Our work continues: Remembering what’s at stake in the aftermath of Nov. 5
During a recent phone call with my dad, he recalled seeing an advertisement for a four-year cruise around the world beginning on January 20, 2025. For a six-figure price tag, he said, U.S. citizens can escape a second Trump presidency. While the ramifications of the 2024 U.S. elections certainly extend beyond U.S. borders, the intention behind such a bizarre endeavor reflects an awareness by voters on both sides of the aisle that this presidency will be different than the first. There is a clear agenda, and for those on the losing end of this agenda, the notion of sailing away from four years of a potentially unchecked political regime is extremely appealing.
Despite the fear and anxiety for the future facing women, children, Communities of Color, and Indigenous Peoples living in the lands presently considered the U.S., the message I’ve heard multiple times from ʻōpio, kumu, and kūpuna since Nov. 5 is “our work continues.” We do not stop fighting or resisting. We do not stop advocating and speaking up and challenging overt and covert forms of oppression. The stake is just too great.
For me, my stake continues to be the protection of Kanaka ʻŌiwi livelihoods in our ancestral home and the preservation of Indigenous lands and waters, cultures, and languages from legalized desecration and genocide. My vision for the Lāhui is still a future in which our people know our history and apply that knowledge to enact our sacred relationships with kānaka and ʻāina. Indeed, our work continues.
Without our resistance and without our advocacy, we may see the end of Hawaiʻi in the loss of Kanaka ʻŌiwi sovereignty and self-determination in these islands. While I spent this past month grieving over the 2024 election results, I’ve also found spaces and communities to heal and vision build. (The four-year worldwide cruise did make me laugh.) Though I felt defeated on Nov. 5 by my inability to sway those closest to me to avoid putting a misogynist back into power, I found encouragement to continue fighting after rereading a final draft of an upcoming article I wrote challenging acritical multicultural discourse in Hawai’i-based literature. In truth, I’ve questioned my abilities as a researcher, writer, and theorizer in the weeks since the election, and I finally feel like I’m back at a place to affirm the truth in the message that “our work continues.”
I’m looking forward to getting the word out about this upcoming piece and to re-discover the part of me that thirsts for intellectual discoveries and embodied theories. Though I will likely dread the start of this next presidency, I will keep chipping away at U.S. hegemony on an everyday basis and remember the powerful wisdom preserved in history that all empires fall.
