Kanu Hawaii May 2013 report to members.
I am a community organizer in the Saul Alinsky tradition. I work for Faith Action for Community Equity, or FACE. I've been doing this work for about 20 years starting in the south Bronx in the early 1990's. I work with churches and temples primarily because I see them as carriers of values for our society (I am Roman Catholic). So many parts of our culture have been taken over by market culture that religious institutions are one of the last places where people gather with the purpose of asking what is good or right to do. I love Kanu because it is also is a place where values are places at the center of its work.
Hawaii is the most successful multi-ethnic society on earth. While we are hardly perfect (just ask the Samoans, Micronesians or Mexicans all of whom are victims of tremendous racist exclusion in our state) we retain a strong heritage of tolerance, and solidarity. That is worth preserving. And fighting for. So that's what I love in my public persona, and what I tell people on the mainland.
But when I think about it what I love most about Hawaii is the wind. I love the way that it is always with you, it is like feeling the planet breathe.
In my spare time I am very interested in fossils, stars and role playing games. Which really sounds pretty geeky when I say it.