{"id":394,"date":"2008-03-12T09:04:08","date_gmt":"2008-03-12T15:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=394"},"modified":"2008-03-12T09:14:44","modified_gmt":"2008-03-12T15:14:44","slug":"the-sons-of-the-soil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=394","title":{"rendered":"The Sons of the Soil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a037\u00a0 bar steady\u00a029.78 0mph\u00a0windchill 36<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Crescent Moon of Winds<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Below\u00a0is a reply to my brother Mark about this e-mail he sent to me:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Charles, This is pretty amazing. It really needed to happen. Mark<\/font> <\/font>** Penang abandons pro-Malay policy **<\/font>The Malaysian state of Penang says it will no longer follow a government policy favouring ethnic Malays.<\/font>< http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/go\/em\/fr\/-\/2\/hi\/asia-pacific\/7289509.stm<\/font><\/u><\/a> ><\/font><\/font>In re:\u00a0 <\/span>the sons of the soil.\u00a0 <\/span><\/o:p><\/font><\/font>When I was in Hawai’i<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, I learned the natives call themselves kama’aina, literally children of the land.\u00a0 <\/span>Businesses offer a kama’aina discount and there has been some effort to get civil service preference to kama’aina.\u00a0 <\/span><\/o:p><\/font><\/font>In Hawai’i<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>, where the indigenous population has experienced considerable oppression (plantation slavery for sugar and pineapples) and marginalization (numbers cut by 90% thanks to disease), it seems just.<\/font><\/font> <\/p>\n

It made me think a lot about this notion of belonging to a land, or a place.\u00a0 <\/span><\/o:p><\/font><\/font>The problem with identifying one ethnicity or one particular population as sons of the soil is its ahistorical nature.\u00a0 <\/span>That is, at some point in time, virtually every population on earth, outside of a miniscule group in Africa<\/st1:place>, emigrated.\u00a0<\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/font>In other words, kama’aina is not a permanent characteristic, rather it reflects an acquired relationship, one that reflects a love for this place.\u00a0 <\/span>Others, too, can become kama’aina.\u00a0 <\/span>That is the essential injustice in the Malaysian situation.<\/o:p><\/font><\/font>It is, too, an injustice in Hawai’i<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>, if\u00a0Filipino, Japanese, Chinese and white inhabitants cannot, at some point, also be kama’aina.<\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As I thought more about it, I realized I am kama’aina of the American Midwest, the heartland of the North American continent, yet I am also a son of immigrants.\u00a0 <\/span>Am I less wedded to this land than the Annishinabe or the Lakota?\u00a0 <\/span>I don’t think so.\u00a0 <\/span>My life depends on it. When I return, I see home in its lakes and forests.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

In fact, the whole notion of an ecological consciousness comes down to seeing ourselves, each of us, as kama’aina of the planet earth.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/font><\/font>Anyhow, thanks.\u00a0 <\/span>I agree, amazing and hopeful.<\/o:p><\/font><\/font>\u00a0<\/font><\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a037\u00a0 bar steady\u00a029.78 0mph\u00a0windchill 36 \u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Crescent Moon of Winds   Below\u00a0is a reply to my brother Mark about this e-mail he sent to me: Charles, This is pretty amazing. It really needed to happen. Mark ** Penang abandons pro-Malay policy **The Malaysian state of Penang says it will no longer follow a government … Continue reading The Sons of the Soil<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87,9,100,12],"tags":[4339,46,334],"class_list":["post-394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-garden","category-great-work","category-politics","category-travel","tag-great-work","tag-hawaii","tag-kamaaina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}