Kamehameha Day Lei Draping: Honoring Ancestral Legacy

After spending our morning volunteering with Hui o Koʻolaupoko, our group made its way to downtown Honolulu for the Lei Draping Ceremony. Though many of us were battling heat exhaustion, being present on Oʻahu to witness the Kamehameha Day celebrations was a profound honor. We knew we had to treat this opportunity with utmost reverence, especially in the context of our position as foreigners on Native land.

It has been 132 years since the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom by the United States and 215 years since the unification of the Hawaiian Islands under Kamehameha I, yet the lei draping ceremony continues today as a living symbol of aloha ʻāina (love for the land), and the continued resilience of the Kānaka Maoli community. Despite the diasporic realities that separate the community, the lei draping ceremony brings all Kanaka together, not only across the pae ʻāina (the archipelago), in places like Honolulu, Hilo, and Kohala, but also on the continent, and virtually around the globe through the sophisticated video cameras that towered over the crowd during the event. Through these gatherings and through modern technology, people have the chance to reconnect with their moʻokūʻauhau (genealogy) and cultural identity, regardless of where they currently reside.

Growing up in Ploiești, Romania, I know firsthand how oppressive regimes are designed to systematically erase culture in order to exert control. Although communism fell in Romania 35 years ago, I often feel that our cultural spirit has yet to fully recover. Honestly, the more I learn about our dying traditions currently held by a handful of elders in rural villages makes me worry that cultural recovery in my home country will never happen. Witnessing that cultural loss of my own homeland has given me deep and personal respect for Kānaka Maoli, who have preserved their culture, language, and sense of identity despite centuries of colonization, land dispossession, and forced assimilation by the colonial forces. Learning about the Hawaiian Renaissance gave me hope for an eventual rejuvenation of Romanian culture as well.

It has been 132 years since the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown, and yet the aloha, mana (spiritual power), and intellect with which Native Hawaiians have fought to protect their culture remains a powerful example of endurance and clarity of purpose. Each lei, lovingly placed on the tall bronze statue located in front of the Aliʻiōlani Hale, becomes more than just adornment, it is an offering, a hoʻokupu, reminding all who witness it of the original stewards of this ʻāina (land), and of the sacrifices King Kamehameha I made in uniting the islands to resist Western imperialism. The ceremony opened with the Royal Hawaiian Band at 2:30 p.m., setting a tone of solemnity and pride, and ensuring that the commencement of the event was announced to all.

Youth Kanaka volunteers, from Roosevelt High School football players to Pāʻū riders from Papakōlea, bore the lei to the statue's outstretched arms. Their age, energy, and reverence symbolized that Kamehameha's vision still lives on to this day. They were the living proof that the people of the land have been respecting their kuleana (responsibility) and ensuring that it gets passed to the next generations.

As a foreigner, I fell in love with the respect and dignity with which Hawaiians honor their aliʻi (chiefs) and kupuna (ancestors). Their mana stems not from dominance or material wealth, but from love, memory, and ancestral connection, values that many of us raised in Western societies or in countries heavily influenced by Western values have long forgotten. We are often too consumed by the forward motion of our lives: applying to college, getting a job, making money, being better than those around us, without even realizing the reason why we are stuck in this loop, that we neglect the foundational relationships and ancestral sacrifices that make our mere existence possible in the first place.

We live in a time of hyper-individualism, where success is measured by how far one stands apart from the collective. But true strength, as Hawaiians demonstrate, comes from looking back to move forward, from honoring those who came before us, and from nurturing pilina (relationships) with our elders, our communities, and with our own past selves. Only through this remembering can we begin to truly reconnect: with our brothers and sisters, with our lands, and with our own humanity.

I thank everyone in the Native Hawaiian community for giving me a new perspective on life and transforming the way I engage with the world around me. Mahalo nui loa.