The Pride of Waimanalo

Photo by Lawrence Tabudlo

No one is prouder of the upcoming Waimānalo Ho‘olaule‘a than organizer Kalani Kalima, who has big dreams of restoring hope and commitment in his community.

There was a time when a sumo career was in the cards for Kalani Kalima. In fact, it was three decades ago when everything seemed to be guiding him toward a life of wearing mawashis and battling rikishi in dohyōs.

Older brother George had made the move to Tokyo in 1988 to join the professional sumo wrestling ranks as Yamato Gō, and his best friend, Chad Rowan — who would go on to compete as Akebono Tarō and become the first non-Japanese-born wrestler to reach the sport’s highest rank of yokozuna — had preceded George by just a few months.

So, when it was time for Kalima to graduate from high school in 1993, he felt prepared because he had already been anticipating a long stay in the Land of the Rising Sun.

“I was the biggest guy at Kaiser High School taking Japanese. No football player takes Japanese — not one lineman, and not someone from Waimānalo … from homestead,” recalls Kalima, who had also spent two summers in Tokyo training at a beya, or sumo stable. “But I’m taking Japanese, I’m taking keyboarding, I’m taking shorthand — just to prepare for my eventual move.”

Yet, like some sumotori performing a well-executed uchigake, fate would ultimately trip up his best-laid plans.

Around the time of his graduation, sumo stables stopped actively recruiting foreign wrestlers due, in part, to concerns over sport dilution, and that left Kalima and other young hopefuls not knowing what they should do.

Perhaps surprisingly, the then-18-year-old refused to waste time lying on life’s mat after being floored by the sudden turn of events. Instead, he got back on his feet and began focusing on his own culture.

“I came to that fork in the road and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to be a part of the ‘Ohana Council and the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and everything else, and I’m going to go to the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and learn about my history, my culture and my language,’” says Kalima, who eventually earned degrees in Hawaiian studies and elementary education.

These days, the large man who once had big sumo aspirations spends his time impacting others in two main ways: first, as an advocate and leader for the nonprofit Nā Kua ‘Āina O Waimānalo; and second, as a teacher at ‘Aiea Intermediate School, where he encourages students to embrace their Hawaiian history and learn concepts such as “building relationships first, relevance next and then rigor.”

The result is someone who is quite proud of where life’s path has led him and, more importantly, who he’s become.

“I got into teaching and community advocacy not for the income, but for the outcome,” Kalima says. “I still believe I can make a difference because I believe in the power of one.”

By “one,” Kalima is referring to his single-minded pursuit of restoring pride, hope and commitment in residents of his beloved Waimānalo, which, like other communities, faces its share of economic, educational and cultural challenges.

His unwavering mission to help and inspire others will be manifest when thousands gather for the first-ever Waimānalo Ho‘olaule‘a, scheduled for a noon start on Saturday, Dec. 14, at Waimānalo Beach Park. Open to the public, the event follows that morning’s huaka‘i — the annual Waimānalo Christmas Parade, which ends at the world-famous beach park.

As the organizer of the festival, Kalima chose the theme Makalehua O Waimānalo (“the pride of Waimānalo”).

“Makalehua O Waimānalo is going to focus on building resilience and re-instilling pride and aloha in our community,” he explains. “In my youth, we used to have events like Waimānalo Carnival with EK Fernandez, and Sunset On The Beach. Now, we have a culminating event that will bring the whole community together.”

Although the festival is expected to have all the familiar trappings of a community-wide celebration — food vendors, artisans and crafters, keiki activities and, of course, live music — it will also serve as an informational hub for college financial aid assistance, financial guidance, home ownership education, homeless outreach, and medical and mental health services.

Additionally, it will steer interested young adults toward job training and employment opportunities with various professions and trade unions, including Iron Workers Union and International Brotherhood of Local Workers, Local 1186.

“A lot of our people are good with their hands, but they don’t want to go back to college,” Kalima explains. “So, I say, let’s find them a livable wage — let’s provide them a skill to help maintain their homes. Yes, they’re the beneficiaries when their parents pass away and yes, they goin’ get the house, but a lot of our people are not ma‘a when it comes to upkeeping and maintaining the house. So, we need more of those types of workers, plumbers and electricians, along with everything else.”

As for those still committed to higher-education pursuits, Kalima and his nonprofit plan to use “100% of our vendor fees” to fund college scholarships.

“I know that (might seem like) nothing for our keiki going out to colleges and universities in the states. But I also know that sometimes as a college student you have to wait for a while before your funding drops. So, that $1,000 might be just enough for them to go eat at In-N-Out Burger, or to go wash clothes, or for transportation needs until their financial aid kicks in,” he says.

The motivation for Waimānalo Ho‘olaulea can be attributed to a conversation Kalima had with a hulu kupuna more than a year ago, and that community elder’s ongoing fight with the city to have the Waimānalo District Park gymnasium reopened.

“This is the second generation of those who cannot use the gym … it’s all fenced up and it’s been like that for over 15 years,” Kalima explains. “But it’s sports programs like PAL and Summer Fun and everything else that goes on there that bring the community together and that teach hard work and everything else that our keiki need to grow into productive citizens.

“So when I talked to this beloved kupuna, he told me, ‘You know, Kalani, the kids from Waimānalo just don’t have any pride,’ and when I hear the worries of a kupuna like that, I start trying to figure out, ‘OK, what can I do? How can I help?’ Because he’s right.”

Kalima pauses briefly to consider his own responsibility moving forward.

“Those who have the privilege of knowing have the duty to act,” he says, “and I feel a duty to move and a duty to act.”

Of course, Waimānalo Ho‘olaule‘a is about more than just having pride in the present and future — it’s about embracing the past, too.

As part of the celebration, Kalima intends to pay tribute to local sumotori who passed away earlier this year — including his brother, George, and Rowan, both of whom he affectionately refers to as “native sons of Waimānalo and our hometown heroes.”

“I looked up to them and, when they passed, I wanted to honor them,” he says. “At one time, they were Hawai‘i’s ambassadors of aloha. They went around the world and they brought pride to us because we knew they came from humble beginnings.”

The tribute will be a fitting way to memorialize rikishi who, in Kalima’s mind, have yet to receive the proper respect since their deaths in January and April, respectively.

“In Chad’s case, he was the first yokozuna from Hawai‘i and I still cannot wrap my mind around why Hawai‘i isn’t even celebrating him,” says Kalima.
“But Waimānalo never forgets,” he adds. “We will celebrate our local boys.”

As the president of Nā Kua ‘Āina O Waimānalo — a group that over the years has not only been responsible for halting the bulldozing of Sherwood Forest and preserving “the place with the oldest graveyard in all of Hawai‘i,” but also saving 81 acres of Kaiwi Mauka lands from development — Kalima admits that he’s always down “for a good kū‘ē, a good protest.”

Still, he acknowledges the need for balance, as well as the obligation to break “the victim mindset” among residents and repair aspects of the community’s culture. The upcoming ho‘olaule‘a, he adds, is the perfect opportunity to continue doing just that.

“We gotta have balance in our lives — we gotta take time to celebrate life,” Kalima says. “We also gotta break the sense of entitlement — the ‘they owe us this,’ or ‘they did this to us’ and everything else. We gotta teach people that nobody owes you anything. You have a chance like everybody else, but you gotta learn to stand on your own two feet and make our kūpuna proud.”