Announcer: The following program is sponsored by Ke Kula o Kamehameha, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Hawaiʻi Community Foundation, and Hawaiian Native Corporation.

Instrumental music Showing up is how we, we show the respect to Uncle Shad Showing up and making sure that we continue the work that he's been doing.

After several generations, one will never have an opportunity to hear a kupuna talk of their past.

One loses that sense of past.

However, there is always that question.

Who am I?

Where am I from?

A park, a purpose, a promise.

Kalaeloa Heritage Park — a portal to our ancient past, a gift to our present and a bridge connecting generations — ensuring the culture and contributions of the Hawaiian people and this once thriving community are never forgotten.

[Hawaiian Chanting] For more than 20 years, Uncle Shad Kane dedicated himself to Kalaeloa Heritage Park, breathing new life into land that had long been abandoned.

His hope — to restore and preserve the cultural and historical treasures nestled there — so that all who follow in his footsteps know their roots, their origin story.

Olivia Filoteo:I like coming here because it teaches me everything about life.

You take care of the land.

You take care of what was.

It's for us now.

It's for our future.

Eric Matanane: We're not a tourist destination.

We are a community destination.

This is where anybody in the ʻEwa community or anybody in the state that wants to learn about this little village, successful village in Kalaeloa, how it was and a small glimpse of our past, yeah.

Kalaeloa Heritage Park is where the first settlers came ashore on what we now call Oʻahu.

Through decades of commitment and hard work, volunteers have worked to preserve the relics of this ancient, thriving community.

Kawika Lauriano: And the thing to remember, I mean, we're all volunteers here.

So the whole reason you're doing it, all from the heart cause we want to be here.

We all here cause we love it.

[Laughing] (sounds of chainsaws and equipment cutting) This is an oven, man.

An oven in ʻEwa.

The heat is it's what makes it hard.

(sound of chainsaws and weedwhackers) Action shot, ha!

Kawika Lauriano: For me, in my time with Uncle, I just used to laugh at, you know we human right?

So we complain like, oh brah, it's hot.

I cannot believe we do this kind of stuff.

And he was a former police officer, so he goes, "Eh, I work more hard being retired than when I actually worked,” you know, so, all those things just make me laugh.

Eric Matanane: This guy was untouchable, brah.

This guy would never get hurt.

We’d be cutting a tree something would fall and just barely miss him.

I mean, the magic.

I'm talking about, You talking about kūpuna watching over he had all those kūpuna watching over him, 400,000 kūpuna watching over him.

The magic amount of protection that this, that the kūpunas protect.

This guy was unreal at this park.

Many are picked here, few are chosen.

This is a place that you know, it'll, it'll get you.

It's hot, man.

But you know, even when you hear the winds and stuff, there's wind, there's voices, there's smells that little moment of magic that you catch in this park that knows that you're supposed to be here.

Amanda Hess: Just being out here, working the land, the history of it the current mana of the people working the land, not just the historical stuff but seeing what they do and how we show up.

Eric Matanane: He wanted a snapshot of what this place looked like anciently.

So that's why we took out the invasive kiawe trees and stuff.

And every time I thought he would slow down, he wouldn't slow down.

He'd cut one and we'd move it.

And then the next day he'll say, well, maybe about a week ago we'll cut that tree, and then he'd do it the next day.

Kawika Lauriano: As invasives were removed, all of these seeds were in hibernation, you know, and then given the right elements, the sun, rain, water, you know, with the soil they all started growing here.

Eric Matanane: When you get rid of the weeds, the natives will grow.

There were much more that came back on its own, you know, hidden in the dirt.

The park is a place of refuge for rare, endangered and culturally significant Native Hawaiian plants.

Kawika Lauriano: We have the naio, the ʻewa naio, the lonomea, the ʻewa hinahina, the ʻāweoweo, so there's a bunch of native plants the majority all going this way hasn't been planting by planted by us.

This is the koʻoloaʻula.

You got the ʻilima and then on this side you have the ʻuhaloa which is also another well known use lāʻau plant.

We have lāʻau practitioners that come and collect especially the kaunaʻoa.

That’s another medicinal plant people come and collect from us over here.

Amanda Hess: This is theʻāweoweo with the seeds and these are seeds and these are seeds that will be collected because they are harder to grow in other areas.

Kawika Lauriano: So this one right here is the maiapilo.

It has a real nice white flower.

These are the seedpods.

There's hundreds in em.

Amanda Hess: Organizations will come and they will collect the seeds from the 'akoko cause it’s the onlyplace in the world theycan getit.

Kawika Lauriano: The ʻewa hinahina grows really well, it is one of those plants that thrive in drought areas, low water.

We never plant any of this, it just grows.

Amanda Hess: Between 2023 and 2026, I mean, so much has just popped up on its own, and it is so green.

(instrumental music) Kawika Lauriano: We did not plant this ti leaf.

It's been here for hundreds of years.

From visibly, what you can see, the sinkhole goes maybe about 10, 15 feet.

But that's all hundreds of years of ti leaf falling down and creating like a mulch and compost.

That ti leaf growing for this many years , even without water and the conditions being hot and all that, it's just a sign of perseverance, a sign of strength.

Eric Matanane: It speaks of the resiliency of this place.

That’s exactly it.

It's maybe from the maybe 1400s, 1500s, and it's still growing.

So we're supposed to be here.

Kawika Lauriano: it's still standing.

I can make reference to even the cultural sites that are here, for that to be still standing through all the courses of history on this island, to be still standing.

It says a lot about how the people here built their things,the connection they had to it.

I think as a people, we can relate to that because we are still here we are still going, we're still fighting and still going and still preserving for future generations.

Eric Matanane: Me and him was worried because the generations, he's a generation.

I'm that next generation, I'm in my late 50s, you know what I mean?

Now we got this brother Kawika.

So we got three generations covered with the mission of this park and preserving archaeological pieces at this park.

We're in line to preserve it in another 20 years because we're on that same mission.

We need to find people, and our worry and his worry was finding the people to put in place to keep the mission alive of what we're doing, and it's to protect the evidence of Native Hawaiians being in this area.

Olivia Filoteo: I bring my kids, it’s more so they have an understanding.

I don't want them to get used to, to how it is outside of the park.

I want them to still have that sense of taking care of what is, and see how our ancestors was.

Uncle Shad: [Hawaiian Chanting] Kawika Lauriano: Something about his voice that would make you wanna listen and I mean, sometimes when we do tours, he'd be telling you, "Oh, I gotta make sure I keep this short.

I gotta, you know, I'm trying to make sure you understand.” We do one tour, three hours later, we're still going, but people are still listening.

Even after his passing, Uncle Shad's voice draws people in throughout Kalaeloa Heritage Park where visitors can take self-guided tours narrated by Uncle Shad himself — sharing his knowledge and love for ʻEwa Moku and Hawaiʻi as he did for so many during his lifetime.

"QR recording:Sinkhole burial.This may be a recent burial..." Kawika Lauriano: This is one way we carry his legacy.

This is exactly what he would want us to be doing, you know.

And, for me, when I do tours, Uncle is part of this history about the park, so I have to incorporate him into it, you know.

I always did, but he was walking around where I could point him out, you know.

So now, he's like that story that I share as part of the park.

I'm always gonna try to create that connection to carry out the legacy of Uncle Shad and the Kalaeloa Heritage Park.

If he was sitting here with us right now, he would tell you he didn't do this on his own.

This was years of people and relationships and contributions.

So that's what we honor, and that's what we will try our best to continue.

Eric Matanane: I feel him always around.

So like a lot of times if I get sad, , I don't get sad because when I come down here to volunteer and do the work, he's right next to me every single time.

He's never gone.

Uncle Shad: In Hawaiian culture you never leave after you die.

You are still here.