletter

Hispanics Account for More than Half of Nation's Growth in Past Decade

The 2010 Census counted 50.5 million Hispanics in the United States, making up 16.3% of the total population. The nation's Latino population, which was 35.3 million in 2000, grew 43% over the decade. The Hispanic population also accounted for most of the nation's growth—56%—from 2000 to 2010.

by Jeffrey S. Passel, Senior Demographer, Pew Hispanic Center D’Vera Cohn, Senior Writer, Pew Research CenterMark Hugo Lopez, Associate Director, Pew Hispanic Center

To read more and download report CLICK on link below;
<http://www.HispanicAd.com> 

The definitions that follow are from www.pewhispanic.org to clarify their use of these terms in their reports and studies.

The terms “Latino” and “Hispanic” are used interchangeably. The terms “white,” “African American” and “black” are used to refer to non-Hispanics who identify themselves in those racial categories.  The terms “immigrant” and “foreign born” are used to refer to any person who was born outside the United States its territories or possessions regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.  

See the link below to understand how the U.S. Census Bureau defines the terms Hispanic and Latino.


 http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=111

So now you know...you're not what you eat...you are what you SAY you are...shocking! 


Here's what I thought when I first read that email...


My children are Japanese-American-Mexican.  They are generally assumed to be Hispanic.  I am Japanese-American (or American of Japanese decent depending on your semantic preference.)  If you don't know me or my family you probably don't know that I speak Spanish until the kids start acting crazy and I have to dress them down privately in public.  You might even think I babysit a lot since on first glance they don't look a whole lot like me.   Funny thing is that I am often assumed to be tri-lingual because every Asian person speaks their native language.  And for the record, mine is English since like Mr. Springsteen I was born in the USA.  


If you must dig up a third language I would make a case for Pidgin English except that after 12 odd years in Arkansas there is very little opportunity to "talk story" with folks from back home and I am rusty at best.  It has always been a personal disappointment of mine that I not only do not speak or write Japanese, I still do not do very well with chopsticks either.


I have been told on several occasions that I am Hispanic regardless of my ethnic background because ANYONE can choose to be Hispanic or Latino.  Now considering my family and my involvement in the Hispanic community I can see why they would make that suggestion.  But, if I was not Hispanic for the first thirty odd years of my life, I wonder how many of those participating in the 2010 Census chose like me to be Hispanic now?  


My parents were of the WWII mindset.  They encouraged their children to speak English not Japanese and to embrace the American culture.  Thankfully they lived in Hawai'i and were not incarcerated in the internment camps for Japanese-Americans on the Mainland.  The impression of those times still remains.  Don't stick out, don't be different.  You already look different.  Don't act different.


The Hispanic culture flies in the face of that old advice.  While Asians go out of their way to assimilate and learn the cultures and languages of those around them, (just go to any Chinese restaurant here and you'll see that the employees also speak a few words in Spanish to make their Latino customers feel welcome too)...Latinos on the other hand, go out of their way to preserve their unique heritage and bring their culture to where they live.  Mi casa es su casa in the literal sense.  What's mine is yours but what's yours should also be mine, no? Close your eyes as you walk into your neighborhood Mexican store, cross the threshold and you're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy.  Everything from the funky paint job to the smell of the laundry detergent transports you to Mexico.   


So how accurate is the data that tells us about the rapid growth (or coming out of the closet) of the Hispanic population?  How much of this information is data manipulation? And to serve what purpose?  To divide a nation already hysterical about losing its national identity?  To fuel the racial fire because we finally have an African-American President born in Hawai'i no less?  The country that celebrated Mandela while saying, "not in my backyard" has a lot to think about.


My husband and his brothers turn a lovely amber shade when out in the sun.  Several of their family members are naturally dark-skinned because of their Indio ancestors while others are equally light-skinned because of their Spanish heritage.  The same goes for my brother-in-law who happens to be Filipino.  Three of my kids have olive skin and turn quite dark when in the Easy Bake oven of our Southern summers while the other two are pale like an English rose.  The light-skinned boy is called Chinese, and the darker boy is called Mexican, but guess which one speaks better Spanish... 


None of this is new to us.  African-American children have been dealing with these issues for generations.  We know where segregation, mixed marriages,  and racial slurs take us yet we continue to reinvent the wheel for lack of imagination.  Maybe it's time for a true innovation in racial relations.  Do Asian-Indian children escape these issues because of American fascination with Bollywood?  Doubt it.


A recent viewing of CSI showed a non-stereotypical Indian boy admitting to his father that he will never be an Engineer because he is an academic failure.  I remember students in Japan committing suicide when they failed to pass exams.  That really put a damper on my academic pressure cooker.  Remember that thanks to Samurai culture, suicide doesn't bear the same stigma in Japan as it does here. 


So where do we go from here?  I keep looking in the mirror but that view is not changing anytime soon.  One of my favorite young people is Miranda Cosgrove who has a decidedly cosmopolitan look.  It's not easy to peg her ethnicity which is precisely my point.  She's an all-American gal born in Cali but could you picture her in a rice paddy in South-East Asia?  How about as a European princess?  She's attractive and talented but how many of you guessed Armenian, Italian, Irish, Russian, Welsh?


As the rest of America catches up to the ethnic melting pot that is Hawai'i, we need to re-examine our priorities.  By demanding "English-only" or saying "no English, no service" where are we heading?


How important are the Census numbers?  And when will everyone admit that bi-racial or multi-racial is not all about black and white?  What would you do if they took your usual choice away?  Did you notice how the Pew Hispanic Center says Black and White refer to non-Hispanics but the U.S. Census makes you choose an ethnic category and then asks if you are Hispanic or not?  My husband's relatives put White regardless of their skin color.  And if they took the Asian option away, I would choose Black because that is where I feel at home.  There is no wannabe here because as much as I may wannabe White or Black, I simply am not.  So until "kama'aina" becomes a category I am what I am...Asian-American Hispanic, from Hawai'i but not Hawai'ian.


Love and Aloha to all...

Are your filters clogged?

What images come to mind when you think about filters?  Your morning cup of java juice?  The air-conditioner that died this summer because you forgot to change the filter?  Or, more like you never cleaned the other filter that you never knew existed because it was under the house buried in mud because your neighbor's run-off runs under your house.  That's more like it!  NOT!!!

Filters are our lenses through which we view the world.  Some call them our sunglasses.  They protect us from the things we don't want to see.  Funny thing is that most of us aren't even aware of them.  It's like the 900lb gorilla sitting on your back that keeps you from getting up to do what's really important.  You feel him, but you don't see him, so he can't be there.

One of my first impressions of Little Rock was how little things were...the airport, the freeway, the buildings. I looked long and hard for a skyscraper, a mountain, snow.  It was autumn and everything was dead, brown and shriveled up.

Then I realized there was a polarization thing going on.  I thought back to watching Archie Bunker, Chico and the Man, and Good Times.  I wondered...was that for real?  No way, right?  That was TV drama. They blow stuff up larger than life so people laugh harder.  Or do they?

When you live in the islands, you see a lot of different faces.  You label people and they label you. You laugh, joke, tease, but you don't kill them for looking different.  On June 19, 1982, Vincent Chin was beaten with a baseball bat outside a McDonald's in Detroit by Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, two laid off auto workers.  Ebens and Nitz blamed competition from Japan for their problems.

The real problem was that Vincent Chin was American.  And, he was Chinese, not Japanese.  I remember seeing the news reports and being afraid.  Sure, it was on the Mainland, thousands of miles away from Hawai'i, but hate crimes have a chilling effect of the soul.  If you are Japanese, you remember the internment camps of WWII and learn about reparation.  If you grow up in Hawai'i, you learn how social injustice is woven into the fabric of American history.  You learn about the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, the Civil Rights movement, and hopefully, about Vincent Chin.

His case became a lesson in social justice even though justice was never served and Vincent died from his injuries on June 23, 1982.  Asians are often overlooked here in Arkansas because so much attention is focused on African-Americans and Hispanics.  The fact that Asians are such a diverse group hailing from countries such as China, Japan, Korea, Turkey, India, Thailand, and the Philippines to just name a few, is more reason for us to make our voices heard.  Unlike Hawai'i where mixed raced children are common. Here they can be treated as seconds (a retail term for defective merchandise.)

So what can we do to unclog that filter?  How can we change the way we view the world? And is it even possible to influence the way the world sees us?

From da Rock to Little Rock

Thirteen years ago I made the leap of faith, or madness as it may be to relocate to Little Rock, Ark from sunny Honolulu, HI.  Growing up I often dreamed of the day I would venture off da rock (think volcanic rock)...who knew what adventures one could encounter in the bipolar regions of the Bible Belt.

Over time I've accumulated a wealth of stories, overheard amazingly stupid comments, and been at the giving & receiving end of much joy and personal growth.  These slivers & screen shots of life demand to be heard  and so this blog is born to encourage you to create, grow, and learn from what is transpiring here in Central Arkansas.

If you need a primer of Pidgin English as spoken in the Islands, may I suggest "Pidgin to da Max" on Amazon or YouTube.  That will warm you up.  If you're from Hawai'i, for the record I went to Kaimuki High.  Don't bother asking what year.  The keikis still think I am 27 & we're not blowing that illusion here.

I am a mother of 5 Japanese-Mexican kids so if you need a Spanish primer, download the app.  I am sure there is one out there to translate Arkie too so ya might as well get 'er while you're there.

If you've got thin skin and don't appreciate bitingly sarcastic humor- leave now & don't look back.  If you're not sure what that means- Google "Frank DeLima" and see that people can be really funny, make racial jokes, get along while having mixed marriages & multi-racial children, and still be known as the Aloha State.

Love, peace, & sushi for all!