Liam Chattergy - “Dadu”
Ethan Chun – “The Pool”
Pōhaku Figueira – “The Fire and the Forest”
Liam Chattergy – “Because of Liam Neelson”
Ethan Chun – “The Photobook”
Pōhaku Figueira – “Legacy”
Authors Statements
I am 50% Korean, 25% Indian, and the rest of 25% is a mix of Filipino, English, Chinese, and German. I consider myself a Korean - Indian - Filipino because my mom is full Korean, my Grandpa is full Indian, and my Grandma is majority Filipino with some European and Chinese blood in her. I've been closely connected with these cultures. I’ve visited my Korean grandma in Seoul many times, I call my grandma Lola, which is Filipino for grandma, and I used to call my grandpa Dadu, which is Bengali for grandpa. Even though I am more Korean, I’ve always seen myself as more Indian than Korean because when I was younger, I just did not see myself like the Koreans I see in the variety shows my mom watched. Sadly, I did not get to learn much about my Indian ancestry from my Dadu because he passed away when I was 10. I knew my grandpa from when he was very old, so my image of him was a smart old man. He was short, Indian brown skin, with a little white in his eyebrows and hairs. His eyes could usually be focused on the TV, but when looking through his storage of his paintings and teachings, his eyes would be focused on seeing his youth. His mind was creative, and as an artist, he painted various objects around the house, some plants, and imagery from his imagination. While I never got to talk with him about his heritage, I learned lots about my Bengali Indian ancestry from my dad and Lola when I was 10. I first learned of the Indian caste system and my dad told me Dadu was a Bengali Brahmin, at the top of the caste. Brahmins are usually teachers, professors, or have professions of intelligence. Dadu was a professor at UH, which is normal for a Brahmin, which are usually people with high intelligence and education. Another part that categorized a Brahmin was their pinky nail. It was thought that if you cannot make a living with your brain, you'll have to work labor. People that make a living with their body cannot have long nails, because they’ll injure themselves. So having a long pinky nail shows that they are intelligent and has the ease of using their brain for their career. It was also interesting to hear of how he lost his social Brahmin status, by marrying Lola. At the time, it was custom for Brahmins to marry other Brahmins, which is thought to be based off the religious idea of reincarnation in the Indian caste system. So when Dade chose to marry outside the caste, his family took away his status. This Brahmin intelligence has been passed through my family, with both grandparents being professors at UH, and my dad getting a Masters. I feel that this heritage is something I fit in, and I will continue the heritage of education and intelligence. Even though I am not a socially accepted Brahmin, my Dadu had a saying that the true Brahmin was in the heart. My grandpa has left behind lots of intelligence in the form of a library of all books he found interesting, and I will begin to read them in my free time. I feel more connected to the idea of intelligence and that my Dadu left behind and I keep some of his gifts that he has left. Mostly books are the most important, with knowledge kept and preserved inside, I have his bible, his journal, and a book on particle physics that my dad found and gave to me. In more sentimental objects, there is a small elephant carved out of soap stone that I like a lot. I like how it feels, and I see the beauty and attention to detail to create a sculpture that is simple to be detailed.
Swimming. I’m finally going to start my swimming lessons. Our neighbor's children, a 17-year-old, offered to teach me to swim in their pool. They have a pool as big as a lake with a zipline that goes right over the pool so you can cannonball right into the middle of the pool. On top of that, they have a circular hot tub. Excitement coursed through my veins as I prepared to start my first day. Will I get as good as Michael Phelps? Will swimming become my sport? As my feet touched the water, my mom stopped me. You’ll need to swim with a life vest, my mom said to me right before I could jump into the water. Life vest? Okay, I’ll wear one just because this is my first lesson. My first lesson went smoothly, and I built confidence as I learned how to breathe and kick.
The days flew by in my friend's pool, and I gained more and more confidence. By the 5th lesson, I felt confident that I wouldn’t need a life vest. Oh no, you need one, my mom reasoned with me. Everyone else around me didn’t need life vests, so why should I wear one? My friends didn’t need one, the other kids didn’t need one, and I was the only one who had one. All I wanted to do was fit in with everyone else at my swimming lessons. However, I agreed with her because, after all, she is my mom. As the time came to an end, we got to play with water guns and other toys. I grabbed one of the water guns to play with and started to play in the hot tub. Do I need a life vest, I wondered. This pool’s not that big or deep, and I feel like I can swim well. Before my mom could see what, I was doing, I took off my life vest and jumped into the pool. My body was being swallowed by the abyss. Adrenaline circulated through my body, and I flailed my arms. While I was under the water, I saw an arm reaching for me and pulling me out. It was my swim teacher. My face lit up as bright as a tomato. “Are you all right,” everyone asked. Yes, he’s fine, my mom said. I should’ve listened to my mom, I thought.
Language is the gateway into another culture. If that gate is abruptly shut, then not only can no other understand the culture, and the culture dies, bittersweet and slow. Stripped away was the bark of Hawaiʻi, revealing the exfoliated wood, more vulnerable to the oncoming fire from the Northeast. Then, the fire leaped over the ocean to our islands, and burnt all but eight seeds, leaving its sparks to keep the rest of them in line. But, as Ian Malcolm says, "Life breaks free. Life expands to new territories. Painfully, perhaps even dangerously. But life finds a way." Indeed it did. So here I am, sitting in a world of unknowing suppression. Thump thump thump goes the seed under the new concrete on which I kneel above, desperately trying to pick it apart to reach the soil where the seed cries. Until I have, and now it blossoms, instantly, having saved up all the tears of its people till now.
"Aia wau e ku nei, aia wau e olelo nei." Here I stand, here I speak, and it is here that I will keep speaking, as if my words are the sun, water, and air to bring back to life those eight seeds, to saplings, to trees, to forests. My mother will be like Bruce Lee and become water so that the rivers of language will once more be full among the four of her children. My father is the sands of Waimea, Ewa, or Kona Bay, where for so long, the seeds' brothers and sisters have been suppressed by the sparks. My brother will be the naupaka plants, spreading the flowers and life of the land, so that the seeds can arise in togetherness, not alone. My eldest sister, who sits on the back of the honu, will nurture the ocean, so that the seeds can spread to the rest of the world. My youngest sister will be the sun, to finally shed a little light upon the issue of the sparks, and fuel the broken pits to grow. I, Pōhakumauikekuaola, the rock upon the verdant mountain, will guard the seeds that have now become shrubs, and the future saplings that will come after me that will grow into trees to take up my place as guardian of this culture, and this language.
I will stand and speak, for the saplings and against the sparks. Now they are trees, and no longer need to cower from the sparks when they speak their native tongue, and are embraced by the forest of naupaka plants, the sun of hilinaʻi, the nutrients, teachings, and lessons from the river, ocean, and sand, and the protection from the mountain of which I stand upon. The names of my family, which were brought to life, now can direct a little of the spark's light in the right direction, and no longer do the seeds, grown to saplings, grown to trees, need to hide.
On one hot summer day, the room is as quiet as a mouse, I stumbled across a photo of me holding my newborn brother for the first time. The photograph still looked new, shiny, and perfectly preserved. I was wearing one of my favorite shirts at the time, my orange Julius J r shirt. My brother, barely a day old, was wrapped in a white blanket. My four-year-old self was looking at the camera, my smile frozen in time. Whenever I see this photo, I can't help but smile. One of my favorite things to do when I’m bored is to look at the photo book. Decades of photos have been added to its collection, some of them being from my parents' time. It's very interesting to see their experiences and memories of when I was too little to remember. A lot of the photos are my most precious memories, such as my first day of kindergarten, trips to Hawaii, Christmas's, birthdays, and many more memories.
However, one of my fondest memories is when my brother was born. When my mom was in the hospital having my brother, my grandma stayed and watched over me. This was one of the first times that I was separated longer than a day from my mom. Having my grandma take care of me didn’t feel the same as my mom caring for me. She ate differently, cooked different food, and didn’t speak English as well as my mom. When we walked into the room where my mom was in, my mom was laying on a hospital bed, cradling my newborn brother. The stillness of the air caught my attention. He looked so delicate and small compared to my mom. Happiness and joy flooded me like a river. I will never be alone from now on, I thought. I could now play games with someone else! I sat down on a seat inside of the room and was handed my brother. I wrapped my arms around him, feeling the presence of another life. holding him carefully like an egg. Just holding him brought a surge of happiness and serenity. Smile, my dad said as he took the photo.
I kept flipping through the memories of my past and came across a photo of my first day in preschool. I remember not wanting to leave my mom. I remember being very scared, but eventually coming out of my shell and making new friends. I remember the floods of emotions that I had as I was dropped off into the class. The tension in the classroom, that everyone dared not to break. That first step into the classroom was a big step into my life. I now go to school, not stay at home, I thought. Just as everyone arrived, my teacher was reading the kissing hand, a story about a raccoon's first day of school and how he was scared of his first day too. I was sitting on a rainbow colored carpet along with my other classmates. Everyone felt scared and nervous, I thought. Slowly, my confidence replaced the nervousness inside me. As my mom left, I tried to make friends with my classmates. I was able to make friends and realized that school isn’t as bad as I thought. I played and had fun with them. From meeting my newborn brother for the first time, to my first day of school, I was satisfied with the progress I made. 9
My name is Liam Jun Gopal Chattergy. While my name was chosen for different reasons, some are more sentimental than others.
Firstly, my surname. Chattergy is of Indian origin, but has been changed throughout time. The first alteration was by the British. For their convenience, they changed my ancestor’s surname, Chattopadhyay to Chatterjee. This was common at the time of the British colonization, and many other surnames among the Brahmin caste were changed. The Chattopadhyay family comes from the Brahmin class, and it is usual for Brahmin to marry other Brahmins. I am not a formal Brahmin because my grandfather’s family forced him to choose between staying a Brahmin or marrying my Filipino grandmother. I still learn of Brahmin culture, and the little signs of intelligence they display. The Brahmin people usually go into professions of higher education, like how my grandparents were professors. One way I remember my grandpa showing his intelligence is by having his pinky nail extra long. The Brahmin logic is that laborers need short nails, to do labor, so having a long pinky nail shows that he doesn't have to work, and has made his career using his intelligence.
From Chatterjee, my grandparents felt that it was too common, and wanted to change it so there won't be confusion, and so changed the spelling of my last name. They changed the spelling from Chatterjee to Chattergy. My surname has not been changed since and stays as Chattergy. Next, my middle names Jun and Gopal were chosen by each side of my family. My mother is Korean and gave me the Korean middle name Jun, which means talented and handsome. The other middle name Gopal was chosen from my dad and grandpa, it is an Indian name. I also believe that Gopal was the name of my great great grandfather, and means cowherd in Indian. The cow is considered to be sacred in Indian culture, and I like to think that since a cowherd protects the cows, I am a protector and guardian of cows.
Lastly, my first name wasn't as meaningful as Gopal or Jun is, and doesn't have the history like Chattergy, but was chosen because my mom likes the actor Liam Neelson. I don't watch many of his movies, but they are usually okay. I like the meanings of my middle names the best, but I like learning of Brahmin culture and my name.
My name is me and I am my name. It is the legacy of a foreigner and a native. It stepped upon and rolled. I am tied to the end of sticks to throw. I am placed upon my brothers to build walls of war. It is unbroken and enduring. My name is the rock that has founded cities, and destroyed them, with the fiercest gravel and the most content arrows.
Partially owed to my great-grandfather, who’d take me and my siblings to McDonalds on Tuesdays after school. A prophecy for every hour at my grandfather's house that I'd ram my head into a tree trunk and stumble up unscathed. The legacy he left behind for my boulders of shoulders to carry and pass on sits upon them now as I trek across the treacherous mountain of life.
It is mispronounced every which way and awed at by strangers who mispronounce it, in both confusion and admiration. It confused my brothers by my family. In English it is a simple stone, in Hawaiian it is the greatest of the Koʻolau mountain range. It is the prediction of my future, as a strong and stoic man.
My name is my pride, and my embracing, it will never be changed. It is forever carved in stone, into the enduring rock upon a verdant mountain.
In my vignettes, I used an authorial strategy of formatting my vignette on my name in order of specialty, and I used imagery to describe my Dadu in my other vignette. In my vignette “Because of Liam Neelson”, I think that having three paragraphs of my last, middle, and first name in that order is important because my last name has the richest history of influence, and my middle names are describing my parent’s cultures, while my first name wasn't picked with such deep meaning. It creates a flow of serious, to simple and keeps the name in order. I use imagery in my other vignette to illustrate the memory of my Dadu, “He was short, Indian brown skin, with a little white in his eyebrows and hairs. His eyes could usually be focused on the TV, but when looking through his storage of his paintings and teachings, his eyes would be focused on seeing his youth.” (Chattergy, Dadu).
For my artwork, I did art for Ethan’s “vignette name” and for Pohaku’s “vignette name”. For Pohaku’s art, I took inspiration from the idea that the islands were seeds that were burning. I did not know how to draw seeds well so I drew the islands on a stake over a campfire, the campfire being the missionaries and white businessmen that would one day burn the Hawaiian culture to nearly from memory. In Ethan’s art, I drew the memories he mentioned in his vignette, him looking at the picture book, him holding his brother in his orange shirt, and at the hospital for the birth of the baby brother.
I incorporated repetition and metaphors into my vignette “The Photobook”. For example, “the room is as quiet as a mouse” is a metaphor (Chun). This is a form of metaphor because it makes a comparison between “the room” and “quiet as a mouse”. “I remember not wanting to leave my mom. I remember being very scared, but eventually coming out of my shell and making new friends. I remember the floods of emotions that I had as I was dropped off into the class” (Chun). This is an example of repetition because “I remember” repeats three times. In “The Pool”, I incorporated personification and imagery. “Swallowed by the Abyss” is an example of imagery (Chun). This gives a description of the pool (I described the pool as an “abyss”). I describe how deep the pool felt to me, and how fast I sunk into the pool. “The days flew by in my friend's pool” (Chun). This is an example of personification because “days” don’t actually fly. It’s applying actions to inanimate objects.
For the artwork I did for ”Legacy", I was inspired by Pōhaku and how he made a connection to Atlas, who in Greek mythology, holds up the world. However, in my artwork, the person is holding up a rock instead of the world because Pōhaku means stone in Hawaiian. Also, in “Legacy", there are many connections between mountains and rocks. I also colored the person's arms blue, to symbolize the sky, the person's head, and chest area green to symbolize the mountains, and the person's legs/lower body brown to symbolize the earth/ground. These colors were used because there are again, many connections to Hawaiian culture, which revolves around nurturing the Earth. Also, Pohaku’s writes "It is unbroken and enduring. My name is the rock that has founded cities, and destroyed them", which is why I drew the person resembling the earth, which has endured many hardships. Also, the person is holding up a giant rock and is "enduring" the struggle.
For the artwork I did for ”Dadu", I was inspired by the knowledge and prestigiousness of the Indian brahmins as well as Liam's grandfather. The books symbolize the objects that Liam gained from his grandfather, who gave him his middle name, as well as the knowledge that Liam's gained through his grandfather.
The vignettes I wrote were “The Fire and the Forest,” and, “Legacy,” both of which were at least a little inspired by the Hawaiian culture. Throughout these vignettes, the most common literary devices I used were metaphors and anaphora. In my second vignette I use anaphora in the sentences, “It is the legacy of a foreigner and a native. It stepped upon and rolled. I am tied to the end of sticks to throw. I am placed upon my brothers to build walls of war,” ([Figueira] [Legacy]). Another literary device I used in my first vignette was metaphors. An example of this was in my first vignette, when I used seeds as as a metaphor for Hawaiʻi, and fire as a metaphor for the Americans, which was. “Stripped away was the bark of Hawaiʻi, revealing the exfoliated wood, more vulnerable to the oncoming fire from the Northeast. Then after the fire has hopped over the ocean to our islands, and burnt all but eight seeds, leaving its sparks to keep the rest of the seeds and saplings in line,” ([Figueira] [The Fire and the Forest]).
For my artwork I chose to work with Liam and Ethan, and their vignettes of, “Because of Liam Neelson,” by Liam Chattergy, and “The Pool” by Ethan Chun. I took a lot of inspiration from the fact that in Ethan’s vignette, he was a kid, he mentions adrenaline a lot, and, obviously, that he was at the pool. When thinking about adrenaline, I first thought about playing with perspective, because you probably get an adrenaline rush from jumping into a deep pool that feels like five miles away in the air. Then I figured he’d be doing posing in a “childish” way, without a care in the world as he leapt down 20000 feet. For Liam’s artwork I was mostly inspired by the story of his grandfather and how he left his class as a Brahmin for love, and the last line of his vignette, which was, “…the true Brahmin is in your heart.” So, I drew what I interpreted a Brahmin to be, a scholar, holding out his symbol of love with his heart, and leaving behind his study. While still retaining the knowledge and practices he already had. The outburst of color from the lines was also supposed to be representative of breaking the rules, and quite literally, going outside the lines.
