HIKI NŌ, Hawaiʻi’s new wave of storytellers.

Aloha and welcome to this week’s edition of HIKI NŌ, Hawaiʻi’s new wave of storytellers.

I’m Jasmine Thai, a senior at McKinley High School on O‘ahu.

In this episode of HIKI NŌ, we’ll see how Hawaiʻi students are dealing with life in the pandemic as we navigate our way through the second semester of the 2020-2021 school year.

We’ll continue celebrating HIKI NŌ’s 10th anniversary by looking back at some of the landmark stories from the program’s first decade.

And, we’ll meet a HIKI NŌ graduate from Roosevelt High School who, today, at the ripe old age of 25, is the political reporter for the Japan Times.

But first, here’s my Student Reflection.

Hi, I’m Jasmine Thai, a senior at McKinley High School on O‘ahu.

I’m filming this at my home on January 20th, 2021, and today I’ll be talking about my experience with online learning.

Before the pandemic, I was always drained out, despising the thought of school.

However, after the first quarter, I discovered that I actually enjoyed distance learning and was starting to have a lot of fun.

I had put away my quiet public persona after being quarantined for five months.

Since staying in the same environment for online school resulted in me having an easier time communicating with others.

My creativity for schoolwork started to spike.

Like when I had a presentation for my AP class, instead of sticking to a boring old slideshow, I wrote out a script and voice acted it out instead.

Now that quarter two is over, I finally found ways for me to enjoy school after 12 years.

I became more in touch with my real self and developed good relationships with my peers.

Although I don’t know how I’d be if things went back to normal, all I know is that with my own twist, I’ll be able to make school more enjoyable thanks to the self-discovery that this pandemic brought me.

Hi, my name is Marina Vowell, a seventh grader from Highlands Intermediate School on the island of Oʻahu.

I’m recording this from my house on January 24th, 2021.

Sometimes you can’t spend enough time with the ones you love.

During a normal school year my younger brother, Teague, and I, would have the same schedule and the same amount of free time after school.

But when classes went online due to COVID, our schedules and work habits were different, so it made it hard for us to find time to hang out with each other.

Our parents expect us to do our best, so homework is important.

Usually, I would do mine right after school, but Teague would play and then do his at night whenever I was free.

I felt lonely.

Unlike some of my friends who don’t have the best relationship with their brother or sister, Teague and I are really close, he’s my best friend.

Sometimes, I would be watching TV and he’d come down to get his snack in the kitchen and ask, “What are you watching?” I’d try to explain it to him.

I know he doesn’t understand because he makes a weird face, but at least he’s listening and that’s what counts.

I took it upon myself to figure out a solution.

I noticed that if I get my work done earlier in the day, I’d have more time after school to play with Teague.

This small change made a big difference.

I’m relieved because now I have someone I can talk freely with.

I feel like I can just be myself around him without thinking about what I have to say.

Spending time with my brother is important because time is precious, even in the middle of a pandemic.

And now, in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of HIKI NŌ coming up at the end of this month, here’s the seventh installment in a series of profiles on outstanding HIKI NŌ alumni.

You know, I wanted to be a reporter since I was in elementary school back in Japan.

He’s just unique.

He’ll come in with his Wall Street Journal and most people don’t read the Wall Street Journal, even I don’t.

I was just dressing like old man and holding pile of newspaper.

So, HIKI NŌ for me was a launching pad for me to get a start, to get a head start, in my journalism career.

HIKI NŌ gave opportunities to students like me, um, who again, whose English wasn’t necessarily as perfect as native speakers, but still gave me a fair opportunity, still gave me, um, um, the same playing field.

We are back at Roosevelt High School in Makiki district of O‘ahu, behind me is a football stadium.

My first story at HIKI NŌ that I got to be involved in writing on an actual production was a story called, Brewing Conversation.

And it was about a coffee shop in downtown Honolulu that, uh, I found very fascinating.

The unique flavors of Hawai‘i-grown coffee get a boost by Dennis’s unique drip process.

Each custom brew cup does take at least three minutes longer than the mainstream coffee chain shops.

I felt this is the project I learned how to craft a story and how to construct a story, how to tell a story to the people who have never been to that coffee shop.

This was really one of the projects that I had to think a lot about these elements of storytelling.

...able to hear about their origins, professions, as well as their experiences they encounter.

My mentor was Christi Young.

She was a professional journalist at the time, so she gave me and the production team a lot of feedback: This is where we need to do better, this is an area we need to fix.

So, when I saw the final product on PBS Hawai‘i, I was enthralled and this was, I think, the first story that I got to tell based on what I had in my mind.

It was really the starting point of my career as a reporter.

Until, you know, before then, I had this you know, vague idea, vague dream of, you know, this is what I wanted to do.

But by actually accomplishing this project and then have the final product on the air, um, I got the taste of, OK, this is what, this will be the first of many more stories that I will be telling in the future.

This is Satoshi Sugiyama for HIKI NŌ.

By junior year, I knew I wanted to go to a journalism school and I applied to Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York, um, the university has a great journalism program.

Luckily, I got accepted and I actually got involved in a student newspaper and then I interned at the Associated Press in Tokyo, the Tampa Bay Times in St. Petersburg, Florida,, and the New York Times in New York City, before I came back to Japan and started working for the Japan Times, uh, as a reporter.

So, now, I’m a political correspondent of the Japan Times, which is an English daily national newspaper in Japan.

Um, my day, you know, starts with me usually waking up around 7:30, 8 o’clock, and I first go to...I cover the Prime Minister’s office, the Parliament and Foreign Ministry.

Whenever there’s a story that needs to be written, a news analysis, I write that story from my desk at the Prime Minister’s office Press Corps.

At the age 25, when you write a national political story, when I see my name on the paper, on the front page, you know, it still gives me chills.

It is just that I cannot believe that I get to do this job, you know, at age 25, I just cannot believe it.

No, I just wanted to kind of say that really, HIKI NŌ really gave me a chance to shine and really gave me a chance to get a start with my career and without the help, I would not be here.

I would not be here where I am, and I sincerely believe that.

Hello there, I’m George Roy.

I’m a sophomore at Kalāheo High School and this is being filmed on February 1st, 2021.

My father, Brian Roy, is an airline pilot for Hawaiian Airlines, recently the travel industry has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

There are many restrictions in years of flying that affect the overall industry and threaten the jobs of many.

There are precautions in place, such as requiring masks and sanitizing key touch points to help prevent the spread of the virus.

This also affects how my father operates his job.

He now routinely wears a mask and wipes down many surfaces.

He also now packs hand sanitizer, rubber gloves and many masks.

This also has affected my father on a personal level.

As a pilot, he interacts with the traveling public and he cannot work from home.

Since he is considered a frontline essential worker, he has got the first injection of the COVID-19 vaccine to help life return back to normal.

I applaud him for how helpful and optimistic he has been in these recent months.

Continuing our celebration of 10 years of HIKI NŌ, here’s a story from our archives by students at Waiʻanae Intermediate School.

It’s an excellent example of what has become a popular theme of HIKI NŌ stories: Don’t judge a book by its cover.

And when I win, I get excited and happy.

Thirteen-year-old, Shardenei Luning has been competing in beauty pageants since she was four years old.

One time we went with my cousin and I seen her on stage with her dresses and her mom doing her makeup and I wanted to try putting on makeup and putting on dresses.

OK, so this process normally takes 30 minutes.

Since then, Shardenei has participated in 45 pageants and has won about 15 crowns, but tiaras aren’t the only type of crown this beauty queen wears.

Not all girls like, play sports.

They play sports like basketball and baseball, but I don’t think anyone would play a physical contact sport.

That sport is tackle football and according to the National Federation of State High School Associations, less than one percent of girls play it.

We don’t cut Shardenei any slack, even though she’s a girl.

I mean, we work her hard, just like any other boy on the team, and we treat her just like anybody else.

Shardenei has played on the Waiʻanae Tigers Junior Midgets Pop Warner football team for two years now, as an offensive guard and cornerback.

But she didn’t just learn the rules of the game.

As the only girl on the team, football has taught her how to tackle challenges both on and off the field.

The boy on the football team didn’t like me because I was a girl playing football, so he would pick on me when I got to practice and during practice he would push me, hit me, and say mean things to me.

It made me feel sad sometimes, but there were all the other people on the team that kept giving me positive advice.

One of those people was her coach who taught her a valuable lesson.

Ignore the people that are mean to you and try your best to enjoy what you do because you enjoy doing it.

She’s a hard worker.

I really love her, she’s tough.

She really shaped the boys up on this team.

Facing the boys also required Shardenei to tap into her pageant experience, a trick she learned from her mother.

The best advice my mom gave me was to never give up and try your best, to have fun at what you’re doing because in pageants things don’t go your way, football is the same.

There are times that you win and times that you lose.

No matter what the outcome, Shardenei knows the most important thing is to have fun.

You mess up, but if you try, try your best at what you’re doing, then the outcomes are better.

Trying her best and handling problems with grace is what makes Shardenei a definite beauty on stage.

Like a movie star.

But a beast on the field.

This is Amee Neves from Waiʻanae Intermediate School for HIKI NŌ.

Hi, this is Chloe Pacheco, a junior at Leilehua High School on the island of O‘ahu.

I’m recording this at my home on January 28, 2021.

At first, I was super excited to have fun with my friends when spring break was extended, like a lot of students.

But, COVID happened and it affected my life and my family’s too.

My 102-year-old grandfather wasn’t directly affected but because his immune system wasn’t that strong, he doesn’t go out as much as he used to.

My sister is a medical assistant, and she puts herself at risk every single day to help the doctor treat patients.

But really, it was my mother who was really affected the most.

She’s a single parent and was temporarily laid off for nine whole months due to the closure of hotels.

Seeing all the struggles that my family was going through made me realize that maybe I should try to relieve their stress and worries.

So, lately I’ve been sanitizing high touch surfaces, I help my mom learn the basics of using the computer to help apply for unemployment insurance, and I even help connect her Zoom meetings.

Helping my own family has encouraged me to want to help other people, too.

So, I’ve been trying to give back to my community by volunteering at food banks at my church.

I really enjoy it because people are just so grateful and humble, even after they’ve been waiting in long lines stuck in their car.

This pandemic has really opened my eyes and it gave me a sense of duty.

I know it’s been hard on a lot of families but helping us come together as a community brings us hope that life will go back to normal.

Continuing our celebration of 10 years of HIKI NŌ, here’s another story from the first decade of the program that cautions us not to judge a book by its cover.

This one is from students at Maui High School.

Maui High School junior varsity cheerleader, Chantal Sandoval, spends her weekend spreading cheer, but what makes this extraordinary is the fact that Chantal is legally deaf.

Here is Chantal speaking through an interpreter.

I was just born that way.

When my mother gave birth to me, um, she almost died and then, I don’t know, I became deaf.

Her deafness, however, has not denied her from pursuing her dream of cheering in front of a crowd.

Cheering was something I always wondered about and I just wanted to know if I could make the team.

However, Chantal’s journey to becoming a cheerleader for her school was not an easy one, even with the help of sign language interpreters who help facilitate communication between Chantal and her coach.

Because anybody else, I can yell, “Point your toes, lift your shoulders, keep your head up,” anything like that.

But if I try to yell at her to do those things, she doesn’t understand, so, or she doesn’t hear me, so that’s the biggest thing is just trying to get her to really understand what I’m saying.

As of recently, hearing her teammates and coaches just became easier thanks to the help of a cochlear implant, a surgically implanted medical device that provides a sense of sound to a person who is deaf or severely hard of hearing.

Before I got my cochlear, I could still speak for myself and I could, um, I used hearing aids, but still, it was still hard for me and I would miss a lot of the information and many people would talk and probably say, speak behind me and I couldn’t understand that.

Since I got cochlear, I can understand them a little bit more and my hearing is improving.

While cochlear has made cheering an easier task for Chantal, the negative stigma surrounding deaf people still remains.

Many people feel very awkward and they avoid deaf people and they don’t offer help, like in a store, they tend to just ignore you.

I feel like, really, I feel really hurt, I feel like insulted and just because I’m deaf, it doesn’t mean that I’m ignorant.

Though Chantal has to navigate around these obstacles, she embraces the fact that she is deaf.

No, deaf people can do anything.

It doesn’t matter if they can’t hear.

Just like hearing people, like, what if they couldn’t walk or if they couldn’t...does that mean they can’t do anything?

No, they can do anything with a wheelchair.

It’s the same thing for deaf people.

We can’t hear, but we can do anything we want.

But Chantal wants to make one thing clear.

Do not call her impaired.

Well, I don’t like the word impaired, it means something’s broken, and I'm not broken, I’m only deaf and I was born that way.

Don’t call me hearing impaired, call me deaf.

Chantal Sandoval is living proof that a communication challenge does not have to keep anyone off the sidelines.

She plans to continue to spread the Saber spirit as loud as she can.

This is Sydney Green for Maui High School for HIKI NŌ.

Aloha, I’m Emma Tilitile, a senior from Waiʻanae High School, coming to you from the west side of Oʻahu.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, my high school began to conduct online learning to ensure the safety of its faculty, students and the community.

Distance or online learning is an efficient and cautious way to provide students the education they need.

However, students encounter numerous assignments while maintaining priorities at home and find it difficult to concentrate in an environment where they are easily distracted.

But I noticed that students are not the only group of people who are struggling through the technological endeavors of distance learning.

Teachers have altered lesson plans, projects, and put in the effort to adjust teaching styles in order to make their students feel more comfortable and engaged.

One teacher that I know who is trying her best to boost students’ morale is Miss Davis.

Morning Lacey, how’s it going?

As one of the senior class advisors, she seeks to ensure that seniors are still able to enjoy their last school year and feel united as a class.

As she, along with some other motivated teachers and students organized multiple class activities such as social media campaigns, cap and gown packet pickups, gift exchanges and class T-shirts and masks, these tasks proved difficult at times as we were limited to virtual meetings and emails.

Virtual encounters sometimes led to a lack of interaction as some students did not feel motivated to participate in class activities.

As one of the many students who continue to undergo the challenges of distance learning, I appreciate all of the effort that Miss Davis and all of our teachers are putting into giving students a well-rounded education.

I know that they will continue to give their best so that at the end of the school year we will finish strong.

Bye, Miss.

Bye.

As we continue our look back at 10 years of HIKI NŌ, here’s yet another story about not judging a book by its cover.

This one comes from ʻEwa Makai Middle School on Oʻahu.

I have a student in here who told me, “You know Mrs. Martin, last year I hated you.” I said, “Really, you hated me?

Still hate me, now?” He goes, “No.” I’m like, “So, what’s the difference?

How come you don’t hate me anymore?” And he says, “Because I got to know you.” Mrs. Geri Martin, a vice principal at ʻEwa Makai Middle School in ʻEwa Beach, has a reputation for being the toughest administrator at the school.

However, she has grown accustomed to the thought of students calling her mean and being threatened by her.

I think there are students that think I am mean.

Rumors that people said about Miss Martin was that she’s mean and, like, she used to look at them with like...like they didn’t like it.

I thought she was kinda strict and harsh.

Despite what students may say, Mrs. Martin’s mission goes much deeper.

Growing up, I didn’t like the way my life was and I was a very, very angry person and being an angry person, if anyone looked at me the wrong way or said the wrong thing, I’d lose it.

I had a really bad temper, and took my anger out on people and they didn’t deserve that, and had to take responsibility and now, I’m realizing that I had hurt so many people, promised that I would do everything that I can to, instead of hurt people, help.

To make up for past mistakes, Mrs. Martin began serving her community by coaching sports in hopes of helping others.

When I was involved with community sports, there were a lot of students who didn’t have family that would come to their games.

Um, they’d be embarrassed on potluck days because they wouldn’t be able to bring anything and, um, so it was those individuals that I took in, that would come home with us and stay.

And sad thing is some of their, some of their families wouldn’t even call to check on them but, um, I think being able to, to not just take care of my sons, but to be able to take care of the greater family, which is the community.

Although some students may think that Mrs. Martin is harder on them, she only wants to steer students towards the right path.

She helped me with problems, situations, like when I would fight with other students in school and I always get pulled into her office, she always like tells me stories about the same thing that I’m in and that I’m not the only one who’s in the situation.

Even though you think that she’s mean, she’s not.

She’s a very caring person.

For me, every individual matters.

Every individual has the potential and the right to be happy and successful.

Even though Mrs. Martin may be tough on the outside, her caring nature shows students that we can all grow from our mistakes.

This is Kristina Overly from ʻEwa Makai Middle School for HIKI NŌ.

Thank you for joining us on this week’s episode of HIKI NŌ.

We hope you’ve enjoyed these stories from Hawaiʻi’s new wave of storytellers as much as we’ve enjoyed presenting them to you.

Be sure to tune in next week for more Student Reflections on life and school under COVID-19, and for our continuing look back at the first decade of HIKI NŌ.

Can do.

[END]