Responsibility, Privilege, Right — Kuleana

As I’m transitioning to grad school life in Hawai’i, I’m learning a lot about Hawaiian language and culture. One of the words/concepts that’s stuck out most to me so far is kuleana. Kuleana has several meanings. The three I was taught are responsibility, privilege, and right; one of my professors also explained it as your life mission. Learning about kuleana, the word and the concept, caused me to reflect a lot on my own life and resolve.

Responsibility

I’m frequently asked why I do so much: why I’ve been so active in countless students groups/movements; why I’m actively a part of multiple communities even though my schedule’s rarely conducive for it; why I never stop studying, reading articles, and meditating on political issues; why at the drop of a pin I’m ready to passionately argue for what I believe in, no matter my company.

The thing is, I’ve never really felt like I’ve had the choice. Of course, no one’s directly forcing me to do all that, but knowing about all of the horrors and pains my ancestors have gone through and community members are going through, these are fights I can’t sit out of. I feel like it’s my responsibility to honor the fighting spirit of countless people before me, and continue fighting for a better world where my communities can live with full autonomy, where no child has to hide or feel ashamed of who they are, where people can live and love fully and openly in their own truth, where the land is cared for as if part of our family.

Privilege

Although all this work is tiring, it’s never felt like a burden. To view my work as a burden would be to view my communities and the people I love as burdens. Really, in many ways it’s a privilege for me to have the ability to even continue the fights of my ancestors and elders. It might require heavy labor on my end, but continuing the fights of my ancestors and elders is a labor of love.

Far too many members of my communities are struggling to get by or don’t have access to the resources and spaces I do because of my educational privilege, lighter skin, perceived gender, etc. The privilege of having the ability and capacity to fight for my communities means it’s my responsibility to do so. Anything less than devotion to the betterment of the people I care about would mean reaping the benefits of my privileges without leveraging them to dismantle the systems that create these unequal power structures in the first place, and that doesn’t sit right with me for one second.

Right

I always need to remind myself that working for my communities is in many ways a right I must continuously earn. To speak up for my communities means I also need to hold myself accountable to these communities. I must always remind myself of my relative privileges within my communities, and that no matter how much I learn and listen, I will always have room for growth. As a right I must continuously earn, failing to hold myself accountable and acknowledge my own shortcomings would be to abuse, and potentially lose, this right.

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Responsibility, privilege, and right — kuleana. I’m sure that as my time here goes on I’ll learn more about the nuances of kuleana and evolve my own personal understanding of it. But for now, I’m struck at how a single word, kuleana, is able to capture so much of my own personal praxis.