Born in Kahuku, O‘ahu, Hawai‘i in 1945, Naomi Losch, received her early education in the sugar plantation community on rural O‘ahu. She is of Hawaiian, Tahitian, Chinese and haole extraction and graduated from the Kamehameha School for Girls in Honolulu, a school for children of Hawaiian ancestry. She received her BA in anthropology and MA in Pacific Islands studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and is currently an associate professor of Hawaiian language at UHM. Naomi has taught Hawaiian language and culture at university level for nearly forty years.
Wat? You Hawaiian, you no look like! How much Hawaiian you?
One sixteent’?! Ho bra, so little bit, whea stay? In yaw small toe?
I tree quata, yeah, and we live homestead, too.
You no can, heh? You no mo’ nuff blood.
Wat? Mo‘okū … wat? Wat is dat? Genealogy?
Oh, I dunno dat kine stuff, my mudda she know.
How you know dat kine stuff? Yaw mudda went teach you?
You can talk Hawaiian? Wow, I no can, but I get the blood.
My mudda no can talk Hawaiian. I tink her grandmudda could.
Dey wen use Hawaiian when dey like talk stink about my mudda dem.
Wow, you can talk stink about us too now.
Ho, even if you get little bit Hawaiian blood, jes’ like you mo’ Hawaiian.
Cause you know Hawaiian kine stuff and can talk Hawaiian.
You sound jes’ like my grandfadda but you no look like.
No can tell who is Hawaiian now days, yeah?