Leaving a Legacy.
The art of storytelling runs deep in Hawaiʻi.
From oli to mele to hula, Native Hawaiians relied on storytelling to pass down knowledge from one generation to the next. Our Kūpuna presents “Leaving a Legacy”— a collection full of stories told by kūpuna as they recollect and share their memories of old Hawaiʻi.
Paulette McLain
The date was Sunday, December 7, 1941. Nine-year-old Paulette McLain was helping her older siblings dust off their living room carpets outside their house in Kaimukī. All of a sudden, a plane with big red circles on its wings flew over their house. The pilot, close enough that she could see his black gloves and goggles, waves directly at her.
Before Paulette can understand what’s happening, her neighbor emerges from her house yelling, “We’ve been attacked.” Her and her siblings climb to the top of their house to see black smoke covering Pearl Harbor.
Now 89 years old, Paulette revisits that infamous day in history. From catching the trolley to the fish market to listening to the locals conversate in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, Paulette shares her fondest memories of growing up back then in Kaimukī.
