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SUMMARY:Hōkūle’a in the Chesapeake: Honoring the Future of Indigenous Relations
DESCRIPTION:Thursday, September 17, 2026\nAtherton Halau\n5:30 – 7 p.m.\nFree Admission with RSVP\nThis panel commemorates Hōkūleʻa’s voyage to Piscataway Country in 2016 and is part of a three-day convening titled “Tidewater Travelers and Wa‘a Voyagers: A Piskatàwe/Kānaka ‘Ōiwi Story.” Bishop Museum is proud to host guest speakers Rex Lokeni, Kumu Hula Snowbird Puananiopaoakalani Bento, Gabrielle Tayac, and Moderator Aaron A. Donaldson as they offer a critical glimpse into a significant and endearing portion of the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage in the Chesapeake. This gathering centers the voices, memories, and stories of Piscataway and Kānaka ‘Ōiwi present for that historic event, fostering continued cultural exchange and collective imaginings essential to Indigenous futures.\nJoin us as we reenter and strengthen previously established pilina (relationships), share reflections, and articulate shared priorities for future generations in the University and beyond.\nSpeaker Bios\nRex Lokeni\nRex is an educator who first sailed on Hōkūleʻa in 2014, during the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage, from his home island of Samoa to Olohega/Swains Island. Born in Auckland, Aotearoa, Rex grew up in Samoa, where he worked for the National Marine Sanctuary of American Samoa. He hopes that more people will become familiar with the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) as he has, and that the younger generation will enjoy sailing using ancient navigation techniques.\nSnowbird Puananiopaoakalani Bento is a renowned kumu hula (hula instructor), cultural practitioner, and educator from Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Born in Pauoa Valley, Oʻahu,n Snowbird grew up in a musical family, singing with her parents and grandparents at home and in church. As a child, she traveled by bus every Saturday morning from downtown Honolulu to Kaimukī for hula classes. She attended Kamehameha Schools, where she deepened her mastery of the Hawaiian language and cultural foundations. Her training was shaped by respected cultural leaders and mentors, including Holoua Stender. Since 2004, Snowbird has served as the kumu hula for her award-winning hālau (hula school), Ka Pā Hula O Ka Lei Lehua, instructing both kane (male) and wahine (female) dancers and bringing her students to major competitions and cultural events. Additionally, Snowbird has been featured in the award-winning PBS and KQED Arts digital series If Cities Could Dance, highlighting how Honolulu’s hula dancers connect the past and present. As a cultural consultant for Kamehameha Schools’ Kaʻiwakīloumoku Hawaiian Cultural Center, she co-hosts the virtual talk show Pacific Conversations, celebrating Indigenous traditions across the Pacific and fostering a shared regional identity as “people of the Pacific” rather than isolated island groups.\nDr. Gabrielle Tayac was born in Greenwich Village, New York City and is a member of the Piscataway Indian Nation of southern Maryland, a community-engaged public historian, educator, scholar, museum curator, and activist. She is active in matters of Indigenous land and water rights as well as U.S. government treaty compliance. She received her BS in social work and American Indian studies from Cornell University and her MA and PhD in sociology from Harvard University. Gabi served as an inaugural curator, historian, and educator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. She co-curated one of the museum’s inaugural permanent exhibits, “Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identity.” She was the sole curator of the exhibit “Return to a Native Place: Native Peoples of the Chesapeake Region.” She also co-curated and edited the traveling exhibit “IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas,” which explores the history, culture, and personal struggles of people with mixed African and Indigenous heritage. As an Associate Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at George Mason University, she oversees the CoCreative History Space to train new generations of public historians in their pursuits to understand and interpret histories, near and far, ancient and modern. She is an Associate Director for Mason Legacies and a Faculty Fellow coordinating the CHSS (College of Humanities and Social Science) Faculty Network. Gabi has served on numerous advisory boards, councils, and committees, including America250, Dumbarton Oaks’ Mellon Initiative on Democracy and Landscape, Historic St. Mary’s Commission, the Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs, Survival International, and Amnesty International. She has consulted with the Mellon Foundation, National Geographic, and many agencies and institutes.\nAaron A. Donaldson\nBorn in Sacramento, CA, in the unceded homelands of the Miwok peoples, Aaron spent the formative years of his youth between the US settler states of California, New Jersey, the ancestral home of the Nanticoke, and the DC/Maryland area, also known as Piscataway territory. An enrolled member of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, Aaron also traces his lineage to the Jamaican diaspora and late-20th century Irish immigration. A scholar, educator, and anti-military activist, he received his BA in humanities from the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu, his MA in comparative philosophy from UH Mānoa, and is currently a PhD student and lecturer in Political Science at UH Mānoa, focusing on Indigenous Politics and Alternative Futures. A scholar, educator, poet, and activist, Aaron teaches history and political theory, Hawaiian and Indigenous politics, and American politics. He volunteers his time with multiple place-based, non-profit organizations in Hawai‘i and can be found standing in solidarity with other activists, scholars, and artists for important Indigenous issues such as Native Hawaiian sovereignty, Indigenous survivance, and global resistance to imperialism and colonialism. His works “Piscataway Survivance in the Age of Erasure: Inter-Indigenous Relations as Pathways of Repair and Connection” and “We Humbly Request Permission to Be Here Today: Cultural Exchange and the Complexities of Allyship in Occupied Hawai‘i” have been presented most recently at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) conference in both Temuco/Wallmapu, Chile, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, respectively.\n
URL:https://www.bishopmuseum.org/calendar/hokulea-in-the-chesapeake-honoring-the-future-of-indigenous-relations/
ORGANIZER;CN=Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum:MAILTO:
CATEGORIES:Special Event
LOCATION:Atherton Hālau
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