Newsletter – May 2022
| May is here, the traditional end of School year is close. May also has a lot events that occur starting with me wishing and acknowledging the countless Mothers in our group a very Happy and Special Mother’s Day. In this edition of the newsletter Kalpana Balaraman shares her thoughts about May Day/ Lei day traditions in Hawaii. This is the month we also celebrate Memorial Day remembering the generations preceding us who have paved the way for our lives on this earth. We had a great gathering celebrating our annual Founders’ day celebrations on April 30th. This is the first in person gather in several years and we had over 75 individuals who attended the event. We hope to have many of the pictures taken during the event up on our website shortly so please check there to at least virtually connect up with many of the community members. Please note that we are still in a pandemic. With very cautious and pragmatic way we are opening up our communities and our own organization. Vigilance is still the most important defense for all of us as the number of cases of COVID-19 continue to be present in modest numbers in our midst. We will be doing quarterly targeted solicitations to support our stated goal of “No one left Hungry” in the community. Food insecurity still remains the most prevalent issue in the community and we have a crucial role to play in supporting organizations addressing this issue in our community. Please feel free to send your donations either through Pay Pal or by mailing your check to our mailbox. We will also start the design process of Temple renovations to be completed before the end of this calendar year. Please feel free to send your thoughts and suggestions as we move to do this which could be a major project for us. Please stay safe and if you feel comfortable, join us at the temple next Sunday. On behalf of the LOTUS leadership, warm aloha. Temple Activities The April Pooja at the temple was conducted by Prof. Bhawuk. Given that April Pooja is also celebrated as our annual pooja at Wahiawa brought a special ambience to the whole event at the Temple. We will be celebrating our monthly pooja for May on May 15th at noon at the Wahiawa Temple site.  |
| Lei Day Tradition of Hawaii Kalpana K. Balaraman, Mililani, May 2022 May Day is Lei Day in Hawaiʻi Garlands of flowers everywhere May Day is Lei Day in Hawaiʻi May Day is happy day out here While our haole counterparts tend to stand by the phrase “April showers bring May flowers,” those of us from Hawaiʻi resonate quite strongly with the song verse above. May 1st is ingrained into our lives as “May Day,” the day of lei and dance and celebrating the aloha spirit. It’s when the showers that usually drench our rainy winter season give bloom to a plethora of local flora at the end of spring and into the beginning of summer. While not a celebration of changing of the season – like our “name twin” festival in northern Europe – the timing of May Day falls within the most important lei-making events in the state, including the Merrie Monarch Festival, Memorial Day, and high school graduations. The Hawaiian traditions of lei-making have persisted throughout the inhabitation of this archipelago. However, the colonial era in Hawaiian history was the start of ebbs and flows of the banning and reestablishment of various Hawaiian traditions. In the late 1920s, a Honolulu Star Bulletin article was printed announcing a new tradition to honor the lei, which was thought to be diminished in the light of the resurgence of partial Hawaiian traditions for tourism (hapa haole). Subsequently, May 1st was officially established as Lei Day in 1929, marked by a lei competition. The classic May Day celebration, which is still practiced today, is pageantry-style, with a court consisting of a Queen and eight princesses, one for each island. The Queen traditionally wears white, and each princess bears the color and adorns the flower of her island. During the second half of the 20th century, the celebrations evolved further to include music and dance, which is what we associate with May Day today. While the inclusion of hapa haole hula was not originally accepted, since many purists felt that song and dance traditions had been diluted or corrupted (and May Day was supposed to be an exhibition of traditional Hawaiian skill), current May Day celebrations are a quintessential expression of all things local, from the intricate decorations, the dancers’ adornments, the traditional and modern hula with its respective musical accompaniments, and the food we feast on after all the hard work. And let’s not forget everyone standing hand-in-hand, swaying, singing along to Hawaiʻi Aloha. For those of us who grew up in the islands, May Day was marked by a large production that varied from school to school. As someone who lived and breathed hula for 15 years, May Day marked the culmination of my efforts each year as a hula dancer. For my parents, the lead-up to May meant driving me to more hula practices, spending the weekends picking flowers and tī leaves from our and neighbors backyards, and spending late nights in high school cafeterias weaving lei. It meant taping my feet and ankles and popping ibuprofen after hours of practice, only to stay a couple hours later to finish making costumes and lei. When I was away in college, April and May marked the height of my homesickness. With my social media feed flooded with pictures of Merrie Monarch prep and high school classmates enjoying the lūʻau season with their respective college Hawaiʻi clubs, I found myself constantly streaming local music and wishing that I had chosen to go to school in a city with one decent Hawaiian restaurant. It was also recognizing for the first time that “May Day” and “Lei Day” are purely Hawaiian events and that my college friends had no idea what our celebrations consisted of. Since it occurs near the end of the school year, May Day was a time of yearning to go back home. It reinforced how unique we are from the mainland, and how lucky we are to live Hawaiʻi. This year marks the first in-person celebrations of Merrie Monarch and all May Day celebrations since the start of the pandemic over two years ago. Yes, these holidays and events originated as contests to reinvigorate the local population’s interest and talent in traditional Hawaiian skills, and they still exist as major mediums of showcasing cultural knowledge and doling out cultural appreciation. But more than that, they allow us to gather and talk story and make each smile. They allow us to keep doing what we, the people of Hawaiʻi, do best: share aloha. For more information about the history of May Day, check out the Punahou School and Kamehameha Schools websites. Editors Postscript: St. Andrew’s Schools also have a tradition of May Day honoring queen Emma. Many of the Hawaii based schools have events around this time seeped in tradition. |
| May 2022 Calendar: May 1 – Lei Day May 8 – Mother’s Day Celebrations May 15 – Wahiawa Temple Pooja Day May 16 – Buddha Purnima May 30 – Memorial Day Celebrations May 31 – World No Tobacco Day |
