I’m pretending to do a hula just like the ones I saw preformed at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Maui last week. I am wearing my brand new muumuu. I picked it out myself yesterday from Hilo Hatties. My mom said I couldn’t wear it to the wedding. I had to wear this disgusting lavender dress that I can’t stand. It had lace all over it and the material made me sweat during the entire ceremony. But my muumuu I have on for the reception is gorgeous. It is cherry red with a palm tree print. The fabric is light and airy. I also have a halo of colorful silk flowers encircling the top of my head. I have no shoes on and my mom said I don’t even have to wear any if I don’t want to. I dream of doing a hula at the reception, even though I don’t know how. My cousins would be watching me. They call me haule that means, “white person.” But I don’t understand why because I look just like them. I have the same color hair as them and the same color hair. My mom snaps a picture of me in my solitary hula.

I am solitary because I am by myself. Not only in the picture but also in life. I feel separated because even though I look like them I am not one of them. They make fun of my proper English and I try to copy their pigeon-English but they just laugh at me and call me a copycat. I am confused because my friends at school admire me for my Hawaiian heritage. But here in Hawaii I feel like I don’t belong. I am caught in my own “borderland.”

As a young adult I can define the border in which I lived on and still am coming to terms with today. What separated myself from my cousins was that I am from the mainland United States and that my father is Anglo-American. As children we could not define our differences. Today the tables have turned. My cousins want to speak English without their island flair. They have also moved to Los Angeles because they say Hawaii is boring and lacks the action they are craving. At least my cousins and I have the opportunity to expand our borders. I realize now that I am a mixture of many ethnicities and cultures and I can choose how I define myself---- by myself.