it not an abstract discussion, but the daily business of life. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com my great fear as a kid was a fear of failing. and that's hawaiian because i was born that way because that's expectation. you're hawaiian, you're going to be less. you're hawaiian, you're going to fail more. it's old. it's in you. it's part of your identity. but when i navigate a voyage, i know when the storm comes, it's going to take you to the bone. and if the storm keeps coming, you've got to stand up. that's just what you've got to do. it's this zone where you learn to make fear your best friend. you hold it really close to you

and you open up the door to believing that you can make it. ♪ i took a walk through this beautiful world ♪ ♪ felt the cool rain on my shoulder ♪ ♪ found something good in this beautiful world ♪ ♪ i felt the rain getting colder ♪ ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la ♪ sha la la la la ♪ sha la la la la la la hawaii is america. as american as anything could possibly be.

yet it also never shed what was there before in the layers and layers that have come since. it's a wonderful tricky conflicted mutant in lack of a better word you'd have to call paradise. no man's paradise. paradises don't exist. paradise is kind of in your head. >> wait a minute. you look at your window here. you look at those hills, those mountains, all that green, that blue sky. the clear sea. it sure looks like paradise to me. this guy knows. he's been everywhere. he's paul theru. novelist, essayist, he's a legendary travel writer. of all the places he's been, all the places he's seen, he chose hawaii to live and he's lived here for 25 years. >> does it matter that it's america? >> it's the big thing that it's america.

it has elements of the third world. the nicest elements of the third world which is the self-respect, the pride. things that don't work at all. and then it's usa. where we are now. there's pta meetings here. they get together and watch the super bowl and it's the most main street usa you will find. >> town is a neighborhood spot in the district and as hawaii is the only state in the union that allows fishermen to sell to restaurants, the pan-roasted mahi-mahi is pretty damn good. it's not a particularly welcoming or friendly part of the world. contrary to the sort of the aloha myth. >> no, that's right. but no island is. nantucket isn't. the island of hawaii isn't. name an island, want foreigners there? sicily. no way. no way.

did anyone come to an island with a good intention? people are -- >> no, never in this new world. best case in the world, bring syphilis. pretty much. at the very least. >> yes. captain cook put his sailors ashore just a little northwest of here. hawaii killed its first tourist. philippines killed their first tourist but people on the islands born on the islands. view anyone who comes ashore with suspicion. >> what defines a hawaiian? maybe should go back in our imaginations to could have been 2,000 years ago. the tahitians had this voyage way before any other culture was exploring the deep seas. somehow, someplace in the south

pacific, single most isolated in the planet. fast forward to captain cook and his identification. get a glimpse, very productive people. they're industrious, healthy. strong, time for the arts. that was a large population, more than half of what we have in hawaii today. fully sustainable, because there was no other choice. so over time, the native hawaiian population goes to 22,000. it's the same story. introduced disease. introduced the inability to deal with it, people die. 1926, public school system would outlaw language and the practice of culture in public schools. so the road to extinction has been well paved. >> between captain cook's arrival in 1778 and today, disease wiped out most of the population. missionaries came. a booming sugar and pineapple

plantation industry. influx of immigrants in okinawa, china, and the philippines, the overthrow. and the u.s. takeover of the hawaiian government. world war ii. and finally, statehood. the geographical realities of being thousands of miles from, well, anywhere else, has given hawaii to some degree, protection from the forces that eradicated so many other south pacific cultures entirely. in fact, they've arguably been holding back the inevitable better than just about anyone. what hawaii looks like today depends which island you're standing on and to some extent, the reputation of the locals. the hawaiian islands are not a monolith. islands, that's plural and we're talking eight very different

islands with very different identities. it's been over a century since the waves of immigrants began and things got all mixed up in the best possible way. there's layers. and a simple question like, who is hawaiian gets you all kinds of answers. the neighborhood of kalihi is far from what most know and most specific kind the last 40 years. >> it's the blue collar town. they all come here. breakfast, lunch. every day. >> i'm joined by two local chefs, mark noguchi of mission, known by some as the gooch. second generation japanese and andrew. of the pig and the lady. he's first generation vietnamese american or would that be vietnamese hawaiian? as you'll see, it gets complicated. >> i actually cooked on the east coast for three years and people would always be like, are you from hawaii? you're hawaiian? i said, no.

second generation japanese. but hawaiian? that makes you hawaiian. no, i realized like, here in hawaii, we identify ourselves ethnically versus geographically. like, there's no way he or i would call ourselves hawaiians. we would get our asses kicked by a hawaiian. >> who is hawaiian? >> a native of the land. in your blood. you come from a lineage of native hawaiian people. >> what's here? >> i feel like hawaiian in a sense, you know. it's my place. but culturally, that's a different story. >> you say you're not hawaiian. >> no. >> what's your feeling about -- >> so you're hawaiian. >> i'm born and raised, going to die 808. >> the owners are a mix. aka mob, mainly japanese

husband, and daughter, who i guess would be japanese, okinawan/hawaiian and son-in-law, robert, who is of course, mexican. >> that's pretty. ooh, look at that. that looks good. >> now we are talking. that's awesome. >> i just caught local food. when i look at this table, it's just hawaii. got portuguese, japanese. okinawan, world war ii. i don't know. >> korea? >> korean, japanese, hawaiian. awesomeness. >> the food is bone deep hawaiian stuff, which is to say delicious mash-up, okay. take taco rice.

it's a dish created in okinawa to approximate tex-mex for homesick gis appropriated by younger generations of okinawan and japanese found its way back to hawaii. got that? >> i've -- identifying and seeing my best friends who are real hawaiian helped me identify, my best friends were native hawaiian. helped me to realize the pride of being from hawaii, understanding the hawaiian culture. living it. possibly japanese. >> there's still a movement to sovereign. >> there's strong movement. so if fighting broke out, which side are you on? you don't have to think about that. >> i would joke about it. if like, me and hawaii. i am back and uncle sam and were like, no, native hawaiian only, i'm like, everybody needs to cook. i'm a cook. i have worth!

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this is ninoa thompson. in 1976 with similarly heroic hawaiians, he did a difficult important thing. before 1972, it was generally assumed even insisted upon that hawaii had been settled originally by some random savages who maybe drifted over accidentally from south america. couldn't have been ancient polynesians across thousands of miles of open water. >> nobody could see the canoe. >> no dreams. no hope. can't see. >> polynesian society set out to prove that that was exactly what did happen. >> there were those in the community that loved this, prayed for it. it was powerful.

they sensed change. you have a 62-foot canoe. it was powerful. it changed everything. >> the hokulaia. a double hold sailing canoe. a replica of the kind of craft believed to have been used in those times and using only primitive contemporaneous navigational tools sailed to tahiti and back. the trip that helped spark a hawaiian renaissance, a rebirth of pride and interest in traditional hawaiian culture and identity. >> the success was monumental. changed the view of ancestors as extraordinarily skilled and so we come from them. thompson is a legendary waterman who continues to sail. native hawaii, his roots go back

in the valley 200 years. >> my grandfather was born here. so i grew up. >> he spent many years learning techniques from a master. now the small micronesian island. >> this was a man who was chosen by his grandfather. at one year old he was put in the wind and water. he wassailing. and then he would never say that as some sense of abuse. the canoe make me sick, my grandfather threw me into the ocean to go inside the wave. when i go inside the wave, i become the wave. when i become the wave, now i navigate. at 5. i approached him. said to me, too old? you want someone to know everything.

send your son to my island. he said i'll teach you enough to find the island you seek, but i can't teach you the magic. >> why do you think it was important to do such a thing? >> i mean, it's the same story you'll see everywhere in terms of the indigenous people. my father's mother, nearly pure hawaiian, chooses not to teach her children language or culture or genealogy. where do you come? who's your family? what's your name, and that could have been 100 generations. what the voyage did was a reconnection back to feeling wholesome about who you are, because knowing where you come from and who are your ancestors. so when it got to tahiti, it was their canoe. this wasn't. it started to ignite this flame. it was symbolic. a bumper sticker, t-shirt emerged. i'm proud to be hawaiian.

1987, first language. mandatory in schools. hawaiian culture has to be taught. private schools won't have attendance if you don't teach hawaiian. now hawaiian identity into everything. it has to be recognized in everything. that is powerful. >> what i mentioned to people, locals in oahu that i was going to moliki, a lot were surprised. molokai did not have a reputation of being hospitable. that it was dangerous to go over there. that those moliki dudes were mean, unfriendly, and quick t i get angry. as it turned out, that was not my experience. >> we like to brag that we don't have traffic lights. we don't have traffic. >> nice.

>> walter naki is a skilled fisherman and today, we head out for some octopus. >> it's not the friendly island. supposed to be the most unfriendly island. i mean, that's what everybody says, right? >> traditionally, we're here very, very friendly. now unfriendly is where you go try to come and fix it. that's when it becomes unfriendly. make it better. that is when we become unfriendly. we had a lot of natural resources. >> still? >> yes. but there is always other people that want to come. >> unsurprisingly, fishing rights is an issue around here. don't come over here sport fishing the wrong place if you know what's good for you.

>> nice, sandy spot. >> so this is the area. okay, ready? let's go. we are here, man. culture. when you stick the spear in there, we make them feel they're not safe no more. come right up, stick them. with the spear. >> final step, stun the struggling creature with a sharp blow from the mallet or if you want to go old school, fight them right in the brain. in my case, it took repeated crunching for the chicklet sized organ.

this one died eventually, likely by exhaustion as anything else, i suspected.

♪

>> while the canoe was a spark for the hawaiian renaissance, this is what really set things off. beginning in 1941 continuing into the '70s and beyond, the u.s. navy been using the beautiful neighborhood island of koloa as a bombing range. you could feel the shockwaves as far away as molokai. people have never been happy about it but emboldened by times and recent events, a group of young activists decided to take a stand. in 1976, there were a number of attempted occupations of the island in protest of the bombing. none more successful than walter. he and fellow activist, richard sawyer set up on the island and refused to leave. >> back over there. one day we'll put it back over

there. >> managing to evade pursuers just over a month before finally being arrested in jail. >> and the first order is burn down this building. >> they emerged, of course, heroes. and these protests went on to inspire many others to enjoy the movement. >> i hope i'm still alive when that happens. i want to see our queen back in office. >> and embody the independent spirit and desire for hawaiian sovereignty that today resonates across generations. >> welcome to supposedly the most unwelcoming place in hawaii. ♪ ♪ >> my name is hanuhanu.

>> thank you so much. >> nice to meet you. >> please come inside. >> aloha. >> this is a shared community space with a sacred history. hano hano is the caretaker of the fish pond and here is the local community leader. also here is the famous walter ritty. >> everyone knows how valuable this is because we can see what happened to the rest of the island. >> essentially an old school fish farm. >> 800 years old. >> 800 years old. >> modernizing one old idea and an ancient idea simple as feeding your community. this, the island you're on, this place could feed over a million people back in the day. >> you hear the word again and again on molokai. means land and translates to that which feeds you. springs, mountains, rivers. these lands, these fish ponds were managed by their ancestors.

as a sacred trust. here where fresh water from the fast moving oceans and the mountains met. early, sustainable clean fish farms. something in modern times, we're still struggling to figure out. >> people think about us. the true story, we have a place of abundance and trying to protect it. trying to protect all of these things we've been trying to protect for the last 30 years and it's getting harder and harder. >> every single one of these hawaiians over here, get enough evidence that the state of hawaii, the department of natural resources have done a terrible job. we're not even looking for blame. we're looking for an agreement for today. >> right. >> we all are going to be pono. we're all going to be righteous and good. our planet is in such bad shape that being environmental, being green is trending. that's how hawaiians have always been. >> who gets to be hawaiian? this is the question. who is hawaiian.

>> hawaiian is a nationality, brother, you could be hawaiian. >> come on. don't now. i have to be born here. this is a different story. >> i can give you the best explanation. you cannot be our blood. you cannot be kanapa. hawaii is our nationality. it matters so much, if you love this place and you don't want to develop it, destroy, abuse it, we're on the same team. if you eyeing this place and its resources as a money-making vehicle for yourself, we enemies, right? and it doesn't matter what race, what religion, what sex. if you love this place and the way we love it and our ancestors loved it, oh, we can be more than friends but we can be family. i'm going to aloha you. >> beautifully put. wow. >> that's it. >> right on, bro.

>> it's a pretty impressive spread of food for supposedly such a surly group of people. >> slow roasted pig, grilled kala fish. and of course, octopus. known as squid luau. fresh poi. you've got to have it fresh. believe me. makes all the difference in the world. fresh water snails called i believe hihi vine harvested from streams way up in the mountains. >> up in the mountain. squid. >> it's the bounty of our ocean and our mountain. >> that's octopus? oh. i recognize you. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ >> when somebody steals this, it's easy for us to say, you're stealing our stuff. right? but all of this stuff is dependent on what healthy environment and eco-system is. >> let me ask you just because i'm a bit of a dick. i have to ask. all right. so we have like 12 more beers. and i pull out some nice suvi. >> i would eat them. look, i would eat them. that doesn't mean it's what i feed my children. our culture made everything we did the best of the best. hawaiians are the only one that turned into poi. we're doing the best. everything to the best of the

best. introduce christianity to us, we're going to do the best. >> our christianity is better than yours. i love it. so i'm really disappointed. you've in no way lived up to your reputation, mean, inward looking, hostile. admit it. it's a calculated strategy. >> it is. >> and the message, if you're watching this show, i hope your heart is swelling with admiration. the bottom line, don't come here. >> yeah!

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♪ the ocean is all around for thousands of miles. a humbling feeling knowing at all times the ground upon which you live and breathe is but a tiny speck in the middle of all this. so in hawaii, the water, man, is an important distinction. it expresses the shared consensus you're able to handle yourself in the ocean no matter what it throws at you.

it implies you're capable of almost mythical things. the ability to live in the water, handle its many moods, above or below the surface. meet uncle ross. a canoe-surfing legend and generally accepting ambassador of the aloha spirit. he's offered to share the truly ancient hawaiian space found only on the face of a crashing wave. ♪ >> surfing, a life connected to the ocean, just spending time with family and friends on the beach, some of the cornerstones of hawaiian life.

>> this is decent. >> tony, that's kiola. >> how are you? >> kiave. megan. >> hello. >> those are my two daughters. this is my wife, felicia. >> hi, how are you? >> come say hi. >> milton. this is milton. >> how does everybody know each other here? >> we live on an island. everybody knows everybody. >> why do i even ask? >> i think i met uncle ross through the water. i mean, just surfing. we became, like, family. he's like my dad. my ohana. >> each and every weekend, ross can be found here with his ohana, extended family and friends. >> beautiful day. even when it's storming, it's nice on the beach. >> yeah. yeah.

>> and we'll stay here until that thing goes down. hits the horizon. when the sun hits the horizon, it's time to go home. >> maui is an island as beautiful as it gets and sure, it's got share of portion-controlled cruise line entertainments, doled out and digestible bites and complementary mai tais but a beloved institution like tasty crust. as local a place as you're likely to find. daniel akitahito will explain. >> this is a menu situation, or, i can order for you if you trust me. i think we'll hook you up with the local flavor. >> okay, i trust. >> raised on the big island, he's a journalist. first hawaiian editor of a major surf publication and founder of the local contrast magazine. >> local culture is very much so trying to point a finger at anybody coming going, hey, you don't belong. therein kind of lies a little

conflict we have of being a modern day hawaiian. and i still think that's something we forget about these days is how educated and how accepting our ancestors were. it was always built on inclusivity, aloha. aloha is giving without expecting anything in return. you've got a hawaiian culture that was a product of the polynesians that populated the islands and the local part of the plantation lifestyle. the japanese, the chinese, the koreans, filipinos, portuguese. >> if indeed all history can be explained by what is on your plate, this is a prime example. behold. the plate lunch. the most identifiable and essential feature of the plate lunch is this. a big scoop or two of white rice

and potato mac salad. there is nothing more hawaiian with protein or this hamburger steak, like patty drowned in dark sinister stinky shiny gravy. or nori with sesame seed. >> that looks beautiful. >> oh, that's going to work. all right. sit this right on top of the rice. >> yep. get some of that salad on there too. >> get the gravy on. look what we're eating. okay, they may not be hawaiian but they are now. they're fundamentally local. this food, the most delicious, let's be honest, delicious. this is not healthy eating. >> we're kind of paying the price for it right now in the health of the state. which is terrible. as i take a bite of a hamburger. >> as i said, just so good. >> if you really want to do hawaii right, you've got to get that.

that's a power that hawaii has is that if you show aloha and you give without asking, the ina is going to recognize it and shower its blessings upon you. >> so you think traditional hawaiian culture and lifestyle has a chance against the modern world? >> i think so. the beautiful part about my ancestors is they realized there was a limited number of resources where they lived, so they observed nature to the best possible they could to figure out what were the cycles and how do we preserve this resource? hawaiian culture can teach the whole world something that it needs to know, that we all live on an island. and we are all part of the same community. let's all show aloha to the ina and everybody else as well. ♪

♪ an extraordinary man lives in this house. chef gordon. long time resident on maui. legendary talent manager. maybe you know some of the people whose careers he's looked

after. alice cooper. teddy pendergrass, blondie. pink floyd. he was years ahead of the chef explosion. shepherding emeril through his career. he has produced friends, worked alongside great chefs. close to holiness the dalai lama. basically done everything with everybody in every place. >> i first got here 40 years ago. i put one foot on the island and i knew i was living here the rest of my life. >> do you ever look out there and it's wallpaper? >> never. i say it out loud. first words in the morning. thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. every day. >> chef is famously one of the most generous and enthusiastic of hosts, a more stand-up loyal guy you could barely imagine and no wonder they call the documentary based on his life "super mitch." that's how he's known around the world.

here, he's known that guy who throws great parties. prep starts early. with chef's friend, julio, a maui-born and bred rancher with middle of the night, in a traditional emu is dug, filled with lava rocks. the fire allowed to burn down to coals before the pig wrapped in combination of banana leaves and tea leaves is dropped in. >> okay, you guys ready for the unveiling? hold on. >> 12 hours later, you dig it up and well, it's party time. what you've been saying is you've been drinking steadily since 5:00 this morning. >> i didn't say, it didn't come out of my mouth. >> behold. the magnificence. it's a very important part of your childhood. dun dun. wow.

look at that. you just lift the bones out by hand. >> yep. >> ready? >> just dump them in into a bucket. awesome. wow. [ applause ] wow. that's close to the way i would end up. pour me right into a pot. there's lots to do, and everyone pitches in to help. it's an extended, all-day affair of chopping, dicing, slicing, mixing and sampling along the way, like this sausage that someone was nice enough to drop off. shelden works up a potato mac salad. julio carves up a unicorn fish.

the chef puts together red snapper. somewhere, somewhere, pigs foot soup is happily bubbling away. there's chili pepper water used for dipping or taking ago a shot for regularity or boner medicine or whatever. oh, yeah. there's also spam noodles. there is no party without spam. by dinnertime, the beer, wine, and festive beverages have been flowing for hours. also moods have been adjusted in a completely natural way. >> julio and the pigs. [ applause ] >> i've cooked a lot of things. i ain't never seen one poured into a pot.

>> it's what i love. this is what we do in the islands. this is what it's all about. >> and always bring the family. bring the kids. you rarely ever see a party where there aren't kids. >> ohana means family. >> extended family. >> it's like you're an ohana to everybody here. >> and if you're family, you can borrow money. >> and, as happens, i've come to find out, things end up in the most natural, just kind of happens way, song and some dancing. ♪ this is willie k, and that's his daughter lysette. and it's pretty damn captivating. ♪

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to be hawaiian, to me, there needs to be some kind of sense of connection to place, and some sense of responsibility for it. the issue about being honest to place, and honest about what you love and honest to what you value is a road that you're constantly trying to be more. i don't know sometimes how to be fully honest, because i don't know enough. what i love about the oceans, that's my path. that i go on the oceans to seek that sense of truth. ♪

>> they said, i can see whales, like close up. and i had reasons for optimism. all week i've been staring out to sea, watching humpback whales leaping out of the ocean, spouting and frolicking. so are things compared to other parts of the world, our conservation efforts as far as marine mammals, it's going well? whales in particular? >> that's the one thing on the planet that is. they're talking about taking humpbacks off the endangered species list. it's good to hear that they've recovered. but it may make it easy to add to the whaling list again. >> it's mating season in hawaii for the nearly 10,000 humpback whales that migrate down from southeast australia each year. this doctor of the university of hawaii has dedicated his career to studying these whales. >> i think their song is the most complicated display.

when you're close to a singer you can feel it with your whole body, like 185 db, really loud. wow. >> they don't mind us at all. do they? ♪ ♪ ♪

oh, ho, you got it. unbelievable. ted cruz scored big on super saturday and appeals for unity to stop donald trump, but the front runner got his share of victory too and warns that any attempt to split the party will lead to defeat in november. and living a dream that may never be realized. the heart-tugging story of an 8-year-old whose dying wish is to be sheriff for a day. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm george ho