Hawaiian Gothic w/ Keala Kendall
/We’re joined by the fabulous Keala Kendall to deep dive into the history of Hawaii, the ghosts of imperialism that haunt the island, and what Hawaiian Gothic looks like as we discuss her new book, That Which Feeds Us!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of family death, colonization, racism, enslavement, gentrification, stillbirth, grief, sexual assault, genitalia, and queerphobia.
Guest
Keala Kendall is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic. Hapa Native Hawaiian, her work explores themes of culture and place, drawing inspiration from her upbringing in the islands with a Hawaiian folkloric twist. Deeply committed to giving back to her community, Keala is also a cofounder of Pacific Islanders in Publishing and a past organizer of the Books for Maui charity auction. Born in Honolulu, raised on Molokaʻi, she now lives as part of the Native Hawaiian diaspora in Los Angeles.
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
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- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits, a boozy dive into mythology legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world I'm Amanda-
JULIA: And I’m Julia
AMANDA: And we are so excited, rarely have I read a book y'all in the park that garnered more comments than I did while reading our guest today, author Keala Kendall. Keala, welcome to the show!
KEALA:Hi, hello. Hi, I’m Keala.
JULIA: We are so excited to have you, and particularly we are really excited that we get to talk to you before That Which Feeds Us comes out. If you're listening to this on the day that the episode comes out, it just came out yesterday. So you can go and buy it right now, right away.
AMANDA: Hey, you're gonna want to, I promise.
JULIA: Absolutely, you're going to. So Kaela, before we get started, can you tell our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do besides writing the incredible That Which Feeds Us?
KEALA: Hi, well, I'm Kaela Kendall and I'm an author who from Hawaii. I was born in Honolulu and raised on Molokai, and today I'm joining you as part of like the Native Hawaiian diaspora in Los Angeles. And my work, including my new novel, That Which Feeds Us, is kind of my way of going home, as I live in diaspora.
That which means this is a Hawaiian Gothic. It's about the true cost of paradise. It's a story that follows a young Hawaiian woman who goes home for the first time to find her missing sister who has disappeared from a exclusive, ultra-exclusive, let's be clear, wellness resort on a private island. While there, she has to uncover the island's history to find out what happened to her.
JULIA: Oh, gosh. And, you know, I think we've said it so many times on this podcast already, we are such big fans of the Gothic genre as a whole. So anytime I see any sort of iteration of Gothic that is not the classic kind, like English Victorian Gothic, I'm like, give it to me an IV directly into my veins, please, and thank you. And so, it was so, so exciting to see this email pop up in our inbox and then get to read the book. And now getting to talk to you.
KEALA: I actually listened to your episode with Isabel. The two, I haven't finished the vampires of El Norte. And I was like, I don't want to go, I don't want to know anything. I know there are vampires already, and that's too much. But yeah, I love, I love Isabel's work, The Hacienda, and like The Possession is the one I'm reading right now.
JULIA: Oh, yes. It's so wonderful.
AMANDA: [2:48] lives in my head rent-free.
JULIA: Yes, truly, truly.
KEALA: I'm also working on a possession book. So I was like, let's, let's see what the people have done.
JULIA: We love to see authors inspiring other authors. makes me so pleased.
AMANDA: I did just have a fantasy of the four of us doing like a live podcast maybe in on the West Coast because you know, you're she's in Seattle, you're in LA, like we can make this happen.
JULIA: I'm loving it. We can figure this out.
KEALA: Let's do it.
JULIA: I know BookCon just happened at time of recording, but maybe BookCon next year. Who can say? Who knows?
KEALA: Los Angeles Festival of Books.
JULIA: There you go.
AMANDA: I would love to start with a question about what does Gothic mean to you? Because it's a trope we love, it is a genre we love, we're huge fans of genre fiction here. And so, I would love to know what is your definition of Gothic and also what drew you to it as a sort of home for the story you wanted to tell?
KEALA: I can't remember the person who said this, but I've been thinking about the American Gothic and lately with That Which Feeds Us, know, because it being a Hawaiian Gothic, but there's this haunting back for the American Gothic. And that was what was at the forefront of my mind, is this ghosts are such a powerful vehicle to like explore the past. They literally can walk it into the present. But when I've been thinking about his history, I feel so esoteric when I say this, because it just sounds like something a guy would say, taking like, I'm not condoning marijuana usage, like taking his first hit.
AMANDA: I am. That's fine.
KEALA: We are. I was like, I don't know if we can do that here, like taking his first hit and he's like, man, history is just one big ghost story. That's how I feel about it.
AMANDA: Man. That is Julia, me at 8 a.m. pre-coffee. Like you have found your people.
KEALA: Okay, good. Because I've been thinking about that though, I'm like, but I'm joking, not joking. I do think that's true and what we learn from it. Like, sometimes history takes on this fable aspect. And when I think of the Gothic, it's that element of haunting back. I love horror for showing us what a society fears, and it's such a great mirror, and then having the opportunity to have the people on the margins front and center with the Gothic and then that haunting back. I mean, you've read the book. It's hard for me to get into it too much.
JULIA: No, absolutely. We'll get into it in general genre sense, but not any of the details really of the story so that people can go in feeling completely unspoiled by this interview.
KEALA: There's Persimmons!
AMANDA: I was just gonna say, don't read this book if you wanna eat a persimmon in the next like two to four weeks because I'm not touching the juice for a while.
KEALA: By the time you recovered, the market will have crashed if the book's a success.
JULIA: You’re right.
KEALA: So that's the long con, because I do love persimmons. People are like, what do you have against them? And I'm like, I don't. love them. I think they're delicious.
AMANDA: [5:33]
KEALA: Perfect for a Gothic. Yeah, exactly. I want it to become a theme. I want persimmon wine. I want that.
JULIA: So, Keala, in introducing yourself, you were talking about how you are now a part of the Hawaiian diaspora. And that's an incredibly important aspect of your main character, Lehua's story is that she is part of the Hawaiian diaspora. She grew up in Arizona, and she's heard these stories of Hawaii, but she didn't grow up there herself. So, in your approach to her story, why did you in particular choose to have her be growing up a part of the diaspora? And second part of the question, How do you think that in particular slots into the gothic horror aspect of the story?
KEALA: I started this book, That Which Feeds Us. Didn't actually start out as a ghost story in the beginning. It was my attempt to go home because I was very homesick, and I figured at least I can go home even if it's only on the page. And I was dealing with my own feelings of now being part of the diaspora and being separated from my homeland. For Hawaiians, we're very connected to sense of, I think everyone is- But, you know, for me, I've always been connected to home and to not have the opportunity to go back, and so long was really hard, and to just see more and more of my family also leaving Hawaii and friends too, going through that transition was really difficult. And I just had all these feelings and you know, some people are like, well, did you go to therapy?
AMANDA: Girl, therapy is expensive.
KEALA: Opening Microsoft Word, going in. I pay a subscription. No, I don't pay the subscription. bought the lifetime. I can make financial decisions. But I do go to therapy too, to be clear, but it's not enough. Not enough Microsoft Word. But anyways, I started working on this book, and I knew it was about a girl going home and reconnecting with this connection she hasn't had since childhood. So, for people who haven't read the book, Lehua was raised by her grandparents with her twin sister, who has disappeared.
But they died when they were 12, and they went into the foster system. I also was in the foster system for a short time growing up. And so, it's a very, it's not autobiographical to be clear. I have not seen what Lehua has seen. Just going into those feelings and experiencing them with her was very cathartic. And for how it ties into the Gothic, the idea of homesickness in the Gothic, it's like a really big theme.
If for anyone who's ever gone home and felt like an outsider, that's very like part of like the genre of the Gothic. Like you go home and it's not right. And I remember reading about how homesickness was like this big aspect of it where you are looking for that nostalgia, you're looking for that connection, but then you go there, and it's missing, and something is wrong. And that's how I feel when I look back at Hawaii sometimes, when I see how it's changed. And as I was doing the research for this book, what Lehua would experience going home for the first time, that's when it started to naturally evolve into a horror story, and gothic.
Cause I realized there's no way that Lehua could have this experience where she goes home and she doesn't see the direct link that tourism has on her life, you know, as a native Hawaiian in diaspora and on colonial greed, as she sees like, throughout the islands and just native displacement, and so her looking for a sister meant she would have to confront these things. And that's when it became more of a horror story. And a resort became the perfect place to have this, like pulling back the curtain moment, because there's this facade. And what happens when people check out?
AMANDA: Permanently, semi-permanently.
JULIA: Exactly. What happens indeed. I love that. And I really do. We talked about this a little bit in our conversation with Isabel as well. Really love this sort of new wave of Gothic novels that are in particular being told by authors of color that are dealing with sort of this like ancestral trauma and also like colonization themes and everything. She Is A Haunting is a great example of that. I think that this is like, this is such a great new entry into that new wave of Gothic horror. And it was something that I was really enjoying seeing more of. And I was very pleased reading it, to be honest.
The story does really deal with themes of colonization. And I think when people think of Hawaii, they don't necessarily think about the plantation history of Hawaii. And obviously, the United States has a lot of trauma around plantations in the mainland United States. But obviously, and you address this so well in the book, like the impact of that history has left scars on the island, both historically, socioeconomically, et cetera. Can you speak on how you wanted to bring that sort of front and center to the plot of That Which Feeds Us?
KEALA: For people who have never been to Hawaii, I knew I had to do a little bit of world-building to bring them to the islands, at least my Hawaii, how to experience it. Or not how to experience, but how it affects people day to day. So, Hawaii had a plantation capitalist society and it's like influenced the culture, the multi-ethnic group. And so to really transport people or at least invite them. I always think of a book as a conversation to invite them to the table so we're working with the same vocabulary. I wanted to make sure I brought them into that history without it being like, welcome to history lesson 101. As I was saying earlier, like when I was researching it, I found this direct link, and what it was is how many modern resorts are former plantations, and they really have just rebranded, and it's weird when you look at Hawaii because the same wealth inequalities from that plantation history, that little legacy of it are still felt today. I believe my author's note used to have this. I might put it somewhere for readers who are interested to learn more about it, but like the big five who are the sugar companies that held a lot of power in Hawaii when sugar was king, and they're all the children of these missionary families that came to Hawaii, you know, Euro-American families, and still hold a lot of wealth. Like Alexander Baldwin is still a business there today.
Lanai is now owned by the Ellisons, but it was the Dole plantation, and just going to Hawaii today, there's nowhere you go anywhere without seeing the sugar company's influence, just even in the makeup. Like, we know what a Hawaiian plate lunch is. It's because of people who were on the line working the plantation, sharing their lunches. That's why you have the Korean food, you have Japanese, you have Chinese, you, you know, some Portuguese stuff in Hawaii, and to show it wasn't even going to be a question. Like I had to show it somehow, but make sure it was like, don't pay. Come inside my house. Don't miss that step. I'm going to try and smooth that out for you by explaining, like, yeah, they were brought in. And I knew it was important to have a character like Chiyo, who is from that, you know, background of local, local identity, and Hawaii is like someone who's not Hawaiian, but lives there or part of the fabric of that very multi-ethnic culture.
AMANDA: And I love that Lehua is sort of our lens for whether or not the reader is familiar with these aspects of Hawaiian history and culture. Lehua is experiencing it in some ways for the first time. She's visiting Hawaii for the first time in the book, and as someone in diaspora, her exact learned knowledge of the vocabulary, traditions, ways of navigating, ways of being, I think she feels a little self-conscious about it. And we get to see her kind of deal with that and be confronted with it and decide to learn and meet up with somebody who can kind of provide her with some of that context and resource. I imagine something that you relate to as a member of the diaspora, but I just thought that was a really great sort of device for helping explain to all readers of all kinds of knowledge and familiarity with Hawaii, the things that we need to know.
KEALA: I appreciate you saying that. A funny side note, when I get into Lehua's voice, I got it down so fast with edits because I was working on multiple projects. I was like, OK, we got to get back into Lehua. I go on TripAdvisor, and I read one-star reviews about how mean the locals are. And I'm like, there's that rage. I got it tapped in.
JULIA: That little like, that's so good.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: No, that's so that's incredible.
KEALA: I wish I found that out two years ago when I was figuring out the voice of the novel. But I was like, Mm, now we have it. There's that ball.
JULIA: It's like a trigger phrase, you know, like when you try to do like voice acting stuff, you'll be like, OK, what's the trigger phrase that gets me into this accent? And then that's incredible.
KEALA: They were mad at me for for trespassing. And instead of just talking to me like a regular person, they called. They were so mad. I'm like, OK.
AMANDA: You're right, right, yes.
KEALA: I'm like, wow, what a concept.
JULIA: You speak in the book about how while the story is not historical, there is so much actual historical fact that is mentioned in the story. And the one that kind of stuck with me was Honokua Beach and like the fact that Hawaii and those missionaries and the corporate overlords that took over after those missionaries have been so terrible about how they deal with ancestral remains. And the fact that a lot of people vacationing in Hawaii simply don't care. I wrote down a line, if you'll allow me to quote you at you, which is my favorite thing to do for authors. “Don't people know they're vacationing next to a graveyard, and then it's not the first hotel they've built on top of our people's bones or even the first plantation.” And I would love to know in your thought process of featuring these historical, I'll say it, atrocities; what was important to you in highlighting them in the story and making sure that you were using historical moments rather than just making up like referencing like things that referenced it but weren't actual historical moments?
KEALA: As I said, when I write a book, I always think about it as like a conversation. And so, it's a conversation starter if it's a historical moment, because then they can go look into it more and they don't have to take my word for how I depict it. I've been so lucky with early reviews and reading them. I do read them. I love to read one-star TripAdvisor reviews. So, I'm fine. But when I read these reviews, I'm just so happy when it says, man, I didn't know any of this. And I kind of expected that going in that this might be the first book that challenges someone's expectations of Hawaii or their, I'm going to say stereotypes, but I don't like. I don't want to blame someone for that because a lot of, you know, the media that's marketed and placed in Hawaii is like tourist-centered melodramas. So, they don't really look at what happens when you check out the person goes home. You don't go after dark and see how their life is and how hard it is. And so, when I was writing about these atrocities, I just, I always think there are times in fiction where I'll read something, and it's harrowing, and it's But it's usually inspired by a real life atrocity. I just think history is so much worse than anything I could actually come up with sometimes. Like, I got radicalized the more and more I wrote this book a little bit. Like, I thought I was like, yes, pro-sovereignty, pro-Hawaii. And then I read this, and I was like, burn it all down.
AMANDA: It's not enough. We have to get the torches.
KEALA: I like we have to hit the reset button, bring the great flood back, it's time. Crack the glass. No, I'm sorry. But I'm so fun at parties, listeners, I swear.
AMANDA: We are so with you.
JULIA: 100%.
KEALA: I've been really happy to see people who like, I want to go read more about this. Because then I know I've given them a starting point. They can go look up that beach event. They can use; I include a bibliography at the back.
AMANDA: I was so happy. I didn't want the book to be over so I kept turning pages and I was like, perfect.
KEALA: But yeah, when Isabel, if you're listening to this episode, I'm sorry, cover your historical fiction writers. I felt like a historical fiction writer, how much research I had to do. I'm sure they're all like, girl, not enough. But yeah, it was really important to me to make sure it's like, this isn't just my opinion. As I mentioned, I have a background in film. I actually was a documentary TA, and we talked about cinema veritas, which is like the truth of what you're seeing, basically.
How it's been cut together, how it's been edited. You should examine what you're being asked, like what am I being asked to feel looking at this? That's kind of what the whole book's about, too, is like, is there this myth of paradise? What am I being asked to ignore to have this comfort?
AMANDA: I mean, think metaphorically and literally in like extractive, you know, capitalism, we as like, you know, middle class white mainlander Americans are sold a fantasy that is a place where Hawaii is escapist, where it's a paradise, where it's a place you can go and forget troubles, pay a lot of money to corporations, and then go home. As you mentioned, there are so many ways in the book that people don't settle for that lie and are constantly trying to undermine it and to overturn it and to look at what's underneath.
I had this image while reading of like a, you know how in, in like food styling, they'll use hairspray to sort of like make the, you know, McDonald's hamburger like, look really shiny and good?
KEALA: And it will actually give you salmonella if you eat any of it.
AMANDA: Yes. I was just picturing this thing that was glossy and preserved on the top and then rotting underneath. And that is, I think, such a great and apt feeling for the Gothic. And in many ways, we are living in that decaying, that biting back, that haunting back. And at some point, it's time to thrash it out and start again.
KEALA: I love that you say that because the original title for the book, when I was querying it and when it went to auction, was Soon Ripe Soon Rotten to reference the Persimmons.
AMANDA and JULIA: Oooh!
JULIA: Yes.
KEALA: But we thought we'll have it a little bit more Hawaiian themed to be the book's title is the literal translation of Āina, which means that which feeds us, which is land.
JULIA: Thinking about that and thinking about the way that we are presented, as Amanda said, as mainlander Americans, this idea of like Hawaii is this paradise, right? And so much of what I think the average person knows of Hawaii is so untrue to the history of Hawaii as well. Like, it fucked me up the first time I found out 10 years ago, pineapples aren't even native to Hawaii. The idea that you're like, that's what Hawaiian culture is, is pineapples and beaches-
KEALA: No.
JULIA: -and you're like, no, not even a little bit, actually. But it makes me really happy that you touched on it, and then also frustrated with the history and how little non-Hawaiian people know about the history of Hawaii. I'm just going to keep hyping up the fact that I like this book so much and that people should go check it out. And it does a really good job at dealing with the issues that you bring up in the novel.
KEALA: I'm so happy. And again, I don't fault people for not knowing because it is a- I have this book that I've been reading. It's dense. I like to academia books, but it's like the purpose of paradise. And it actually looks at the American imperialism into Cuba and Hawaii, which happened at the same time and this idea of tourism, like tourism is the vehicle to make it more palpable, basically, to how to annex, you know, especially a place that's predominantly not white into the white homogenous society of America.
Because that was one of the main issues with annexing or adding it as a state was, no, no, fine, we'll take their stuff, but we have to add them. They're going to become part of us. Like, what's that? Because they own land, some of them do so. But yeah, and I was inspired a lot by Haunani Kay-Trask. She's a Hawaiian activist who passed away, I say recently, but times a flat circle in my head. But she did a essay and I was looking at the title, and it's called Lovely Hula Hands. And it's just all about like most Americans, you know, don't know how Hawaii came to be part of the United States, but it is a place that they still fantasize about.
JULIA and AMANDA: Mm-hmm.
KEALA: Can I read a quote from it? Are we allowed to do that?
JULIA: Please.
KEALA:
I am certain that most, if not all, Americans have heard of Hawai’i and have wished, at some time in their lives, to visit my Native land. But I doubt that the history of how Hawai’i came to be territorially incorporated, and economically, politically, and culturally subordinated to the United States, is known to most Americans. Nor is it common knowledge that Hawaiians have been struggling for over twenty years—
I forgot when this was delivered, so sorry.
-to achieve a land base and some form of political sovereignty on the same level as American Indians.
Finally, I would imagine that most Americans could not place Hawai’i or any other Pacific island on a map of the Pacific. But despite all this appalling ignorance, five million Americans will vacation in my homeland this year and the next, and so on into the foreseeable capitalist future. Such are the intended privileges of the so-called American standard of living: ignorance of, and yet power over, one’s relations to Native peoples.
JULIA: Hooh.
AMANDA: Yup.
KEALA: The whole essay keeps going, and it's just, this was the thing I was like, that's the entry point and the ending point for this book is like, cause like, why is she in Hawaii? She's there to find her sister. She's not there to vacation. Her life is hard for her. And that's what a lot of this essay talks about is Hawaii is not an escape. Where do Hawaiians escape to? So fun at parties!
JULIA: No, it does… again, but like we're talking about serious issues, and that's good. Like, I think I stand by the idea that horror should always be social commentary of some kind.
AMANDA: It must be. Definitionally.
JULIA: Yes, but then I've watched a lot of campy horror movies in my life. So that—
KEALA: They’re fun.
JULIA: Yes, they are, they're fun, but they're not—
KEALA: Hey, you got your primal scream, and then you've got your what do we do with these cartons of fake blood we’ve got?
AMANDA: Horror is about fear and fears about society.
KEALA: And then you have your Jason and space, you know, like there's, there's different options for us all available in terms of how much social commentary we want with our horror. But I genuinely think that horror should always have at least some sort of social commentary. I don't want to dismiss being like, yeah, look, we're fun and parties. No, it's important that we talk about these things. So, I think you're absolutely right
AMANDA: I want to buy a copy of That Which Feeds Us for every person who watched White Lotus Season 1, but that's just me.
KEALA: I’m surprised it didn't go further. That was something that stayed in my mind. It kind of planted roots and just kept growing, though. Because that opening was so haunting, right? You go into the wallpaper, and there's some details in there you didn't see before, and oh, it's pulling down this boat. And I just thought, okay, surely someone will get their comeuppance at the end of this. And it's like, no, it's just the worker. Sorry, spoilers. And I get it reflects society. But when I heard it was called post-colonial, I was like, how's that post though?
AMANDA: It's not. It's minimally self-aware colonial fiction, in my opinion. And someone who's not—
KEALA: [25:46] satirical
AMANDA: Yes, which, you know, satire is important. I think we are at the point of, yeah, get the torches out.
KEALA: Yeah. Yeah.
AMANDA: And not just satirize.
KEALA: Yeah. Hit the like button.
AMANDA: Hit it the fuck up. Speaking of which, I'm ready to flood my glass with a refill. Y'all want to come with me to the kitchen?
KEALA: Sure.
JULIA: Sounds good, let's go.
THE REFILL
AMANDA: Hey, everybody, it's Amanda, and welcome to The Refill. We would love to thank our newest paying patron, Maddy, over at patreon.com/spiritspodcast, and Amber, who has signed up for a free trial. Did you see that very cool sort of excerpt of our bonus urban legends episode last week? Love it. Welcome to the show. I think you are going to love what you see. Thank you as well to our supporting producer level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Hannah, Scott, Anne, Matthew, Lily, and Wil, and our Legend level patrons, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Audra, Sarah, Bea Me Up Scotty, Morgan, Rikoelike, Chibi Yokai, and Michael. We love you guys the way the Heated Rivalry people love long scarves. If you would like to join this list, have your name read out on the show, and know that your support is what lets us keep making this podcast. Join us today, patreon.com/spiritspodcast.
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JULIA: We are back and, and Keala, what we love to ask folks when we have them on the show is, what have you been drinking lately? What has been your drink of choice, whether that's cocktails, mocktails, coffee creations, what have you been enjoying lately?
KEALA: Okay, so this, I've been on a pretty tight deadline rotation, so I've been drinking a lot of coffee and tea creations to keep up. And there's this place in LA called Little Fish. And their banana matcha has been living rent-free in my head for months, actually. It's like this delicate matcha. I think it has like a sweet cream banana cold foam. I'm not a professional coffee maker. I go out for that. I don't want to like sound super bougie, but it's like the first matcha I had outside of Japan that I've actually like really enjoyed. It has that like delicate creamy taste that Japanese matcha has. Whereas I heard that most American and Western matchas, they have that earthier almost, I'm gonna say, grassy taste.
JULIA: Yeah
KEALA: I don't mean that in a mean way.
JULIA: No, no, no.
KEALA: But so much of-
JULIA: I like grassy things, so you're right.
KEALA: I heard that's because Japanese matchas are usually served more traditionally, so with hot water, while culinary matcha is what's used in America. So, there's a lot of that extra flavor. And so, to cut through like, the baking, the cooking and like the mixing of these sugary lattes.
But like this one was so delicate, and the banana felt very fresh and refreshing and added to it. And I keep thinking about going back, but LA it's like driving anywhere. It's like, okay, where are we trekking to? Like the pioneers, how long will we be in traffic? Are the wagons prepared?
JULIA: Do I have a full hour to go get one coffee? Yeah, sure. I feel you.
AMANDA: Do we have all of our sustenance?
KEALA: Yeah. But I've been thinking about it, and I got to have that with my editor when she was in town. So it's like, it's so, can I go without her? Yeah, anyway.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: No, that's great. I feel like that's now a drink you associate with the book since you had it with your editor. So that's kind of a perfect circle.
KEALA: Such a sweet one.
JULIA: Perfect reference. I love it. If we do the event with out here in LA, we'll go get banana matchas for all of us.
AMANDA: Yes!
KEALA: I would love that. That sounds incredible.
AMANDA: Fuck yeah, dude. Well, speaking of food and drink and sustenance, we are so in the realm of things that grow, things which feed us, things that what we kind of take and give, how we're sustained by land, and how often giving back to land or having a reciprocal relationship with land is not something that Capitalism is interested in. And therefore, not a thing that we have a lot of permission to experience in the world. And without spoiling, but the premise of That Which Feeds Us, which I love so much, as you mentioned, Lehua going to find her missing twin sister and landing at this like uber-super exclusive resort, just literally a plantation, but they charge you to be a worker now in the way that, you know, Capitalism will. And I was so intrigued by the cast of characters, the guests that were at this resort, along with Lehua, who is very much like, I will say, aggressively hospitalitied at.
JULIA: Yes
AMANDA: Like the classes and differences between workers and guests, incredibly rigid and very spooky, starting with the fact that the exclusive guests who are paying a lot of money to be members and be at this resort are called planters. Can you tell us a little bit about the guests and where your inspiration came from in sort of populating the stage around Lehua?
KEALA: I Really like horror that's representative of metaphors from real life. I was thinking about who would be at this resort. I didn't want it to be a huge cast of characters because it would be ultra exclusive. I was definitely inspired with Knives Out in this way. I those films do such a great job of making a cast of characters that, like, okay, I know who you are. I know what archetype you are. I know what you represent. For the characters, I knew I wanted it to be representative of people who kind of consume Hawaii, and who would be at this resort?
Because people might be like, wow, she hates these people. I'm like, I don't hate them. I just think who would take advantage of an opportunity to go to a private island where basically the world is your oyster to devour? And like you, you know, it's just the rich man's fantasy. I think we've seen how that plays out in reality. Who would be on these guest lists? And so—
And what they had to represent, like not had to represent, but I wanted it to connect to Hawaii, so we could see how they got there, maybe. And the influence they had to be inspired by, like historically the Big Five and how they contributed to, you know, Hawaii’s subordination in a way. Not that they all subordinate Hawaii. In the pursuit of the metaphor, it was important that we had guests like Oliver, who is from the entertainment side. He's a producer in Hollywood and when Lehua sees him, she doesn't know who he is, but then he's like, you've probably seen my work. And she does know his films. And she's like, that's where that film came from. And that made her think about like, Hawaiians that way, like exoticized. And then you have Sasha, who is an ally Lehua encounters. And she is this famous beauty influencer who is very much there for the experience of Hawaii and being seen in Hawaii. And then you have Jennifer who is kind of self-made. She likes to think of herself as self-made, I would say. It's hard for me to ever say any sort of billionaire is self-made.
JULIA: Fair.
AMANDA: It’s not possible.
KEALA: Yes, with my diamond mine, I became a billionaire. I had to do that myself. But anyways, not that Jennifer has a diamond mine. I can't get into Jennifer too much, but I knew it was important for her to think of herself much more highly than the other guests.
And then you have Lee, who comes from the government side. And if you're in government and you're at one of these resorts, I do question what you were doing in government.
JULIA: How did the government pay you that much money? Who can say?
KEALA: Yes, but I think we're definitely just not surprised when we find out about these scandals. So, it made sense that someone like that would be there. And after that, I was like, we don't want the cast to get too big. So three. And then you have the person who owns the resort, Ira, who is a descendant of the people who came to Hawaii and quote unquote, developed it, civilized it.
JULIA: And Ira's family, you mentioned missionaries earlier, Ira's family particularly came as missionaries. And I didn't even write this quote down because I remembered it so well, which one of the characters says the line, the missionaries came to do good, and they did really well. And I like that really stuck with me. I was like, yeah, that's it. That's it, huh?
KEALA: I know there are genuine, again, we'll bring up Knives Out. I love the recent Knives Out film where it gets into faith because there are people who are in Christianity who are part of religion who are like, yes, this is my fire, this is my torch. And I love those people. I have grown up in a Christian household. I have seen the other side of it, though, where I'm like, you're part of the Inquisition side of Christianity. This is your brand. And so that was important for me to touch on too, to just show how it's used as a yolk—
AMANDA: Yeah.
KEALA: -to lead, but not always to water or to sustenance.
AMANDA: Yeah. And each person you mention, like each of the guests, all of the, you know, the outsiders that we meet in this book, are interested in taking something with them from Hawaii and going back to where their lives actually are and not kind of worrying about or thinking about what the cost of that is. I almost texted this to you, Julia, when I was like reading the book in the park. was like falling asleep that night, and then I was like, oh my God, wait, like something, something regenerative agriculture, regenerative ghosts. And one thing that really stood out to me as we have been talking about the mythology, folklore, all of the inherited knowledge, and bone-deep knowledge that is present in this book.
JULIA: Eyy! Sorry, I love a pun.
AMANDA: So good. But the fact that nothing is ever really gone, and everything has consequences. And in, if we talk about regenerative agriculture, it's about sustaining healthy soil environments. And if the byproducts of that environment are crops that we can eat and recycle and then ultimately cycle back into the land, great. And something that That Which Feeds Us does that I have not encountered in another book is thinking about ancestors ghosts, spirits, whatever terminology fits best, as people who continue to be in relationship with us and who might need something from us, who might want to give something to us, and not like a haunting we expel or a thing from the, you know, from the like netherworlds that we can get as like, a secret to success now. We're in a relationship. And so, with that word mess, if you could let me know, how do you think about the wonderful quote from the book that like, ghosts are different here. What are the ghosts, spirits, and ancestors like in this book?
KEALA: So, in Hawaii, nothing you bury is ever gone. I think about that, like, it's very much the system, like, we're going to go back to science, where it's just this life system. There is a story in the book that Lehua learns about from Melia, who is an indigenous Native Hawaiian character who grew up in the islands, who has a very strong spiritual connection to the Maunaloa. Those are the stories and the land. She— I knew it was important for Lehua to meet someone like this, who does have this stalwart root system. Basically, I know who I am. I know where I need to be planted. I'm not replanting in a different soil. Like, I'm not leaving this place. This is my home. Lehua has never had that conviction. When she's talking to Melia, Melia tells her the story about from the Kumulipo, which is our creation chant. And there's a story about these gods who have a child. He is a stillborn child. And when they plant him, that is where the first taro plant, Kalo, the staple food of Hawaiians, grows from. And they have another child and they name him Hāloa in honor of his older brother who passed. Hāloa is considered the first Kānaka Maoli or Kānaka ʻŌiwi, the first Hawaiian person. And he sustains himself off of the kalo or the taro that grew from his brother's bones. And this is why the Hawaiians are called people of bones, Kānaka ʻŌiwi. That was so important to me in foundational because I was like, I don't think people even know that's what we're called because I don't think anyone— like I feel like that's something much more associated with indigenous people in America, like continental America, where it's like, you don't really see Hawaiians with bone adornments ever depicted in that way, yet bones were incredibly sacred to us. And that's because we believed their life continued on. And so there's a pretty well-known saying in Hawaii called Mālama ʻāina. And it's like, care of the land, care for the land. And it's not just the land it's that which feeds us, as long as you take care of it, it will take care of you. And this is like this reciprocal relationship because it is your people. You go to the land; you take care of the land when you die. And where your bones are laid to rest, where your ancestors’ bones are laid to rest, that is your homeland. The parts of the book are Hawaiian words within like the literal translation and the, you know, more commonly used like land, āina, that which feeds us, maka 'āinauna, eyes and faces of the land, common people.
And then you have the last one, is Kulāiwi, homeland, field of bones, or land of bones. And that's where your bones are. And so, thinking about that in this like reciprocal, it was really important to show like how the ghosts work because they're never gone. And Lehua is someone; she's a mortician's assistant. I feel like you find this out on the first page, and we're like, yeah.
JULIA: Let's go mention it now.
KEALA: She has this relationship with death where it's like, I've been cut off. I've been pruned. And I wanted to kind of open her third eye to, girl, you're connected to everything. Even if your family is gone. I recently lost my grandmother while editing the book. And it was like so weird to see my struggle with Lehua who has this loss with her grandparents that she's still coming to grips with. As you realize, she can say she's fine. She ain't. I know she ain't.
AMANDA: 10 years in, she is not okay.
KEALA: That did fuck me up, didn't it? She realizes. But still need to heal. Realizing how she's still connected to them, it was something I desperately needed to read about again. We call it mana or essence, like, you know, that power is in you from your ancestors or from the land, but it's like, you can call it DNA.
There was, that's part of you that that's from them. And so, it was nice to see Lehua who will like, go through that, and like she is still connected, and it doesn't matter how far you go, because you're always carrying that connection. So even if she did leave, again, she's in a better place where it's like, yeah, I am connected.
AMANDA: Yeah, and talking about like success and survival at the end of a horror story, right? This is no last girl trope. The things that Lehua goes to Hawaii for are not necessarily the things she ends the book with that she finds. The version of ending, survival, you know? Finishing. It's not even a spoiler to say that like what she is trying to do at the end of the book, and what we can imagine her continuing to do afterward is not just like go home like none this ever happened.
Like, she is different, the land is different, her goals are different. And it's not just about individual survival for her. And you see her priorities shift over the course of the book, which I think is so wonderful. Like, she's not dipping in trying to, you know, have a transformative experience and go home a little bit more relaxed to the world that she had before.
Like, this idea that, like, I won't be okay until we're all okay. Something fundamentally has to change here. We need to not just, like, replace the failing sugar cane with a failing persimmon crop with another failing monoculture crop to hopefully extend the thing? No, we have to find meaningful change and restoration.
KEALA: That's my issue with capitalism, too is like, I think capitalism is a, you know, there's flaws. Let's just leave it at that.
JULIA: This is a highly critical of capitalism podcast. You're in the right place.
KEALA: Yeah. Okay, good. Cause I'm like, can the capitalists be smarter? Can they like have a little bit more vision? That's a little more long-term. Cause I'm like, okay, better financial decisions.
So, Hawaii is a very communal, like I would say it's almost a socialist society, like traditionally. Because you would make food and then it's very communal. You share it and everyone watched out for everyone. The word ohana actually comes from the kalo, the taro oha, meaning the shoots of it. And so, to go back to the myth of the Hawaiian people coming from taro kalo, and everyone in that ohana was part of the family, from the mountain to the sea of that land division. because you took care of everyone.
So yes, we were communists. We were socialists before it was a thing.
JULIA: Before Marx was writing about it.
KEALA: I know. We've had that in the oral tradition already. We don't need [46:19].
JULIA: One of the things I also wanted to ask about because, surprise, surprise to people listening here in the Spirit's audience, this is also a queer book, which is great. And so—
KEALA: We got him. Got it. Horrors.
ALL: [chant] Sapphic horrors! Whooh! Whooh! Whoo!
JULIA: And I think one of the really interesting dynamics that you play with, particularly and going back to the guests on the island, what queerness looks like to like, colonizers and what queerness looks like to native Hawaiian people. And can you talk a little bit about how those two examples are different.
KEALA: It was at the forefront of my mind when I was working on this book because like I am queer as well. Lehua was bisexual in the book, and I didn't want it to be a big deal because she just is. Girls got a lot on her plate in this book and it's a lot of women too. Someone want to--
AMANDA: She's like, man, where do I start? And also, these people want to kiss me. Like, God, so much is on my plate!
JULIA: Could be worse! Could be worse!
AMANDA: Yeah, in the one-star TripAdvisor, you're like, but everyone who’s cute and did want to kiss me so…
KEALA: I know. Can you imagine Lehua's review of the resort at the end of this
AMANDA: I would love to.
JULIA: That's what gave us the one star.
KEALA: For Lehua's queer identity, I didn't want it to be her coming to grips with it. I just wanted her to be that way. But I wanted there to be an ease of it with Melia. Her and Melia are never like, so, are ahhhh. You know they never have to check, like, I see you. I'm very femme. So, I know sometimes people are like, where's your carabiner?
AMANDA: Yeah.
KEALA: But yeah, like I wanted it to be very easy and very natural. Like, and when like who would meet Melia, it does have this feeling of like, I was worried. I don't want to feel like insta-love, but I think you would be drawn to the first native Hawaiian you've met that's not your blood relative.
JULIA: Yeah.
KEALA: And who has this connection and is this like kind of mirrored self that you want, you feel like a fun house version of. She feels this way about Ohia too, who's like a star track athlete.
AMANDA: Yeah.
KEALA: the perfect sister in Lehua, who was a college dropout turned mortician's assistant because she doesn't know what she wants to do. But you know what? She knows who she wants to do. So it's called Moe aikāne and it's a very, this is another thing that I feel like Christianity though has like taken from Hawaiians when we look at the history of Hawaii and who's telling it. It wasn't until I'm going to say fairly recently, but just know that could be like 50 years ago. To me, it's recent if someone was alive when you're talking about history. And so it wasn't until fairly recently that we had like Hawaiian perspectives of what happened back then and what the resistance was like because we have Hawaiian newspapers. There is a scene where Lehua finds a printing press. I know that's like very outlandish that it would be there, but it was important because I knew about this rich history of Hawaii having so many Hawaiian newspapers and also just individual newspapers for even the plantations and all this stuff.
When people found those newspapers, Hawaiian language had been revitalized, and they were able to translate it and find out more about the resistance and what was happening. And a lot of the traditional knowledge we've reclaimed has been found in those newspaper articles. Hawaii had a 98 % literacy before the takeover. And this is where the historical fiction people are like, when was it?
JULIA: When was it, girl?
KEALA: That's in my notes. But I think it's like, I want to say 1820s, like when the missionaries are coming over on Thaddeus. I know that one.
AMANDA: We're not, we're not gatekeeping historical fiction.
KEALA: I know, I know, but I do, I do, because I do worry, like, I want to be, I want to represent them. I'm a guest in their space. But the crazy thing is, like, that's 1893 is when the takeover happens, and like that time you have 98 % literacy. And so, we have these, this knowledge of what Hawaiians were passing on. And then you see, like where the translations from the missionaries kind of like—
trigger warning.
There's a goddess named Capo, she is known for being able to send out her appendage, her genitalia, flying out. And she has used it to stop other gods from assaulting her sister at some point, another goddess. And so, and she's described as a lurid by the missionaries in the tale, like when they write about this tale, she's lurid, she's like this deviant. And I think having listened to the possession of Albedia's [50:46] episode with Isabel, I think about like how feminine like to me, it's even just agency of stopping it from happening to someone else. Cause it's like, wait, the other part of the myth where the goddess was going to be, you know?
AMANDA: It’s giving microaggression tone policing when it's like, okay, let's just stop on the fact that someone was trying to assault someone else. Let's focus on that.
KEALA: Yeah, yeah. How dare she send out her vagina to stop it as a lure? You know, it's just like, okay. And that's the thing that she's remembered for, even though she's like the goddess of sorcery, untamed wilderness, and all this other stuff.
AMANDA: All the cool stuff
KEALA: The creator of hula.
AMANDA: Suck it, Athena!
JULIA: All the cool stuff.
KEALA: From her dark power, her sorcery comes hula.
AMANDA: That’s mine! [51:29]
JULIA: Yeah.
KEALA: I'm just saying, like, there's all these things, but it's like, man, so lurid. When I think about Hawaiian queerness, I'm going to say, and then like Western queerness, I really wanted to bring it all the way back, if I could, to what it could have been. This ease that Lehua has with Meliad, it's not even a question of how will society react. It's not even about that. I feel very drawn to you, and this feels right, and this feels like home, like coming to a shoreline. And then it's a horror, though. So, it's, you know?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: For me, one of the best experiences of queerness is being at the protest, at the calamity, locking eyes with someone in a room that doesn't want you there, finding time to kiss. Like, that is a part of it, too.
KEALA: Well, and I think that is the queer experience too, just universal, unfortunately, in today's, not in a, unfortunately, but like universally, I think we've all had that moment where it's like, we have to be queer amid all of this, you know?
JULIA: We can't just be queer. We have to be queer while dealing with all of these things around us.
KEALA: Yes, and it's the same thing for indigenous people. Like you, you're kind of straddling this line between two worlds. And it's like the same thing with queerness where it's like, spaces can I exist in? And I wanted this to be like literally an island for them where they get to exist, and it's the best part of language. You know, it kind of balances all the horror that's going on is she's connecting with Malia, and it's like, man, what if we've met somewhere else at another time?
JULIA: Oof, yes.
Moe aikāne is like the pal term, but you know, there's stories that kink my meh. Had a Moe aikāne, there's a goddess named Hiʻiaka, and she's not the only one who has a Moe aikāne mentioned in all of her myths. And som like, it's very common, you know, and so it was important to me to be like, at first, I almost didn't include it because of how the story is and what it's about. But I was like, I think this is part of what Lehua is lost is this safety to love.
JULIA: 100%.
AMANDA: I'm glad you did.
JULIA: Me too, me too.
AMANDA: I could keep talking with you until the sun goes down over cups of persimmon wine. But I am so excited for our audience to read That Which Feeds Us, to have you back, Kaela, when you write other books and you have to join the Isabel Cañas coming up on a five-peat. Four-peat? She's our most common guest, and we are going to have her back again. And I think you're going to join that pantheon. I think you are picking up what we're putting down.
KEALA: We can actually have the historical fiction, horror writer and like what have, what are your tips? I am writing a possession one so—
AMANDA: Pencil us into the press tour, because we are going to be here. Can you please let our audience know where they can buy That Which Feeds Us out as of yesterday and where they can follow you and your work online?
KEALA: You can buy That Which Feeds Us wherever books are sold. Right now, you can get a special edition at Target that has an exclusive retelling, retold by me, about the goddess Kapo at the back of the book. And it has a gold lettering. And until May 9th, you can also get a signed or personalized edition from Romans, my local independent in Los Angeles when I'll be doing my launch event there. But yeah, wherever books are sold, it's audiobook, ebook, wherever.
JULIA: Incredible. And you'll find links to the book in bookshop.org in the description of this episode. So you can support your local independent bookseller or the independent bookseller, the Keala just said.
KEALA: If you want to sign copy, if you want my scribble.
AMANDA: And you should, you should.
KEALA: Oh, and I have a pre-order thing that will be open until the week after release, so the 12th. And if you want a bookmark or a signed book plate, if you get it somewhere else.
JULIA: Yay. And if people want to find you in between reading your fantastic books, where can they follow you on the internet?
KEALA: They can find me @kealakendall on most social media sites. I'm on Instagram primarily, Blue Sky Threads, and TikTok, but I don't really do that.
AMANDA: Fair.
KEALA: I'm writing too much. But you'll see my dog, Mele, a lot. She's the writing assistant. She has no schedule. She picks her own hours, and we hope she shows up, but—
AMANDA: Yay.
JULIA: Yes, true.
AMANDA: She exists beyond capitalism as should we all.
KEALA: I know she exists in the higher plane in dream
AMANDA: Okay, Alice, thank you again. And conspirators, next time you smell the rich but kind of rotten aroma floating toward you on the breeze, remember—
JULIA: Stay creepy
AMANDA: Stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyrs!