Kalaʻi Miller: Aloha, I’m Kalaʻi Miller and in this episode of Home is Here we’re stepping back in history and we begin with your history.

How much do you know about your ancestry?

Now whether you know a little or a lot, there’s a place full of resources to help you trace your family roots for free.

The only thing you might need is one of these.

Linda Sueyoshi: Everybody at some point in their life wants to know where did they come from and who their parents were and just, more about themselves really.

It's also the next generation, who's eventually going to ask you, what do you know about your parents and your grandparents.

And will you be able to answer?

Kylie Flood: Here at Nānākuli Public Library it's been my personal passion to provide these genealogy resource classes to our community.

Knowing where you're coming from is very culturally important.

My family moved to Nānākuli when the homestead first opened.

We moved in the dead of night because my grandpa's youngest sister had Hansen's disease.

And although they had the medicine, they were still sending people to Kalaupapa.

So they kind of just packed up and moved because this was way out in the boonies way back when.

And I think what really makes me proud is the resiliency of this community.

And so that's what inspired me to start doing these programs.

I think the most important part of doing your genealogy research is really preparing yourself.

So not just preparing yourself emotionally, but preparing yourself for the time and commitment that it's going to take to do that and preparing your ohana for your genealogy research.

Because you may be finding out things that were a secret or that was a hard point in your family's life, the loss of a child, a divorce, an adoption.

You may be digging up something that's difficult for them that may be triggering.

A lot of times with genealogy research, the first step is always to talk to the oldest members of your family first, because they're going to have the first-hand account and information that may not be on documents that you're researching.

It's really the details that become important when you're doing your research.

So the dates, the place names, the maiden names, the middle names.

Some common mistakes that I've seen people make is skipping a generation and assuming that somebody is their kupuna, their ancestor.

I’ve seen people go down a rabbit hole and spend a lot of time researching someone that’s not their ancestor.

So I always suggest that they start with themselves.

And they work their way backwards.

And I suggest that they keep their ancestral chart with them while they're researching.

Place of birth, date of birth, place of death, and date of death and marriage dates are usually the main things that are on your ancestral chart.

Mainly, you use those dates to confirm that the documents that you're looking at are for your kupuna.

Because if it's in the completely wrong place, or the completely wrong year, it could just be somebody a similar name or the same name.

Hitting a brick wall is also a really common thing that happens here.

What I mean by a brick wall is they've reached a point in their genealogy research where they don't know where else to look for resources.

So the wonderful thing about our library system is our main branch, the Hawaiʻi State Library has a lot of old documents.

They have a bunch of resources that are available to you, as a member of the public.

Linda Sueyoshi: One of the most popular things that people come here to do genealogy with is our Department of Health microfilm.

It's birth, marriage, and death records from 1909 to around 1920 with the certificate images.

And there's an index goes from 1909 to 1949.

So another really popular resource is delayed birth records for - that were for people who didn't get a birth certificate at the time of their birth, so they had to get one later on in their life.

So, they had to get testimony from people like neighbors or family members, or friends to say that they are who they say they are.

So it's always interesting when you read the testimonies they'll explain a little bit about the background of, you know, where this person's family came from everything they knew about the family, all the kids that they had, if they moved, where they were from, so you get a lot of information.

It's really exciting.

We have a large reference collection of yearbooks, all from donations.

If you want a photo of your relativein high school, you can look that up.

Some of the oldest ones in there, you know, they go back to the 1920s.

We keep a list of all the yearbooks we have at our reference desk because our yearbook collection is based on donations, so we got a lot of holes in there, but it's pretty large.

Yeah, when you start working in the library, then it's like, you just have to look up all your friends and your co-workers in our yearbook collection.

So it's pretty fun.

Depending on how far how deep you're researching, like, if you really can't find anything.

We do have a city directories and phone books that go really far back, into the 1800s.

And not only can you find where this person was living at the time, you can see what their occupation was.

Or if you're gonna go you know, follow them throughout the years, you can see if they moved around a lot and where they lived.

But also, you can just see the cool like old phone numbers that were only five digits and all the old ads that were in the telephone book.

So that's fun too.

We also have cemetery indexes for Oʻahu, Maui, Molokaʻi, and Lanaʻi, and also one for Kauaʻi.

Those were made by volunteers going out to the cemeteries, writing down everything based on tombstones, dates, names, the inscription on the tombstone.

So it's some sometimes there's some pretty touching information in there.

Kylie Flood: Kū Kahakalau put it best she came and talked to some teenagers here.

She proposed it as now that you know your inherited mana.

What's the accumulative mana that you add to that?

What are you doing today that will be part of the inherited mana for future generations?

And so that's a beautiful thing for me, for people who did genealogy research is they, they find resilience in finding out about their family, they find about trials, about struggles that their ʻohana have been through, that they don't really talk about, and how they've overcome those trials and struggles and made a better space and place for them as a person.

Kalaʻi Miller: It’s easy to miss if you don’t know where to look.

The Hawaiʻi Sports Museum is tucked away on the third floor of an unassuming building located on the edge of Kakaʻako and Downtown Honolulu.

Here three vintage collectors have transformed their passion for retro gear and Hawaiʻi sports history into a haven that celebrates local legends.

Chester Sebastian: Hi, everybody.

Kevin Faller: We are Chester Sebastian: at the Old Queen Street Stadum Kevin Sebastian: Home of the Hawaiʻi Sports Chester Sebastian: Museum!

TV Announcer: Chang throws long for Lelie out in front, touchdown!

Kevin Faller: We're just a three humble local braddahs that care about sports history.

The origin story of how we all got connected was through a simple jersey.

It was a Les Murikami game jersey that Chester would boast on his Instagram and as a fabric junkie or whatever I slid into his DMs.

Chester Sebastian: The Les Murakami jersey came into my possession roughly around the year 2000, I believe.

Through the internet.

I went on Forums Hawaiʻi dot net.

There I met somebody and he showed me the jersey.

And I looked at the jersey and I realized, oh, this is a Les Murakami gamer.

Kevin Faller: I shot him an offer and this, this braddah played me for a couple years.

He would be like, yeah it’s not for sale yet, but I’ll let you know when it’s for sale.

So every paycheck I’d up my antes, I was like “hey braddah,” but it went on for a couple years.

And then during COVID we were blessed with the opportunity to host this thing called the Swap Link.

It was like to swap and link up and doing vintage and circular fashion and sustainability.

Kevin Sebastian: It was first Kevin and Chester that were curating Hawaiʻi items.

Kevin was actually doing a lot of Hawaiʻi sports.

My brother was doing a lot baseball.

My brother asked me if I wanted to join in and I was doing the aloha shirts.

Chester Sebastian: We started off as vintage collectors and we started to realize that we could not sell a lot of these pieces, because they were actually one of a kind pieces which hold, you know, tremendous and valuable stories, teaching our history.

And as soon as we realized that it was like, oh, what are we gonna do?

We can’t sell these pieces.

Let’s start a museum.

Kevin Faller: Old Queen Street Stadium pays homage to the old Honolulu Stadium.

We chose the name Old Queen Street Stadium because our first physical location was a spot, a humble sport, right across of ‘Iolani Palace and right across of the post office.

So it was Queen and Richard Street.

The entrance was on Queen Street.

So one of the prized possessions that we really curate here at the Hawaii Sports Museum are past teams that no longer exist.

We love the Hawai’i Winter Baseball League.

Teams like the Honolulu sharks, my favorite the West Oʻahu Cane Fires, we also had the Hilo Stars, Kauaʻi Emeralds.

Teams consisted of pro players and semi pro players and local players as well; to showcase their talent for a bigger stage.

Players like Ichiro Suzuki, Jason Giambi, Buster Posey.

The Hawaii islanders which was our triple A team.

The World Football League, we had a team that only lasted two years, the Honolulu Hawaiians.

Chester Sebastian: The Hawaii islanders were a triple A team for the Pacific Coast League.

They started in the old Honolulu Stadium in 1961.

And their last game was played in 1987 at Aloha Stadium.

The Islanders are really meaningful to me.

You know, I grew up playing baseball.

Baseball was something I love to do, it was my pastime.

I shared it with a lot of my friends.

And in Hawaiʻi, we never had, you know, a professional team since the Islanders.

As part of Old Queen Street Stadium, I think part of our role in the community is to help teach that, you know, about the Islanders that we did have a professional league team here.

And really to help inspire the young kids to want to be professional baseball players.

Because there were, you know, professional players in the major league that did go and play for the islanders.

Barry Bonds was one, Tony Gwynn, just to name a few.

Kevin Sebastian: You know, growing up me and my brother, we we didn't really do a lot of things together.

But sports always brought us together.

We’d watch baseball games, basketball games, football games.

We'd go to the UH baseball games together and we'd have a good time.

That's how we actually bonded growing up.

We both played baseball.

I played baseball because he played baseball.

Chestern Sebastian: You can tell stories all day but once you actually have the physical garment in your hand to know what they wore back in the day.

It really brings all the stories together, and then just to have family members and the actual players themselves seeing their jerseys means a lot.

Kevin Sebastian: They're able to share these stories with their kids, they brought them down here.

And now these kids want to, you know, create their own moments for themselves when they get older.

They want to be like their parents, like their parents’ heroes that they looked up to.

Kevin Faller: We no longer have sports teams to root for but, we do have our beloved University of Hawaiʻi, that’s home team for us right now.

Chester Sebastian: The most recent pick up for the museum or donation to the museum was actually the original mascot for the University of Hawaiʻi.

Kevin Faller: Another favorite piece that holds a lot of weight for us is past Bow, Tiffany Fujimoto.

Her parents first came in.

And then the parents seen her on our walls, and decided to FaceTime her.

A few months later, she pulls up in the flesh and she donates her game jersey, a set, jersey and shorts, which is really cool to connect.

Kevin Sebastian: One of the more meaningful pieces is a Colt Brennan staff.

You know, it shows all his accomplishments, all his accolades.

And when you feel it, when you actually hold on to it, you kind of feel like you're, you feel the power that he had during that, that '07 season.

And whenever I have athletes come down to the, to our museum, I'll have them hold it and they too feel like they can feel its power.

And they feel even more motivated.

Kevin Faller: Some of our greatest W's is our opportunity to shake hands with some of the greatest that ever wore the “H” or rocked the rainbows.

Coach Phil Handy, he's currently the coach for the Lakers, pulled up on us.

We have some signed gear from national championship winning coach Charlie Wade.

We just got Rich Hill’s baseball jersey.

Actually, we just got his inaugural baseball jersey, number 10.

We got local legends like Uncle Leonard Lau we have his 1989 Jeep Aloha Bowl Jersey.

Chester Sebastian: These pieces hold their dreams is what we like to say, these are dream pieces.

This is what they aspire to be.

And really, the museum is, you know, we talk about sports.

But in reality, a lot of the local players, who aspire to be professional athletes, they don't make it to the big leagues, or the professional leagues.

And what we really wanted to do is showcase more than that.

Kevin Faller: I went to the the University of Hawaiʻi and back then nobody was wearing the rainbows.

Nobody was rocking University of Hawaiʻi on their chest.

So from that moment, ten/fifteen years ago, I've been just diligently collecting.

I believe repping the waters that you drink, the land that feeds you is our duty.

It’s our kuleana to represent and, and when you get the Hawaiʻi on your chest, you kind of have to develop the values of the ʻāina.

Kevin Sebastian: Hawaiʻi has a lot of tradition and history in, not just sports, but in everything.

If no one expresses the history behind it , it gets thrown away.

People’s traditions, their history, what they did for Hawaiʻi, whether it be sports or the community is now lost.

So to preserve it, it's a great way to honor them to show future generations what was done in the past and how we can learn from them and become even better people.

Kevin Faller: One of our biggest success indicators is when that visit includes an intergenerational family, such as having a kid and a parent or even their kūpunas.

There’s this phenomenon that takes place in the Hawai’i Sports Museum when someone comes in and their keiki is around.

Their spirit becomes activated and they start sharing stories of their past and stories of their experiences at the Old Honolulu Stadium or certain teams.

One of my friends who brought her parents and was like, yo I've never seen my dad this happy or this expressive.

The goal is to recreate those feelings and recreate these opportunities.

Kevin Sebastian: I believe people crave that that nostalgic feeling because it helps them remind them of who they are, and where they came from.

You know, you gotta have a past to have a future.

Chester Sebastian: My dream is to have people be inspired when they   come in here.

To want to be great.

Yeah.

Kalaʻi Miller: A local legend in his right, Aaron “Woes” Martin, found his callng from a young age.

His creativity has taken him all over the world but Woes found his spark in the halls of Kalihi Kai Elementary School.

Always looking for a new creative outlet, you can find Woes painting larger-than-life pandas, deejaying, emceeing, or even handcrafting puppets.

Woes: What up y’all?

Woes Martin, PBS, Honolulu, Hawaiʻi.

I was raised in Kalihi, going crabbing with my pops.

Going to the beach with my grandpa who used to spear fish and we used to catch fish and cook it right there on the beach.

And, you know, all the sounds the lowrider trucks, with with all the, you know, the hip hop music coming out and I was influenced by all of that.

I must have been either in a second or third grade.

A friend of mine brought a book to school called Spraycan Art.

And I was amazed by it he said that his brother stole it from the local library.

And it was it was a book by James Prigoff and Henry Chalfant.

And I was just amazed by it, because, you know, it's like my introduction to graffiti.

And I borrowed that book and I traced a bunch of stuff in there, you know, and, you know, Futura was in there, Crayone, Lee, Seen, like all these graffiti legends.

And that was like, my introduction into it.

I went to elementry at Kalihi Kai from kindergarten to the fifth grade and then I moved to Southern California after that.

I used to make my own Marvel characters and stuff and I used to draw in class.

And in front of me there was this Cholo kid, you know, and he would watch me draw and one day he was just like, hey homes, you should like learn to tag you know, you should get into tagging you know, I was just like whatʻs tagging, you know what I mean?

So then he was showing me his hand styles and classic block like cholo blockbuster letters and stuff.

And he goes here you can have my old name and his old name was Timer.

So I used to practice writing Timer.

But that was like my main introduction to actually writing on walls.

It wasn't until like, years later, during my junior year, I moved to Vegas is when I got re introduced into like, graffiti that was more hip hop based.

Moving to Vegas got me into like underground hip hop.

And I started kicking it with a lot of writers and meeting b-boys and dancers and stuff.

And it just, it took over my life.

You know, that's all I wanted to do.

All I wanted to do is hip hop stuff,, you know what I mean?

I was addicted to hip hop.

So the ending of my junior year I moved back to Hawaiʻi.

And I had collected all this, like graffiti knowledge, you know, that I was into, and me my brother, my brother, and I was always into, like, we we tagged everything, you know what I mean?

Like, old phone books, we practice our tags.

My mom hated it because we’d write over everything in the house.

And so Oh, yeah, so I mean, I was heavily into graph always, all the way until like, probably from nine I would say, 91 to 2000.

‘97 I got arrested three times.

So after that, I really kind of really stopped.

So in ’98 I got in a gnarly car accident, a head on collision and it pretty much like I couldn't walk for like a year, I was in a wheelchair.

I snapped my humerus and my femur and I have massive nerve damage on my left side of my body.

And it took me almost a year to heal.

I was going to KCC I was trying to get my pre recs so I can get into cinematography, because I love film.

And I wanted to get into that.

But after the accident and knocked me out of college, and I was paying for myself.

So I got I went into a deep depression after the accident, basically, and I couldn't go back to school.

So then my homie was like, why don't you move to Seattle?

And so when I went to Seattle, they pushed art no matter what.

Like, it could be hippie art, conservative art.

And then of course, the graffiti part, you know what I mean?

It was another spark for me, like, oh, man, and you know, I was going through my depression thing.

Just being surrounded by all these creatives it just got my creative juices flowing.

I started drawing again.

I started sculpting.

I’d buy like clay and do ceramics in my room.

After two years my mom asked me if I wanted to come back to Hawaiʻi.

So I was back home, while I came back, this guy named Hesham, he was throwing an art show.

It’s just funny because Hesham knew me as an emcee.

From ’95 to 2000 I performed a lot with my old partner, Omega Six.

I see the ad, I hit up Hesham like, yo, my name is Aaron Martin.

I want to come bring my art, would love to be part of your art show.

But this whole time Hesham knew me as Timer.

So you know, he opens the door and he's like, oh,— Timer, what the hell?

And I was just like, oh, what's up, dude, he's like, where you been?

I haven't seen you forever.

And I was like, I'm into painting and you know, I like to do this art stuff now.

So I showed him my art.

And he's like, I would love for you to be in his art show.

And the show was a success.

People loved it.

I got a lot of good feedback.

And it's the first time I sold art.

So I was just, like, stoked, you know, like yo, I sold some pieces.

And it actually made me stay on the island.

Which is pretty much the roots of what I do now as a career, which is the term street art, you know, I’m a street artist, you know, I hate that that term, but I mean, it's my life, you know what I mean?

And it was the early stages of that, and, and so I stayed.

After that show they used to have these slam poetry events at Studio One, Downtown.

I started doing love paintings there.

And just this one time, I decided to paint a grizzly bear.

I get there and I sketch like a grizzly bear.

I didn't have the right colors.

And then I had two big cans, which was black and white.

So I decided to turn the grizzly bear into a panda bear.

And it was already, it was angry.

It was snarling, you know what I mean?

So people were tripping out because pandas, they don’t growl, you know what I mean?

They have no facial expressions.

And this dude was like what are you gonna do with that?

He’s like, let me buy that from you.

You know, and for me that was big because I’m doing live art here and it’s the first time someone offered to buy my piece.

From then on, like, there was always someone that came up to me like, hey did you paint that, that weird angry panda?

So I started slangin’ em.

Like paintin’ em, slangin’ em out the back of my trunk.

And I painted, one of my first big canvases and I gave it to Todd and all the homies at in4mation as a gift to their store.

And then my stuff just started picking up.

So I started networking on social media.

When I started making my name through MySpace.

I stared getting shows in LA, San Francisco, and it just, like a snowball, you know what I mean?

And I started getting invited to a lot of shows.

Like, I didn’t think the career would have picked up like that.

I just did it for fun.

It was, it was almost it was like a domino effect from the car accident ‘til now, you know what I mean?

The accident was a blessing, even though it was like the hardest thing I ever went through.

Shout out to Hawaiʻi, you know what I mean?

My home, my love, one love y’all.

Kalaʻi Miller: Mahalo for joining us.

It is because of the generosity of viewers like you that we are able to share these stories.

If you would like to support our mission to advance learning and discovery, please visit PBS Hawaiʻi dot org and click on the donate now button.

For Home is Here, I’m Kalaʻi Miller.

A hui hou.

Linda Sueyoshi: I think it’s just, um, finding more about the personalities of your relatives that, you may not know about, or see.

Or it was a past history and nobody wants to talk about it anymore, but it’s really interesting.

Kevin Faller: I take vintage jerseys, I strip off the tackle twill, and then I replace it with Hawaiʻi.

I cooked up basketball jerseys with the iconic colorways and that’s our way to showcase and share our pride for Hawaiʻi.

Woes: My grandfather, he was, pretty much, my biggest, biggest influence.

You know, he was a painter, a carpenter, a musician, and I sat around getting in trouble, going into his studio and touching his stuff, you know what I mean?

Hahaha.