Precis

“Hawaii is being sold to the global elite. It's not give and take. It’s just take, take, take, take.” - Filmmaker Chris Kahunahana.

“They took it away in three generations. We’re going to get it back in one. Whatever it takes." - Waterman Pomai Hoapili.

It’s a slice of paradise for some but behind the postcard façade, native Hawaiians have a different story to tell. 

Theirs is a struggle for land, language and culture, forcibly taken from them by the United States of America.

Housing prices in Hawaii were already sky high, but in the midst of the pandemic they exploded as mainland Americans bought up island boltholes. The housing crisis is hitting native Hawaiians hardest, forcing many out of their own homes. The state of Hawaii now has the third highest homeless rate in the USA.

This is one of many problems facing native locals who are fighting to ʻKeep Hawaii Hawaiian’.

Reporter Matt Davis visits the Hawaiian Islands to hear from the people fighting to keep their culture alive. In a visually stunning journey, Davis explores the lives of people on the frontline of this modern-day native Hawaiian renaissance.

“Resistance is not only how we get our land back,” says school principal Kalehua Krug. “But it is also medicine – that resistance is how we heal.”

At his school on the island of Oahu, the curriculum focuses on rediscovering the modern story of Hawaii after the kingdom was overthrown in 1893. The students study the Hawaiian language, hula dancing and other cultural practices alongside the mainstream curriculum.

Davis takes a tour around the back streets of Waikiki with celebrated filmmaker Chris Kahunahana, the first native Hawaiian to direct a feature film.

“Hawaii was seen as Hollywood’s back drop. It served as a beautiful location for a Caucasian centred hero,” he tells Davis.

His movie Waikiki shows the darker side of these tropical islands – the reality for many native Hawaiians.

Davis visits the powerhouse community leader Twinkle Borge who has set up a permanent camp to provide shelter for Hawaiians who are sleeping rough. She reveals an extraordinary plan to reclaim land and build a village for her community.

And he goes out on the jet ski with waterman Pomai Hoapili in the middle of the world's most famous surfing competition –the Pipeline Pro.

Between surfing on the North Shore and rescuing people caught in the giant waves, Pomai has enrolled in Hawaiian language classes. He practices speaking with his 10-year-old daughter, who’s also learning.

He says it’s urgent for native Hawaiians to practice their culture.

“Be Hawaiian, speak Hawaiian live Hawaiian…If we stop down the line, people stop talking about us, we disappear...we’ve got to keep practicing.”

In Hawaii to compete in the Pipeline surfing competition, the world’s most famous  surfer Kelly Slater asks the world to pay respect.

“Everyone who comes Hawaiian should, should take care of this place and really respect the culture and the locals,” says Slater. “It's their home and it's your place to visit, but, you know, take care of it and look after it and ever one can enjoy it.”

Episode teaser

Music

00:10

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Welcome to Hawaii. The home of aloha, and the birthplace of surfing. It's a slice of paradise for some, but behind the postcard façade, native Hawaiians, the Kanaka Maoli, have a different story to tell.

00:12

CHRIS KAHUNAHANA: Hawaii is being sold to the global elite. It's not give and take, it's just take take take take.

00:32

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: It's a struggle for land, language, and culture – forcibly taken from them by the United States of America.

KALEHUA KRUG: This is a theft – premediated, systematised theft.

00:39

KALILI: We do not consider ourselves American. We are not going to be quiet.

00:51

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: We meet people determined to right these wrongs, and keep Hawaii Hawaiian.

00:55

POMAI:  They took it away in three generations. We're going to get it back in one.

01:02

Music

01:06

TWINKLE BORGE: This is our home, we are here.

01:09

Title:
Keep Hawaii Hawaiian

Music

01:13

Billabong Pro pipeline event. Super:
North Shore, Oahu

01:18

Matt at surfing event. Super:
Matt Davis
REPORTING

Matt: "It is on fire."

Beach commentator: "Day number one of the Billabong Pro pipeline event  – 13 mins 25 seconds remaining..."

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: In the place where surfing began, the most famous all of competitions is underway on the north shore – the Pipeline Pro.

Beach commentator: "Whoa - check out this energy – it is pumping pipeline.

01:26

Jack Robinson 100%

JACK ROBINSON: "Day one – pipeline is turning on."

01:52

Robinson surfing pipeline

Beach commentator: "Jack Robinson from Western Australia falls from the sky…"

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Among the favourites is

01:53

Slater takes to water

11-time world champ, American, Kelly Slater.  He turns 50 next week.

02:01

Beach commentator: "Sensei Slater does it again."

02:16

Slater interview on beach

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: You got your big birthday coming up in a few days. Do you think this could be you birthday present?

02:19

KELLY SLATER: It already is, it already had been. These waves...

02:24

Seth Moniz surfing

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: For Hawaiian surfers like Seth Moniz, it's a chance to shine on home turf in the sport these islands gifted to the world.

SETH MONIZ: It's a great honour obviously.  I am a native Hawaiian. I have Hawaiian blood so that is very special to me.

02:29

Moniz interview

My whole family, friends, cousins, they've all been coming down and supporting, so it's awesome.

02:43

Commentator: "We are so grateful to kick off the competition here, in Hawaii, the birthplace of surfing."

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: The women are tackling pipeline for the first time in competition, and the Hawaiians are leading the charge.

02:49

Carissa Moore with fans

None more so than Hawaii's queen of surfing, five time world champ Carissa Moore.

03:03

Moore into water. Female fan on beach

FEMALE FAN: She is just awesome. We can actually watch women go out there, which really inspires people like me who surf.

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: You do? Have you ever been out there at pipeline?

FEMALE FAN: No! I'm not doing that yet, no.

03:09

Surfers at pipeline

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: The winter swells of the Pacific Ocean peak at this time of year. In a matter of hours the wave size can go from playful to life threatening.

03:20

Davis to camera on beach

It is absolutely massive out there at pipeline. They must be twenty foot faces that the surfers are tackling right now. We're seeing broken boards, but thankfully not too much damage to the surfers themselves.

03:34

Hawaiian water patrol

The Hawaiian water patrol behind me, they've got this show on lock.  It doesn't matter how big it is, they're out there sorting it out, keeping everyone safe so this contest can keep on going.

03:49

Pomai on jet ski

POMAI: Most of the time it's just like broken leashes, broken boards. We had like six or seven broken boards today. It's pretty gnarly when it's rugged out there.

40:2

Pomai on beach

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Born and bred on Oahu's north shore, Pomai Holapili is a member of the Hawaiian water patrol. POMAI: None of our crew got injured,

04:11

Pomai interview

so everybody gets to go home in their own car, not in an ambulance.

04:20

Beach and surfing GVs

Music

04:26

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Here, surfing and the ocean is about much more than a multi-billion dollar industry – it's the root of Hawaiian culture. For hundreds of years Hawaiians – even their kings and queens – surfed on wooden boards like these.

04:42

Pomai shows wooden surfboard

POMAI:  These are like recycled boards. These are some of the boards I make – old school style. Back in the day they were all one piece, like 22 feet long. What is that? Seven metres.

04:58

Woman surfing

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: The most revered practitioners of this ocean culture are known as the water men and women of the islands.

05:15

Pomai paddles and surfs

POMAI: What makes a good water man or a water woman to me if I had to put a type of word to it, I would say gracious in the ocean, and on land too. Culminating that into your life to where everything seems like surfing, or like flowing. And that is the ultimate goal.

05:26

Photo. Duke Kahanamoku

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: That flow was best exemplified by Duke Kahanamoku, the father of modern surfing.

05:52

Cinesound newsreel

Newsreel: "At Bondi Beach, we have a welcome visitor, Duke Kahanamoku. Last time he came to Australia he introduced the surfboard to this country from his native Hawaii. How much pleasure the sport you introduced has brought to countless Australians."

06:00

Photos. Kahanamoku

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Duke's aquatic prowess crossed from the ocean to the Olympic swimming pool, where he won three swimming gold medals for the United States. Almost 100 years after his success,

06:18

Photo. Tokyo 2020 Olympic buoy

surfing made its debut in the Tokyo Olympics.

06:31

Photos. Moore competing for USA

The women's gold medal was won by Hawaii's Carissa Moore.  Unlike in pro surfing, Hawaiians at the Olympics compete under the American flag – for many a reminder of deep historical grievances.

06:34

Carissa Moor mural

POMAI:  It was huge. Yeah. It was a big deal in Hawaii. People were talking about it like you didn't give us the flag. Everyone knows she is still Hawaiian.  

06:49

Pomai interview

We are our own country. There is no annexation treaty. Like we are actually our own sovereign nation illegally occupied by the United States of America.

06:59

Onipa'a march, Honolulu

Music

07:11

HEALANI : January 17th, 1893 was the day that we lost our

07:29

Healani interview. Super:
Healani Sonoda-Pale
Onipa'a Peace March Organiser

status as an independent Hawaiian nation. We were invaded by the US, and it was a small group of American businessmen that overthrew our peaceful nation and imprisoned our queen in her own palace. This whole history has been hidden from our people, it was part of the Americanisation, colonisation of Hawaii. A lot of us grew up not even knowing about the overthrow.

07:34

Statue of queen/March to palace

Music

07:59

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: These annual marches to Iolani palace began in 1993, on the 100th anniversary of the queen's overthrow.  They were led by the iconic activist, the late Haunani-Kay Trask.

08:05

Archival. Trask addresses march. Super:
1993

HAUNANI-KAY TRASK: "The Americans my people, are our enemies. And you must understand that – they are our enemies. They took our land, they imprisoned our queen, they banned our language. We are not American, we are not American, we are not American. We are not American. Say it in your heart, say it when you sleep. We are not American; we will die as Hawaiians. We will never be Americans."

08:19

Kalehua addresses march

KALEHUA KRUG: "I would like to believe that when she spoke those strong words that shook me inside, that we are not American, that she meant that we are a people who don't abandon the natural laws of our island.

08:57

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Kalehua Krug is a community leader and a school principal.

09:12

KALEHUA KRUG: Resistance is not only how we get our land back. Definitely the seeds that we plant, through resistance, are going to get us

09:18

Kalehua interview

control, political control back of our lands. But it is also medicine, that resistance is how we heal.

09:25

Dole plantation

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Queen Liliu'okalani was overthrown by the plantation oligarchs, known as the big five. They transformed the islands into farms to mass produce sugar and fruit.

09:33

Pearl Harbor

Over the decades, Hawaii was also becoming increasingly important as a strategic base, and in 1959 became the 50th state of the USA. This triggered a boom in tourism; today Hawaii's largest source of income.

10:07

Waikiki beach GVs

Waikiki beach is the jewel in the crown of tourism. Every year millions of visitors descend on this piece of sand for their taste of paradise. But at the edge of this playground is a different reality.

10:25

Women dance for tourists

10:51

Waikiki film trailer

This flip side is what indigenous filmmaker

11:02

Chris in car

Chris Kahunahana wants the world to see.

11:06

CHRIS KAHUNAHANA: Waikiki is a story about contemporary Hawaii. Initially, for the film industry, Hawaii was seen as Hollywood's back drop. It served as a beautiful location for a Caucasian centred hero. They shoot here, but the stories weren't created here, they weren't about here.

11:11

Waikiki GVs

They were just using here as an exotic location that is prettier than Detroit for instance, right. The world is starting to understand the value of authentic stories, right. People are getting tired of seeing the same old shit.

11:34

Kids in car

Kid: Yes sir – what y'all  filming for, what is this?

Matt: ABC Australia.

Kid: YouTube?

Matt:  ABC Australia. Television.

Kid: I can't even hear you.

Chris: YouTube.

Kid: YouTube. Yes sir, put me in that! Hawaii!

Chris: Hawaii. Have a beach!

11:51

High rise buildings, Waikiki

Music

12:13

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: The price of land has been rising steadily over the past decade. It shot up even higher during COVID as mainlanders bought island getaways.

CHRIS KAHUNAHANA: Hawaii is being sold to the global elite. Hawaiians and the local population are

12:18

Chris and Matt driving around Waikiki

competing against unlimited funds from everywhere. It is always ranked one, two, or three as the most expensive place to live in the United States. So it's either New York, San Francisco or Hawaii. It fluctuates, but at least in San Francisco you've got the tech industry, and in New York it's media. I mean it's fucking New York.

12:37

How are we supposed to compete against that. What kind of jobs are we supposed to have? Unfortunately, the only jobs that they provide for people in Hawaii is tourism jobs which are like servant jobs, right. It's like you're servicing a population, providing them with entertainment and an experience. It makes you like a servant to the system. It's like you can't live outside that system without land.

12:58

MATT DAVIS, Reporter:  You talk about Hawaiians not being able to afford here. What happens if Hawaiians can't live here?

13:35

CHRIS KAHUNAHANA: Without Hawaiians, is it really Hawaii? It's not. And the powers that be, they don't give a shit.

13:41

People living in tents on sidewalk

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: The housing affordability crisis is driving a homeless epidemic. The state has one of the highest per capita rates of homelessness in the US. Native Hawaiians have been hardest hit. It's hard to go anywhere on the island of Oahu and not encounter the problem.

13:47

Chris takes Matt to boat harbour camp

So I notice here in Hawaii no one says homeless. They say houseless.

CHRIS KAHUNAHANA: If you're displaced it is not like you don't belong here. When you say they are homeless, it's like they don't have a home. They actually have a home. The fact they can't afford to purchase a house, I mean it's still their home.

14:07

Music

14:27

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: A short drive from Waikiki is the Waianae boat harbour. Here, a community of houseless Hawaiians are tackling the crisis together.

14:46

Matt walks with Twinkle

Twinkle Borge is the camp's matriarch.

TWINKLE BORGE:  So, at night when you come in, we do have security, we do have security that sits here. This is Herman, he is the head of my security.

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Herman – nice to meet you. You're looking after the place at night?

HERMAN: Yeah.

14:56

Man walks playing ukulele. Camp GVs

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: This is Pu'uhonua O'Wainae. Pu'uhonua means 'place of refuge'.

15:21

TWINKLE BORGE:  I've been here since all the way back to 2004. At that time there were only seven of us. And as people started coming with family, I would just give away my camp, because my thing was I didn't want to see the kids stressing, I didn't want to see them sleeping on the ground.

15:27

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Twinkle transformed that makeshift camp into something more permanent. Today, around 250 people live here.

15:44

Twinkle shows home

TWINKLE BORGE:  This is my bedroom. That actually works. This is our home, you know.  We don't have that privilege of going in and turning on our lights, or flicking on that pipe to turn on our water. We have generators. We bring in our own water.

15:59

Man carting water

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Got to get the water every day, yeah?

MAN: Yeah.

16:23

Couple in camp

MAN 2: Only thing I don't like is the bugs. I hate bugs!

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: How long have you guys been living here?

WOMAN: 10 years.

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: You feel safe here?

WOMAN: Oh, yes.

16:36

John Isaac in camp

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: 22-year-old John Isaac moved here four years ago.

JOHN ISAAC: My parents actually moved in before I did. I was living on my own already. But the house I was living was getting evicted so I never like to be a burden to them.

16:51

Man playing ukulele

17:09

John Isaac with his mother

MOTHER: Welcome to Hawaii! Aloha. My son, I got four – and he is one of them that stays at the front with the frontline. Mumma Twinkles team.

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Twinkles team?

MOTHER:  Yes – we all are. Every single one of us in here. She is just one of those that is willing to be the spear, the head of that spear.

17:13

Twinkle assisting residents

TWINKLE BORGE: I always ask myself what can I do? How can we get them help? What can we do for them? I’m not saying that we are not 100 per cent the solution, but we are part of that solution.

17:41

Drone shot. School

music

17:58

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Kanaka Maoli Hawaiians are looking to themselves for solutions; the classroom is ground zero.

18:09

Kalehua at school/Hawaiian dancing class

Kalehua Krug is the principal at Ka Waihona O Ka Na'auao, a charter school that focusses on reviving Hawaiian culture.

18:17

KALEHUA KRUG: When you give history to them at a young age, when you give culture and ceremony and language to them at a young age, they don't have to feel the loss like we did.

18:28

Kalehua interview

You know, they don't have to take that punch in the gut that we had to had to take as a generation of natives in this time period. For them, it's hopefully lessening the load or the intergenerational trauma that they have to bear.

18:36

We still believe in the sciences; we still believe in physics and engineering, we still believe in mathematics – as long as the ethics that come from the wisdom of our ancestry are attached to them.

18:58

Helicopters and planes at military base

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: In the valley behind the school is one of several US military bases. The students regularly hear the sound of bombing from over the range.

19:13

KALEHUA KRUG: We tell them, did you hear that. Do you feel that in your stomach? Because I felt it in my stomach, it was like an earthquake.  We can't keep letting it happen without feeling the pain that the earth is feeling, that the land is feeling. We have military families and their children here, so we're not necessarily preaching demilitarisation, but we're teaching you to see that as wrong.

19:24

Desecration of land is wrong.

19:52

Kaena Point Space Force Station

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Since the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom, the US armed forces have always had a presence in Hawaii.

19:58

Davis to camera outside US base

Pearl Harbor may well be the most famous military base here in Hawaii, but their reach extends much further. Across the island of Oahu, the military occupy more than 20 percent of the land. That's in a place where land is pretty hard to come by.

20:07

Adding insult to injury, the US navy recently admitted to leaking jet fuel into Oahu's fresh water supply, putting at risk around 400,000 people who rely on this water.

KALEHUA KRUG: The travesty that we're facing right now

20:28

Contaminated water sites

with jet fuel in our aquifer, that is an example that the US navy does not embrace our values. They don't understand water flow. They don't understand how to care for natural resources. They do not, they don't care about anyone downstream.

20:45

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: The water crisis has emboldened calls for the state of Hawaii to cancel the military's leases, due for renewal in 2029. It has also amplified the debate about stolen land.

KALEHUA KRUG: If we still had our land base we would not be like this.

21:05

Kalehua interview

This is a theft, you know. Premeditated, systematised theft. And they took it from our lead. They took it from our chiefs. They took it from the royalty. They took it from all of our families, historically, so that they had the land base – because land, you know, builds generational wealth. And they could control the resources, they could lock up the water, they could lock up the food, they could lock up the ability for Hawaii to self-sustain.

21.24

Matt driving to Pu'o-honua mauka

Music

21:52

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: In a valley not far from the school, some of that land is being taken back. After living almost 20 years in the boat harbour camp, Twinkle and her team are building a permanent home for their community.

22:02

Twinkle interview

TWINKLE BORGE: For the last five years I kept telling people – even people in my team – and they would all laugh when I said this is going to be our home. Five years I passed this gate and said this is going to be our home. Well, this is our home. We are here.

22:19

Twinkle at Pu'o-honua mauka

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Through a mix of donations and grants, Twinkle was able to purchase this 20 acre parcel of land, Pu'o-honua mauka.

22:35

TWINKLE BORGE: The plan is building out our homes, bringing the people home, try to be work towards being self-sustaining.

22:45

Twinkle interview

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: In terms of growing food and power?

TWINKLE BORGE: Yes, yes. And guess what, they are all going to get running water. Amazing. Never thought I would be doing the things that I am doing today. Today I able to help my family, you know, to be a little bit more productive. Amazing.

22:52

Kids play at Pu'o-honua mauka

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: For Twinkle, the main focus is giving the next generation a better start.

TWINKLE BORGE: For my kids, I'm so adamant with them with schooling.

23:19

Twinkle interview

If you act up with the teachers or anything, they got to call me up. I let my kids know. I'm going to show up to your school with my sports bra. And trust me, believe me, I do that.

23:27

Twinkle walks wearing bra

Music

23:40

Twinkle interview

TWINKLE BORGE: My pay day is when my kids bring me home their diplomas. That's pay days. It might be a big sacrifice for me, but at the end it will be a reward; to see the accomplishment, to see the cycle that they are breaking, for their family, just to get ahead. Yeah, yeah, that's pay day.

23:55

Island, beach GVs

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Across the islands there is a growing movement to keep Hawaii Hawaiian.  Back on the north shore, Pomai knows that the tide is turning.

24:26

Pomai on beach with daughter

POMAI: It's kind of like a modern Hawaiian renaissance. Everyone is becoming more educated, in how to deal with it. My daughter's in fifth grade and in Ōlelo Hawai'I I'm in third grade. And so, it's funny to come home and have conversations about school and I'm trying to like speak Hawaiian to her as much as I can.

24:44

Pomai's daughter

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: You speak better than your dad?

WELA: He's learning. So kind of.

25:05

Pipeline Pro surfing event

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: It's finals day at the Pipeline Pro, and the water patrol is back to work. Pomai takes me for a spin on the jet ski to check out the conditions up close.

25:12

Matt on jet ski with Pomai

How's it looking bro?

POMAI: Looking pretty fucking sick!

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: It's on!

25:34  

Spectators at Pipeline Pro surfing event. Seth surfs

The pride of the Hawaiian crowd, Seth Moniz is surfing against the greatest of all time, Kelly Slater. Seth's support crew is firing up.

25:42

Slater surfs

Thirty years after he first won here at pipeline, Slater does it again.  Claiming this historic victory, Slater pays his respect to the islands of Hawaii.

KELLY SLATER: Everyone who comes to Hawaii should take care of this place, and really respect

26:09

Slater interview

the culture and the locals and realise it's their home and it's your place to visit, but you know, take care of it and look after it.

26:36

Moniz interview

SETH MONIZ:  It's really special and I am happy, you know, to make them proud, I made it the finals. I was almost there, one spot off, but I'm going to be here for a long time, so I am excited for the future.

26:45

Women's final

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: The women's final is an all-Hawaiian affair – the favourite Carissa Moore, and local wild card Moana Jones Wong.

26:57

Pākē filming women's final

PĀKĒ SALMON:  I am so just super happy that the Hawaiians are dominating their sport again.

27:11

Pākē interview. Super:
Pākē Salmon
Filmmaker

I feel super good because all the little girls, so many little girls, are out here watching them. I mean, I'm proud of them, look at these waves, they are huge. It's great to see the Kanaka Maoli women out there, wearing their flag, finally. I am so proud of them.

27:15

Carissa and Moana after final

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: Today is not Carissa's day; Moana is crowned the first queen of pipeline.

27:39

Moana interview

MOANA JONES WONG: I used to be that kid on the beach, screaming Carissa's name. And I grew up just watching the pipe masters all the time, thinking I would never even go out there. So, to come out here and win the contest, like an actual ginormous contest like this – is insane. Everybody came down to watch me, screaming for me, so much support. I couldn't have done it without them.

27:48

Pomai plays ukulele and sings

POMAI: That was a big result. You know, there's like three out of four people in finals from Hawaii. That's huge. So, it's really cool to see that go down in history.

28:13

Pomai with surfboard

MATT DAVIS, Reporter: As the world tour moves on, in the birthplace of surfing the message is clear.

28:35

POMAI: Hawaiians just want to be Hawaiian in Hawaii.

28:42

Pomai interview

Be Hawaiian, speak Hawaiian, live Hawaiian. The longer you stay alive, the longer people remember we're here, but if we stop, down the line people stop talking about us, we disappear. So we got to keep practicing.

28:47

Credits [see below]

Music

29:10

Outpoint

29:45