Kalaʻi Miller / Home is Here Host Aloha, I’m Kalaʻi Miller and in this episode of Home is Here, we’re in Kalihi.

While many of us may think of it as being a more urbanized and industrial town, back here in the valley we’re surrounded by green... and helping to keep it that way is Kōkua Kalihi Valley.

It's a non-profit looking to change lives in the community by helping people connect to their roots...in more ways than one.

(Instrumental music) Kanoa O'Connor/Hoʻoulu ʻĀina Youth Coordinator Hoʻoulu ʻĀina means to grow the land.

Hoʻoulu has that sense of like to inspire and I think that that's really what this place does for a lot of people is it's a place of inspiration.

All of us come from people who know how to farm, you know, maybe it's not our parents, maybe it's not our grandparents, but eventually you go back far enough - you come from a farmer, eventually, somebody who knew how to take care of the land, who knew how to feed themselves.

So, the farm part of this project was started in 2005.

And it was, was actually a pretty powerful story for us.

Because down at the clinic, the doctors were running, for a long time, a diabetes group.

I remember the doctors always talking about how these aunties would come in, and they look kind of old and feeble, inside of the health clinic.

And, you know, they talk to them, like, ‘Aunty, you got to get to exercise, you got to, you got to get healthy, you got to eat well.’ And oftentimes, they're communicating through a translator.

And so the translator, after about a year, told our doctors, ‘Oh, you know, there's, there's no word in Chuukese, or in any of these languages, for the word exercise.’ And the doctors are kind of like, ‘Hah?

What do you mean there's no word for exercise?

Like, what do you guys do to like, move your bodies, and that kind?’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, we farm, we fish.’ That was a spark for a lot of our doctors were like, ‘Oh, we got to just get our patients out onto the land over here.’ And that was really this, this area was, was just bush, jungle, could barely even walk through it.

It was all these aunties cleared it by hand, and…it look like they're having fun, sweating while they're doing it, getting a good workout, and then they were planting behind it.

And that's, that was kind of the first start.

Casey Chikuma/ Hoʻoulu ʻĀina Farmer We strive to reduce as much waste as we can.

Composting is a big aspect of how we hoʻoula ʻāina, how we grow our land here and how we grow our food here.

As well as, we don't have too many big machines.

And so the biggest catalyst for growth of this place is the hands of our volunteers.

We start off with our harvest day on every Monday.

Our Harvest Days are called Ipu O Lono where we our community volunteers come up, and they help not only with the harvesting, but they help with the planting and the popping and the composting and the whole food process.

Our food is harvested by our community, washed by our community, bagged by some of our volunteers and at the end of the day, at the end of the morning, we drive it down to the clinic where our food hub is at.

(Instrumental music) Kaʻiulani Odom/ Roots Project Director at Kōkua Kalihi Valley So Roots was a program that came into existence in 2011.

There were just three of us, Jesse, myself, and Adam, the farmer.

And we were really looking at the community, the resilience, the culture, and how does food fit into that?

And so, how do we use food to bring our community together?

How do we use food to help them feel healthier?

You know, we have such a rich culture, that how do we use our food and not just to connect to their culture, but connect all of our cultures together.

We have our cafe that's open a couple times a week and we serve really healthy food that tastes so good.

And it's based on what is available that day.

And so, you know, for example, today we have hamburger with Kualoa beef, but we have ʻulu fries with it.

And we also have a sandwich with avocado and eggplant.

We have a cake that has calamansi lime.

So we're trying to use whatever is available.

Jesse Lipman/ Roots Food Programs Coordinator So we have kind of two ways we source food, we grow some food at Ho‘oulu ‘Āina on a couple acres up there and that comes down here and that gives us a little bit of a base to work with.

And then we have our cultural food hub, which is bringing in food from small farmers primarily all over the island.

That's mostly all organic food.

So I spend a lot of my time in the cafe in the kitchen, cooking, planning menus, but also making space for staff and community members to be part of that.

So a lot of what we try to do as chefs here is not just make a whole menu and run the whole kitchen, but create an environment where other people can bring their gifts and their recipes and whatnot to the community.

So I might cook one or two of the dishes, but I'm also supporting other staff to take the lead to maybe cook something that's their favorite thing to cook or something from their culture, to bring youth into the kitchen, when we have our youth programs and teach them some things about cooking, but also give them a chance to, you know, take leadership to feed their community somewhat too.

I'd say 75% of what I do well is because other people did it well, and they probably learned from their grandma or their mom or somebody like that.

And we're just cooking together sharing recipes and techniques and learning from each other.

We had a lot of conversations with people in the community especially some of the elders and one of the things we glean from that was the importance of cultural food access.

So you know poi, kalo, ʻulu, breadfruit, cassava, different types of bananas, eggplants, things that people really want to access.

But a lot of them are not, have not been around as much more, although we're starting to see the tide turn on that a little bit.

So we're trying to bring those foods in and have fun cooking with them too.

So we might prepare some things, you know, as people have always eaten them, and it's very familiar, but then we might take kalo or breadfruit and do something, you know, totally different with it and present it in that way.

Kaui Tuihalafatai/ Food Hub manager Our food hub is a place that we aggregate produce from local organic farmers across Oʻahu.

Currently working with about 35 and about 20 on a weekly basis.

Ideally, our goal is to support small local organic farmers, people that do it for a living, do it to support the local economy and just doing what they love.

But that is really hard to come by still.

On the next level is just creating relationships with people that have access to food.

So that might look like nonprofit organizations.

And then, on a bigger scale, the more for-profit people that also kind of have their own little food hub where they are supporting other farmers as well.

A lot of our food is imported.

And that's a little bit sad to think like that, you know, that everything is brought here.

And to think about how long that process might take, compared to knowing like for myself, the process in which I order food, they harvest the food, we receive the food, and then we’re making food.

So even though we still have the option to shop and visit bigger stores, how do we continue to make our local farmers our first option, right?

Christen Oliveira/ Roots Community Food Systems planner So as a community food systems planner, I help to facilitate conversations and connections throughout our island wide food system, but also helping to provide resources and ability for farmers to grow their businesses, and also connections to our community, through the ways that we're able to help them access their cultural foods.

I think it's hard enough to survive in Hawaiʻi, but I feel because we are able to connect community, not only to food, but to each other and to spiritual connection to that food that it really brings forth like a long lasting life force.

You know, some of the things that we lack within a localized food system right now is of course, hands.

But it's people that are willing to teach the younger generation about the importance of local food, and the importance of keeping our food here and sustaining our islands through our own supply chain because we can do it.

It's just, we need more people to help with that mission.

Kaʻiulani Odom/ Roots Project Director at Kōkua Kalihi Valley So the hope for this program really is that we continue to be a source of really good food, good nutrition.

But really just encouraging people to learn more about foods, to use foods, to teach people want to do with foods instead of being a program that says, ‘Oh, you shouldn't eat this and shouldn't eat that.’ We want to celebrate our foods and teach them how to choose healthy, how to make healthy choices.

But what we're really looking at is our food system of Kalihi.

We want to make a difference in the food system of Kalihi.

And so, you know, in our culture an ahupuaʻa was really our land division.

And we believe that if everybody took care of their land division and what was inside of it, and how the food was produced, that we would be healthier as a whole community.

And so we're really looking in Kalihi to say how do we improve the food system over here?

How do we support one another?

Our desire is that for the ahupuaʻa of Kalihi that we are creating a healthy food system within it.

Kalaʻi Miller / Home is Here Host From one success story in urban Oʻahu to another.

Hawaiʻi isn’t the first place most people think of when they think of break dancing but the 808 Breakers are looking to change that.

The b-boy crew based on Oʻahu is garnering international respect—winning battles all across the globe and sharing the aloha spirit one jam at a time.

(Istrumental music) (Yeah, you’re not ready for it.)

(Light ‘em up light ‘em up) (Cheering) Oh!

Jeff “Ark” Wong What’s up?

I’m B-Boy Ark also known as Jeff Wong.

I’m born and raised here from Hawaiʻi.

I’ve now kind of become the senior leader, organizer, master to the madness for the 808 Breakers.

(808 Breakers in the house, cheehoo!)

The crew started in 2005.

It was founded by two people, Justice from L.A.

Breakers as well as another b-boy named Lo Rock, his name’s Loretto.

The second generation of the 808 Breakers was very small and it consisted of a guy named B-Boy Solid.

And this this individual put myself and a number of us in the third generation of 808 Breakers down.

Solid was an incredible leader.

He was incredible speaker and he managed to get us sponsored by local television circuit shows.

He also got us to travel for our very first time in 2010 to New York.

He was the person who incepted our crew as an official business, as an LLC.

So 808 Breakers is the only breakdancing crew in Hawaiʻi that is formally incorporated.

(Instrumental music) (This is crazy, this is crazy, wooo.)

Myself, I've had a relatively successful career in California, the Bay Area, being a recognized teacher internationally by the B-Boy Dojo in Finland.

As a crew, we've competed a number of times in international competitions such as Freestyle Sessions, Style Elements Anniversary, Radical Force Anniversary in Singapore, and IBE, which is the International Breakin’ Event in the Netherlands and made it past the preliminaries to top four to top eight in pools of 300 plus competitors.

We've won Style Elements Anniversary, that was our biggest international win.

And locally, we've won our fair share of competitions.

We've been recognized competitively in the Red Bull circuit as evident by all of the things that Jack has done winning Red Bull BC One Boston's regional cypher, and making it to the semifinals of the national cypher as well as being featured in the World Final Red Bull BC One 2021 That was held in Poland.

Jack “Hijack” Rabinal My name is Jack Rabinal and I go by B-Boy Hijack.

Earliest memories that I have of dancing would be in the third grade.

My older brother had spent a night at Kaimuki Park which is located on Waialae and he actually learned how to dance from some homeless people at the park known as The Jam.

And he came home when I was a kid taught me some stuff like simple waves and, and isolations and stuff and been fascinated with that ever since third grade.

The first time that I've ever stepped foot into a cypher was at the Frienemies event.

It was 2009, if I remember correct.

Growing up watching Beat Street, growing up watching Breakin’ we were pretty familiar with who Rock Steady Crew was and when we heard that people like Crazy Legs and Ynot would be coming out to Hawaiʻi we were just so stoked to go out there.

My older brother drove.

It was held at the Waipahu FilCom Center.

And first time I've ever stepped foot into the cypher, I remember I didn't even break.

Went out did my thing.

Super nervous, worried about what other people were thinking of me and you know, after I got out there I seen Skill Roy go in, also poppin’ and it was just such an inspiring moment and memory that I’ll definitely cherish forever.

Ah man, Skill Roy hands down is the Hawaiʻi legend in my book.

He is the style god, the style master, timeless.

Definitely one of the first to really like make a statement.

I know he got down with Rock Steady Crew.

Rock Steady Crew coming from New York they were the first to actually get the media.

They were the first to get access and, and exposure.

Rock Steady Crew had come down and hearing stories about it that this phenomenal crew came down and battled other people like Style’Len.

I think Uncle Leonard was also in there.

It was just amazing to hear that people who lived on the same island you know, were put down in this crew and it was like superstars.

(Instrumental music) JW When anybody thinks of Hawaiʻi, breaking is probably the last thing that they imagine it has a scene for.

And for that reason, it is so important and so amazing for us to have received the recognition, the support, and the love that we've gotten so far.

On a broad level, the vision and also the the mission of our crew 808 Breakers is to simply spread joy and perpetuate this dance form called breakin’ in the islands of Hawaiʻi.

In the process, yes, we represent abroad, yes, we show what a competitive savvy breaker can do from Hawaiʻi without traveling or moving anywhere else into the states or around the world.

We represent and show what a local b-boy or b-girl can accomplish, while still supporting their local community being a part of their local community and teaching and supporting other kids who may just be beginning their journey.

JR I remember all the competitions I lost.

I felt like I learned, I've I've grown a lot more from the ones that I've lost.

But the ones that I've won, the most recent one that I can think of that's definitely been life changing would be the Red Bull BC One Boston 2021.

Red Bull BC One Boston and that was just a game changer for me.

You know, after that came a opportunity to represent in the national finals.

And after leaving such a big mark there came the opportunity to be sponsored as a Red Bull ambassador and be flown out, you know, and just live the dream.

Currently I'm going for breaking in the Olympics in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

And for this year 2022, they had a bunch of qualifier events held by a organization called Breakinʻ for Gold, 2022 was just a trial year just to see how everything goes with scheduling, as well as how they organize everything.

Whereas 2023 is going to be you know, it's full on.

It's a one on one competition.

They’re only taking one representative in the States, which is kind of cutthroat but, you know, we just, we just keep pushing.

(Instrumental music) (Oh!)

(Oh!)

(Watch the feet, kid.)

(Hey, hey, hey, hey.)

JR The amazing thing with Hip Hop culture is there’s always a breaking community or a Hip Hop community.

It could be big, could be the smallest.

Breakin’ has taken me to the Philippines, Singapore, France, Poland, soon to be Belgium, Korea, Japan, everywhere.

It’s a beautiful, beautiful experience and really grateful for everything.

We've been in places where we could not speak the same language but we were able to speak through movements through dancing and just made you know, even made best friends from from just movement and culture.

We've gotten word from a lot of visitors who aren't from Hawaiʻi and just saying like, man, Hawaiʻi is such a beautiful, welcoming environment.

In most cases, a lot of areas are very cliquey.

They're in their own groups they don't really like to share.

JW And honestly, all of this kind of is something that we hope to perpetuate.

As we have students as we welcome those students into our crew, as we recognize other crews locally through the events that we throw, and connect them to a global dance culture.

We hope that we can allow this art form to not just survive, but flourish and be a recognizable activity that is marked by Hawaiʻi's individuality as a place.

(Indistinct chatter) (This is so hard) (One, two, grab, down, pull) Kaimana “Mana Breaks” Domen I connected with 808 breakers from Jack my teacher he like I've been taking classes with him for a very long time and like we just been leveling up.

Crazy, I never knew I could do this.

Like it's the best thing the whole world just like traveling around with my best friends and stuff.

It's just amazing.

Like dancing like going against like people from like different countries and it's just mental (laughs).

JW As Kānaka Maoli, as a Native Hawaiian I did not fit into a lot of the stereotypes that were presented to me, growing up.

I don’t surf.

I did a little bit of hula but I fell out of it and I don’t do a lot of sports.

And I am confident that there are youth and adults alike who are searching for a voice.

I found mine in this dance, in this culture called Hip Hop.

Boaz “Boseph” Rosen I love breaking.

I love the culture.

I love Hip Hop.

But more importantly, I love my crewmates because they're special.

It's the fact that we treat each other more than just b-boys.

Being part of 808 is not about skill.

It's about just the love that you show for each other and the craft, we are truly a family.

JR Oh my gosh.

The 808 breakers in one word is a family.

We don't care too much about skill.

We don't care too much about the things that would make something temporary.

We care more about the human being as a whole who you are.

Can we build with you?

Can we vibe with you?

JW Our crew the 808 Breakers is all about brotherhood.

I think if you take away the accolades, the competitive success, commercial success, the performances, even the students, at the end of the day, we are a group of friends that love this art form called breaking.

We love this culture called Hip-hop, and we love each other.

Levi “Lev” Ganiron Breakdancing for me is a escape.

Every time I'm like mad or I'm sad or I'm just like really stressed out.

I can use breakdancing as an escape to channel all of my emotions and just put it into the dance.

JR I break to find freedom.

I break to find and defy what the human body can do and what the mind can push itself to create.

And I break because I love music.

And I love being able to combine the movements and the music together.

And that's what keeps me moving.

Boseph We're putting Hawaiʻi on the map guys, we really are we're pushing forward.

Not just through Hijack, being with Red Bull, on not just with with going out and representing.

But we are literally I feel like we're the embodiment of like the aloha spirit and every single place that we traveled to, people feel our presence.

And I think that speaks to something larger than just our crew speaks to something that Hawaiʻi has to give to the world.

Kalaʻi Miller / Home is Here Host Thank you for joining us.

Head to PBS Hawaiʻi dot org for bonus features from this episode including…some cooking tips from the Roots team and an interview from a local breaker who’s been on the scene since breaking first came to the islands.

For Home is Here, I’m Kalaʻi Miller, a hui hou.

Kanoa O'Connor “You can tell how important this work is when we get to go out into the community.

You just get to see the smiles of the kupuna and, ‘Oh my gosh, this is beautiful.

I love this produce.’ Like people just being so excited about it.

You can really feel it and so that's really why we do what we do is because of those kinds of like confirmations yeah.” Jack “Hijack” Rabinal “It's amazing to see a kid start from not knowing any structure and you know, next thing you know, they're on their head spinning and working on stuff.

So it's a, it's a long game, but it's a beautiful game if the kids can remember to practice their patience and stay, stay diligent and have grit.”