Voices from the fringes: Traffic lights and railroad tracks

Most people outside the Hawaiian Islands probably only know Israel Kaanaoi Kamakawiwo’ole from his mashup of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What A Wonderful World”. But in his short life, he was celebrated in the islands for his artistry on the ukulele and for keeping alive Hawaiian traditional music.

The piece I’m giving you for National Poetry Month today is “Hawai’i ‘78”, a cut from his first solo album, Facing Future, released in 1993. That, in turn, was four years before his death at age . The song was written by a friend of Iz, Mickey Ionane; it speaks to the ties of native Hawaiians to their natural surroundings and the clash with Western modernization. This is a theme well known to native peoples subsumed by white European hegemony.

Here are the lyrics:

Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i
Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i

If just for a day our king and queen
Would visit all these islands and saw everything
How would they feel about the changes of our land

Could you just imagine if they were around
And saw highways on their sacred grounds
How would they feel about this modern city life

Tears would come from each other’s eyes
As they would stop to realize
That our people are in great, great danger now

How, would they feel
Could their smiles be content, then cry
Cry for the gods, cry for the people
Cry for the land that was taken away
And then yet you'll find, Hawai'i

Could you just imagine they came back
And saw traffic lights and railroad tracks
How would they feel about this modern city life

Tears would come from each other’s eyes
As they would stop' to realize
That our land is in great, great danger now

All the fighting that the king had done
To conquer all these islands now these condominiums
How would he feel if he saw Hawai'i nei

How, would he feel
Would his smile be content, then cry
Cry for the gods, cry for the people
Cry for the land that was taken away
And then yet you'll find, Hawai'i

Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i
Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i
Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i
Ua mau, ke ea o ka aina, i ka pono, o Hawai'i