Moving from Hawaii to New Jersey in 2016 & Winning the soccer state championship.
I grew up in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, in the middle of the Pacific. Life was more simple on Kauai, as our choices were limited to family, school and the “aina”, the Hawaiian word for land. To me, “aina” meant respectful hiking in the mountains, swimming, surfing and family outings at the beach. More than anything else, this wonderful episode of my life taught me two very valuable virtues of life, patience and tolerance. The concept of “Island time” runs rampant in Hawaii. Although it is frustrating at times, it teaches you to wait for things, because they happen at their own pace. It helps you to understand that sometimes there is nothing you can do to change it. Most often, “island time” relaxes you and relieves the tension and pressures of daily life. I remember several times when i actually hoped “island time” would happen and remove the stress from the moment. I learned about tolerance, from the concept of “Aloha”. To many tourists “Aloha” means “Hello or Goodbye”, but to Hawaii residents it means so much more. Aloha is a spirit, or a way of life, where people get along regardless of race, religion or culture. As Hawaii is one of the most culturally diverse
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I soon learned that I needed to improve my time management and perseverance skills quickly. Coming from a small high school soccer team in Hawaii, I knew the competition was going to be tougher; especially after discovering my new school, Shore Regional, went to the state finals each of the last 5 years. Just to make this consistently successful team, I needed to adopt a strong work ethic really quickly. As a result, I worked harder than ever before to prove to the coach and my teammates that I could keep up with such a high level of competition. I felt like I was in survival-mode
While sitting on the beach looking into the ocean, rubbing the sand and enjoying the beautiful weather at Cabana’s beach; in beautiful Hawaii on the west side of the island of Oahu is a blessing. Listening to “Hawaii 78” by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole at midday at three-thirty pm sparks a sense of uneasiness to a Native Hawaiian, Who are my ancestors? Who is Israel Kamakawiwo’ole? What is the land used for? Has Hawaii really changed, what is the difference between today and one hundred years ago? The importance of the logo “Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka Aina I Ka Pono O Hawaii” http://www.netstate.com/states/mottoes/hi_motto.htm
The Hawaiian culture is known throughout the western world for their extravagant luaus, beautiful islands, and a language that comes nowhere near being pronounceable to anyone but a Hawaiian. Whenever someone wants to “get away” their first thought is to sit on the beach in Hawai’i with a Mai tai in their hand and watch the sun go down. Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian educated on the mainland because it was believed to provide a better education. She questioned the stories of her heritage she heard as a child when she began learning of her ancestors in books at school. Confused by which story was correct, she returned to Hawai’i and discovered that the books of the mainland schools had been all wrong and her heritage was correctly told through the language and teachings of her own people. With her use of pathos and connotative language, Trask does a fine job of defending her argument that the western world destroyed her vibrant Hawaiian culture.
When my family and I could feel the warm fine sand, the gentle cool breeze, witness the crystal clear aquamarine ocean and swaying palm trees, and smell the sweet fragrant scent of plumerias, we must have gone to heaven. The enchanting beauty of this Hawaiian island, Maui, gives us a sense of warmth, peace, and serenity. In search of paradise, we explore the infamous Road to Hana, snorkel with underwater marine life, and journey back in time to experience the true customs, traditional cuisine and the original song, music and dance of Hawaii at a luau.
When I stepped out of the hot, airless plane into the bright, dazzling sunlight beaming down across the burning concreate, I felt excited and nervous. Holding my beach bag in my hand and slipping my Ray Ban sunglasses on with my other, I flip-flopped down the airspace. Overhead I heard the screams of gulls and the chatter of the small fluffy birds. I suddenly realized I had arrived to Hawaii. This trip was such an unforgettable vacation for me because I got to witness the beauty of nature that Hawaii has to offer.
78,086,081 people, domestic and internationally have gone to Hawai’i in 2015 (Historical Visitors). However, has anyone truly went past the beautiful scenic lands and Hawaiian culture to learn the origin of everything? Fittingly, this essay will go in-depth of the Polynesian culture that soon settled on the Hawaiian islands of today: identifying cultural norms, symbols, and values that influences their communication that encompasses the Hawaiian spirit tourist known to love. Lastly, a comparison of Hispanic culture and investigate qualities that are similar and different between the two cultures.
Imagine yourself sitting on a lava rock cliff, hearing the ocean pounding the rock wall below. The salty sea spray cools your lips and the taste tickles your tongue. Feeling the sun against your skin, it is cooled by the mix of mist and breeze that plays with the palm trees. You could say I grew up in a place most people can only daydream about. When most people hear of where I grew up all they can picture is paradise. There is so much more to the “Aloha State” than the stale beachside hotels covered in an abundance of hibiscus prints with pineapples around every turn. The people, food, and land are the heart of the Hawaiian Islands.
I wonder if I should I start calling Las Vegas, Nevada home now. I’ve traveled back and forth from California to Las Vegas since I was a child. I can remember at the age of thirteen my family and I would take family weekend trips very often. By the age of seventeen I was forced to move to Vegas for 6 months right before my senior year of high school started. Since it was my last year of high school my parents decided to let me go back to California for the last three months and graduate with my friends. Since I wasn’t eighteen yet, I forced to go back to Las Vegas right the day after graduation.
I played soccer since I was seven, as of the last few years I played at a very high level. I have represented Ohio South two times at a regional showcase, I have been invited to participate in a camp in Manchester, England and attended the camp twice. Also last Season for the Newark High School soccer team I was named first team all league and third team all central district. Soccer was the first sport I truly loved to do, I wanted to be the best. I work hours upon hours to master whatever part of the game I wanted to improve on. Soccer has taught me to have a great work ethic, and that mentality came when I was cut from the state team the first time I tried out. It was the worst thing that has ever happened to me, I was destroyed, and I thought I was not good but I knew I could do better. The next year I worked, I got bigger, stronger, faster, my soccer I.Q. was higher;therefore, overall I was a much better player. The result of that work, was that I made the team, but not only, I made the starting line up. After that I knew I could accomplish anything I put my mind to.
Hawaii is arrival. To arrive in Hawaii is to follow all of history, one group at a time. To the Kanaka Maoli, the people who first traveled in ancient times across the ocean in canoes and small boats from Polynesia, Hawaii was the promised land. It was the end of their pilgrimage, the land of powerful spirits and gods in need of worship. The Kanaka Maoli developed a complex society around this new land and these new spirits; a free society built around peace, love, and worship of one’s homeland. This way of life flourished for thousands of years, until the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 18th and 19th centuries declared their freedom evil, their nakedness vile, and their gods false. Christianity flooded the shores of the islands, pulling with it white entrepreneurs, who set up massive farms and plantations to take advantage of Hawaii’s unique agriculture, and Japanese workers for those plantations, with whom Christianity gained its strongest base in the islands. Then came the political opportunists, who in less than one century pulled the Hawaiian monarchy up to its highest levels of Western pomp and circumstance, only to tear it down again with the overthrow of Queen Liliu’okalani in 1893 with help from the United States Government (who later annexed the island chain). Next came the arrival of the expatriates; the tourists; the haoles (whites) who saw Hawaii as nothing more than a tropical novelty or an escape from their stress-filled lives back on the mainland. Statehood came quickly in 1959, as did immigrants from the Phillipines and Korea. I came in 1995, with my haole military family, to a land that would become my adopted home the way it had for so many others. I found a land carved up like a puzzle; each person, each culture, each idea holding onto their piece with the will of God or gods. Today, there are many Hawaii’s. Depending on where you go, you can witness the poor, the rich, the privileged, the oppressed, the loud, the silent, the passive, and the active.
In 2014 I was determined to make the high school soccer team. Every day at 8 am at the beginning of a dreadfully hot August morning, I would get to the turf fields for 4 hours and participate in “hell week”. After a long week, I made the JV team. I was never put into the game and felt like my hard work was put to no use. My sophomore year rolled around and I tried extra hard to impress the coaches. Anything and everything was a competition to make it to the top. By the end of the week, we all gathered around the paper that had names of the players who made it. I didn’t make the team. After tears and telling myself to move on, I went to the field hockey tryouts. I knew nothing about the sport and was terrified that soccer wasn’t my go-to
Each game, my passion grew. Each team, new memories and lifelong friends were made. Sports sometimes make me feel disappointment and at loss; but it taught me to be resilient to a lot of things, like how to thrive under pressure and come out on top. Being the team captain of my high school’s football and lacrosse team showed me how having a big responsibility to bring a group together to work as one is compared to many situations in life. Currently playing varsity football, varsity lacrosse, and track I take great pride in the activities I do. Staying on top of my academics, being duel enrolled at Indian River State College, working three nights a week, and two different sport practices after school each day shaped my character to having a hard work
...e" (Trask xix). This incident beautifully illustrates and signifies tourism's impact in American society. Like most Americans, this woman uses a discourse that has been shaped by tourist advertisements and souvenirs. The woman's statement implies that Trask resembles what the tourist industry projects, as if this image created Hawaiian culture. As Trask asserts, Hawaiian culture existed long before tourism and has been exploited by tourism in the form of advertisements and items such as postcards. Along with the violence, endangered environment, and poverty, this exploitation is what the tourist industry does not want to show. However, this is the Hawai'i Haunani-Kay Trask lives in everyday. "This is Hawai'i, once the most fragile and precious of sacred places, now transformed by the American behemoth into a dying land. Only a whispering spirit remains" (Trask 19).
...Hawai`i’s economy is very dependent on tourism, however many locals are possessive of their land, and as they stereotype tourists, many do not accept others as they have a unity for their own. Numerous individuals feel the desideratum to fit the local stereotype because they prefer not to be labeled as a “haole”. It becomes tough and rather intense for an individual, because becoming haole betokens that you forgot and disregarded the local or Hawaiian quality values and ways of routes, as well as the flowing stream of life in the islands. We need to remind ourselves that regardless of where we emanate from, our skin tone, race, physical characteristics, and so forth, everybody ought to acknowledge just for who we/they are and treat one another like 'ohana and show "aloha", and subsequently, we can determinately verbally express "This is it. This is Paradise" (33).
Hawaii has a diverse culture where it is expressed through art, music, language, dance, theater, cuisine, film, and multiple festivals. Its culture and traditions reflect the land’s beauty. Hula is the traditional dance of Hawaii and is rooted to the religion of the natives that live there. It was believed it a god or goddess who performed the first hula and because of that, the dance is considered as a sacred ritual more than a form of entertainment. Ancient Hawaiian folk music were used for a multitude of purposes, a few examples would be to give praise to the gods and goddesses or telling mythological stories. Prior to The music was often accompanied with festivals, games, and other events.
Throughout a persons life, they are faced with different obstacles, and different challenges of all different types. My life in particular has been full of up and downs related especially towards my soccer career. In the novel The Pact, three boys, George, Rameck, and Sam are faced with many obstacles throughout their lives, where they must learn to overcome and achieve great success on their own will power. Essentially, I have done the same thing. My soccer career has been one of my most difficult life challenges creating the person I am today. I was always taught that soccer was to be about the love of the game and that it should be fun. Unfortunately, I faced many obstacles that I needed to overcome before I could truly love the game for what it was worth. I grew and continued to love the game, knowing little at the time of the obstacles I would be faced with, and would need to overcome.