Native Hawaiian Storytelling: Empowering & Training Indigenous Creative Entrepreneurs
David Mura
Panel Description: Native Hawaiian Philanthropy will present on the Native Hawaiian Storytelling Program—Writers immersive, which empowers artists to develop content that reflects Hawaiian history, culture, values and experiences from an Indigenous perspective. The Workshop will feature short films and sizzle reels related to the colonization of Hawaii, political resistance through the arts, and the power of truth-telling regarding racial and social injustices and cultural preservation.
This panel and discussion emphasize the importance of supporting indigenous storytellers who bear the responsibility of sharing and preserving native Hawaiian history, culture, the impacts of colonization, historical resistance and hope for future artists and generations. Panelists will share their journeys from artistic expression to business development, highlighting the resources, training models and mentorship structures that have helped and continue to help them transition into creative entrepreneurship. This panel proves valuable insights for artists, educators, funders and community leaders interested in empowering creatives with the tools to thrive in both cultural and economic realms.
Ku’ulei Maunupau, CEO, Native Hawai'ian Philanthropy Emcee
NHP is funding the mentorship program directed by Michael Palmieri
Michael Palmieri, Executive Director, Native Hawai’i Storytelling
A photo of the NHS team at Shangri La Museum.
Michael Palmieri grew up in Argentina and his father was an opera tenor who was very talented but was not particularly adept at the business side of the arts. Michael’s doctoral dissertation was “Identity Construction in Nascent Creative Entrepreneurs”; in it he asked how it is that people from art/MFA programs know how to produce performing art but not how to thrive in their profession. He noted that of 140 education programs in media, preforming arts and creative writing that he researched only one incorporated lessons in business and entrepreneurial practice. So few artists actually make their living as artists. How can we change that? Michael pointed out that his film school, USC, was number one in the country but offered no training in entrepreneurship. And yet, a knowledge of the film business and how it works is essential to success there. He said that when he was a film executive, writers came to him and it was the writers who asked what he was looking for that he generally worked with. They understood the needs of a script to fit a certain budget.
Palmieri has worked as a production executive, writer, producer, publisher and consultant in the entertainment industry. A creative entrepreneur refers to someone who builds a business or enterprise based on creative or cultural talent, skills and intellectual property. These individuals operate at the intersection of creativity and commerce, often turning artistic products into business ventures. The Native Hawaiian Storytelling program helps its artists build business skills and has resulted in six motion picture options, nine indie features and six webseries. Both in his program and in education, particularly arts education, Palmieri sees the need to foster an entrepreneurial mindset—acting in uncertainty, leveraging existing means, experiment and the ability to fail, creative values for others, building resilient collaborative networks, honoring self and community.
Native Hawaiian Story telling program involves twelve participants and is nine months long. It is self-directed, project based and free and fosters a highly curated learning community with an ongoing cohort experience review. Obviously, this program for Native Hawaiians is centered on their ethnic/racial/cultural identity, but it also encourages the participants to look at the different roles we play in life and how to give meaning to those roles.
There have been 3 cohorts over 4 years, projects across multiple platforms, and ongoing development. After the creation of the project, phase two involves raising money and creating a fund to finance the project, through grants, connecting with production and publishing companies, publicity, marketing, distribution.
My job with these programs is to become obsolete,” he said. He wants to train the artists to further the program, become leaders in this program, help seed the next two cohorts.
Typically in learning communities, after a program ends, usually 10 per cent people meet after the program; with his program almost all the participants continue to work together. If the young artists succeed, said Palmieri, they can lift the whole community; these artists are not just doing this for themselves, they’re doing it for their community, to advance their culture and narratives, taking what the colonizers do and mastering it and beating them at it.
In the Q & A, there was a question about the needs of social service versus art. Palmieri explained that the program is a community building program; “our cohort becomes family ohana to each other…” Community is the support network that catches people when they fall through the cracks.
Palmieri said he owns the patent to his program, but would be happy to bring it to other areas in the country. He also said he’d like to see an infrastructure where programs helping Indigenous artists could be linked together for networking, information, and funding purposes.
At the end of the session, Palimieri introduced his Origin Story Exercise and said anchoring yourself in your origin story is a powerful way to ground yourself in your identity. Your origin story is based on a life-defining moment that inspired you to pursue something meaningful in your personal or professional journey. In the exercise, use the present tense, place yourself and us there; use rich descriptions, two or three minutes long, practice, the goal is to move you and us.
Ainoa Rudolfo & his project Wall Rats
Wall Rats is a teen drama/psychological drama written and directed by Lowen Kainoa Rudolfo, who is a member of the current cohort group of the program. A “rat” is a young person who finds a home in some other place than home, and Lowen says he grew up as a park rat. Later, as an adult, he became an at risk youth outreach counselor.
Rudolfo’s organization, the Hawaii Filmmakers Collective, works to promote the projects of local filmmakers and break through barriers and the old boys network. Rudolfo argues that if indigenous artists don’t tell their stories, indigenous people become stereotypes and background. Indigenous narratives correct history, protect memory and empower keiki, and in that way story is part of sovereignty and not just entertainment. In standard media portrayals, the people of Hawaii and especially the indigenous Hawaiians become background, part of a postcard, and Rudolfo wants to tell stories that don’t ignore the issues of poverty and survival, the struggles of youth and generational trauma.
(Some statistics here are relevant for background: 53% of Native Hawaiians live in continental, 47% in Hawaii, NH makes up 28% of homeless; 80% trafficked of those trafficked for sex are Native Hawaiian; Native Hawaiians make 40% of the incarcerated even though 23% of state population.)
Wall Rats follows youth on the streets in Waikiki, and examines that brotherhood and loyalty when the world forgets you, and the series will deal with issues such as drugs survival, child neglect, abuse, sex trafficking, homelessness, loss of culture, the fight for identity. Rudolfo describes the series thusly: In a city where tourists are living it up two local brothers just trying to survive, a world of broken homes, blurred loyalties and quiet dangers. The series seeks the cultural richness of Reservation Dogs with the emotional depth and drama of Euphoria, all set in Hawaii. Lowen needs 300K to produce a microbudget feature/pilot for the series.
Rudolfo argued for funding a movement not just a moment, systems, not just symptoms: The Keiki are unseen, their issues unfunded or unaddressed, but art with purpose can create change, serve as cultural representation and social justice platforms, as an educational tool and economic opportunity for native talent and youth internships.
Kailan William George – Children’s book author
George’s children’s book project is Across the Kai Uli: A Voyaging Children’s Book, based on one family’s journey to Hawaii, in a migratory flight to find new lands and a new home, wondering how they will find their way across the ocean. What they find is that home is not just somewhere they are going but something they carry within them always.
A Native Hawaiin, George’s mother told her remarkable bedtime stories, but Kailan was born on the continental US. Kailan promised herself she would become a storyteller; she moved to LA, worked as a development executive, and traveled the world, and on those travels she met Pacifica people who reminded her of her own Hawaiin people. Like Kailan, many of these Pacifica people felt distant or separated or lost from their cultural identity. So Kailan asked how do we carry ourselves, our culture, our stories, with us? Our people , she said, have always been voyagers and carried home with them; ocean was never a barrier but a thread connecting all of us. Her work focuses on reclaiming Native Hawaiian narratives, challenging extractive and colonial mindsets, honoring and uplifting Native science, offering healing and reconnection, encouraging connection to the earth, and broadening representation in media. Kailan mentioned that only .9 per cent of children’s lit is about Pacific Islanders.
In the book, the family’s boat is separated from their fleet—and to her this mirrors how today many Indigenous people feel at a loss, a sense disorientation; the only way through this loss is holding fast to our connections and building new ones. Our stories, she said, can be guiding and healing and serve as a mirror to see ourselves reflected and value and windows for others to see into cultures other than her own.
Kailan’s next book will include animation. She is seeking $30,000 to do the book and animated short. She feels the success of her first book, which won numerous awards, proves that people want to hear stories about Pacifica peoples.
