Jane Ka'ala Pang Presentation

Forum sponsored by Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) and California Arts Council, Sacramento, June 7, 2001

Jane Ka'ala Pang

Jane Ka'ala Pang is active in the Hawaiian Arts and Culture Program with Ainahau O Kaleponi Hawaiian Civic Club. She's a third generation Hawaiian quilter. She coordinates public programs in local museums, schools, the public libraries, and universities in Southern California. Jane is also a grant-writer, a folk arts presenter and panelist with Los Angeles City Cultural Affairs Department and with many other different agencies and was a founding member of the Pacific Islanders Community Council, an alliance of nine indigenous Pacific Island communities in Southern California.

Ka'ala's husband, Victor Kaiwi Pang, is a native Hawaiian and a founding member and President of the Pacific Islanders Community Council. He belongs to many different groups, including the Mainland Council, Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs. He has been Chair for the annual Pacific Islander Festival, which is the original and largest of the Pacific Island festivals, held in Wilmington, California. And he also has been extremely active as a panelist on the LA Count Arts Commission, as a grant-writer and community activist, and as co-creator of the Ohana Retreat, a weekend Hawaiian immersion experience for families.

Presentation to the Gathering

Victor: Aloha Kakahiaka (good morning). Greetings from the Pacific Islanders. We're happy to be here. Thank you very much, Amy and Theresa, for allowing me to be a part of this presentation.

One of the challenges that Pacific Islanders Community Council faces is that we're made up of volunteers. Most of us work full time. We believe that we have responsibilities to our community. Our council is quite unique. It's made up of nine island groups and the individuals have to be indigenous in order to become a board director. We have Aki Mateni, who is Tongan, who's a director. Leoni Mateni is another Tongan. Between both of them they come up with annually what they will present at our annual festival, which is held in May. Now each of the island communities chooses its own directors, and sends them over to the PICC. So we don't tell them how to choose them. And eventually, some of them feel that it's too much pressure, so they nominate someone else. But we do have a lot of give and take. We build on consensus or decisions that take a little time. Our leadership values community. We believe in the community and the autonomy of each group.

Ka'ala: The challenges are, as he said, we really represent the indigenous community from Hawaii, which is an indigenous community within the United States, so they're Native Americans. We have our presence from Tonga, Samoa, both Western and American Samoa, Tahiti, New Zealand Maori, Cook Islanders, Guam and the Marshall Islands, Micronesian presence, and Fiji, Melanesians, our Polynesian cousins. So it's the indigenous community of the Pacific Basin.

And the reason why we organized is that among the overwhelming numbers of Asian Americans, we are the invisible, the asterisk, the "other community". So we felt that by pooling our resources together in common theme, in sharing these resources, we then become stronger unto ourselves.

We have sponsored a festival held every May in Wilmington for the past twelve years. It is directed, produced, and presented by the indigenous communities. The entire leadership that serves on it must have the blood-link to that island community. [They let me sit and talk, the let me write the grants, but I'm Japanese/Chinese born in Hawaii, so I get to do a lot of the work.] But the decisions are being made by the indigenous community. We celebrate their leadership. They're responsible to fill and tend their leadership so can they can continue the effort. And this is why I share the panel today with Kaiwi. I was invited to be on the panel, but I wanted to really make a point in all of our presentations that it's vital that we project image of that community which we are celebrating.

The successes are fantastic. We believe with our council that the autonomy of the community is so important. We don't tell the community, "These are the guidelines for selecting a representative." If they, they have "pilikia" or "trouble, or disagreements" within the community, it is theirs to resolve, not the council's. That, in itself, is a challenge-to stay out of the problem, when you would like to assist and support. But we believe in the autonomy of each community and the island communities. They are driven by very different island values. And so we need to support those Pacific Islanders.

Timeliness is not an issue with us. Island times are driven by winds, the sun and the moon. We do decide things by consensus, which does take longer than the average meeting. We may have to spend three, four months over an issue before we actually reach consensus. But that is something valued by the community. The other thing you see here is that we have an intergenerational format. For example, we have the master Tahitian and master's daughter here. We feel that it is a community of families. We are a family. And so we are all related, one with the other. So as a community, it's tough to argue with your Auntie or your Uncle. We have disagreements, but you go away trying to resolve [things] for the better of the group.

Other success is that now we're seeing small communities like the Marshallese develop a network throughout the United States. They are probably the largest community throughout California. There is a large community here in Sacramento, as well as in Costa Mesa. There is an even larger community in Arkansas. Spingdale , Arkansas-so far away from the islands. But we have seen communities in Costa Mesa who were unidentified, now building a network, developing their cultural roots, civic associations, or performance groups. We have Aki here for the first time joining us here. He has started a group, trying to preserve the culture through his church and through the community. And so you see grass roots efforts, becoming empowered. This is truly capacity building in the truest sense and with the island flavor.

Some of what we have done in shared experiences we can pass on to you. I think it's important that when you look at establishing a network you see that we are an organization that is not only civic clubs and cultural performing arts, or presenting arts, but we're also combined with students from our local universities and colleges. We're also within organizations at church groups. In fact, we have a youth minister sitting on our board. Many of the island groups are organized around their churches. And so their churches become their community, and their community is part of our community. It is important to include the native language programs that are in this area and more recently, we've felt a very strong linkage with health and human services, those agencies / service providers targeting our community. And today, I think, the matching art funding, in terms of sustainability, is our health and welfare matching grant, funds that target our community. Our community bears such a disproportionate heavy burden with cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, kokua "support" our festival and are part of the major funding source and partners with us providing health information and education outreach project. So we, now combine some health funding with the cultural arts funding. I would say 50-60% of all our grant funding goes directly back to the individual communities, which goes directly back to those performances and presenting groups so they can then organize and then step up for next year with a stronger performance the next year.

If you haven't seen the Pacific Island dancers, unlike some of the Asian-American performances, we're troupes of 20 to 50 to 100. So a Pacific Islander presentation is somewhat different than some of the performances you've experienced. We welcome you to join us. Another way to develop sustainability-our festival's been going on twelve years-[is through] our major support, which is the Los Angeles City. What's done throughout the year is, again, partly through the city. Our security in Los Angeles is a concern. We've asked the Los Angeles Police Department, not only to participate in providing security, but also to provide us with our Pacific Islander officers. And that has been extremely successful. And the youth at our festivals now can actually see Pacific Islander officers who are new members [of the police department]. We work with the Fire Department in the same way, asking that our Island officers be present. And watch them scurry to get a Pacific Islander officer. But you'd better believe it, they are there recruiting officers from our community.

And then, what we've done this year is gotten more Federal partnerships through HCFA Health Care Financing Administration and the FDA - Food and Drug Administration. They've supported our communities. As many of you know, and in many of the health care delivery room they'll make available, there are no images of Pacific Islanders. And we know who we are. We know our faces. You put an Asian American face on a brochure to target our community, it goes unnoticed. So we're working to develop posters for the center. In the year 2000, we're helping to deliver positive health messages for healthier lifestyles. In all our health messages and all of our health programs, I would say 50 - 60% of them is a cultural message-the foods we eat, the practices, the lifestyle we live-grounded in our traditions. And so it makes sense that whatever we present is culturally, traditionally driven.

So we encourage you to share, and if you can, give any help. Janet and Ku`ulei are in the back of the room. We have our Tongan community here. We welcome you to come up and "talk story" with us.

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STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINING TRADITIONAL ARTS

Forum sponsored by Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) and California Arts Council, Sacramento, June 7, 2001

Jane Ka'ala Pang

Presentation to the Gathering