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Last week, I was in San Antonio, Texas, visiting my mother and father, and as we watched Hawaii News Now, the U.S. Census made it official: There are now more Native Hawaiians, like my dad, living outside of Hawaii than Native Hawaiians living in Hawaii. 

A while back, in anticipation of this expected news, I wrote about the “Windows to Hawaii,” the visual connection present in every home with generational ties to Hawaii. 

There are serving as their “Windows to Hawaii” than Native Hawaiian ohana with actual windows looking out onto a Hawaiian landscape.

Thanks to technology that allows my father to watch Hawaii News Now, he has a real-time connection to Hawaii. There’s no longer the mail-delayed copies of the Advertiser, the Star-Bulletin or VCR tapes to keep him in touch with his homeland. 

It was slightly surreal to be hiding from the 100-degree Texas heat in their living room while watching the HNN reporters join the first families heading back into Lahaina. 

As the camera followed families through the devastation, I couldn’t help but think about the devastation my father saw in the aftermath of the tsunamis that hit Hilo while he was growing up.

What had happened to my dad was happening again. Another disaster was going to push more people out of Hawaii.

When , she said the words we knew were coming, she didn’t see a way she’d be able to raise her children in Hawaii.

So it goes.

My dad never talked much about the tsunamis that struck Hilo. However, after the Maui fires, he told me about standing on top of the central fire station in Hilo, next to my grandfather, and watching the water sweep away the town and the opportunities for his generation.

The reality for Native Hawaiians on the continent is one of profound loss and deracination. When my wife, son and I moved to the Big Island last year, I had hoped my parents would have been able to have joined us living in Hawaii, but age and tumbles have prevented those wishes from coming true. 

As many of this generation follow my father’s path out of Hawaii, it’s hard to see a way for them to return. They’re fated to fill their homes on the continent with the reminders of Hawaii.

Growing up, our reminders were pictures of Hilo Bay, Mauna Kea and Theodore Wore’s “The Lei Maker,” along with the sounds and songs that provided the connection to the homeland. 

While we watched the HNN sunrise newscast and Guy Hagi’s weather report, I flipped through cardboard boxes of my father’s impressive collection of Hawaiian vinyl.

After my visit with them, I was fortunate to be going to see Robert Cazimero perform a benefit concert for Maui. The Cazimero Brothers were my parents’ favorite group. 

When my parents first started dating in the 1960s, the Cazimeros were just arriving on the music scene and becoming regular performers at the nightclubs in Waikiki. The Cazimeros’ music took on a mythic role in our ohana. 

My plan was to take a few of the album covers, and hopefully, have them signed. 

These mementos would have to be a substitute for my parents’ attendance. 

Still, there would be a generational tie. My parents and I were eager to have my son see Cazimero perform. While his music is beautiful, my favorite part of his performances are his dulcet interstitial explanations.

Cazimero is a vital connection in the continued generational transfer of Hawaiian knowledge. 

The day before the concert, my son, a cellist, performed “Maui Waltz” with his school’s string ensemble. I was so happy to play for him the Cazimero version from an LP I had brought back from Texas. The vinyl record, which hadn’t been played in several decades, was haunting and lovely. It was a connection to a Hawaii from long ago.

Cazimero in person didn’t disappoint. As he began to play as the sun set, I couldn’t help envisioning how my parents would have lovingly sat beside each other holding hands at a table as they did in the early 1960s.

Of course, there are thousands of other couples like my parents who are now far away from Hawaii. Too many people who grew up with Cazimero’s music have made difficult decisions to leave Hawaii, and don’t have a plan or a way to make it back. 

But, here’s the quirk of living in the 21st century: the event was livestreamed, so if they had been able to stay up that late, they could have seen their grandson sitting off to the side trying to get an unobstructed view of the performance.

He got Robert Cazimero to sign the album with “Maui Waltz” for his grandparents. The song’s gentle melody makes me hopeful for what can be ahead and not what’s been lost here in Hawaii.

“I hear the Maui waltz

It brings back memories

I hear the Maui waltz

And you are haunting me

The night you told me

That you loved me so

But no one told me

That when the dance was through

I’d be losing you

I hear the Maui waltz

And my arms are empty now

I hear the Maui waltz

But it doesn’t hurt somehow

‘Cause you’re here with me

When the music starts to play

Play on, play on Maui waltz”

Civil Beat’s coverage of Maui County is supported in part by grants from the Nuestro Futuro Foundation.