Hawai'i Talks Story [Countryhumans and Statehumans Oneshots]

Brown Like Earth, Brown Like Dirt

—1845—

"Hazel, is my nose funny?" Hawaiʻi said, pinching it slightly as her friend looked over her, as she modelled for a dress the young woman was altering to fit the seemingly strange dimensions of Hawaiʻi's body. "One of the children I saw today told her mother that I look funny."

"You look Hawaiian to me." Hazel said, shrugging. "Nothing more, nothing less."

Hawaiʻi nodded, her hands still tracing her face. She began looking at her hands, thinking about how they looked, and the human coloured skin she hid under the colours of her flag. She had long since memorised the shade, a dark copper that Britain had shown her, from a book, to be close to what he called a Negroid.

That colour, when he had shown it to her, was the most beautiful colour she could think of. But now... it was hard to look at that colour without the idea that it was an 'other' colour, one that displayed her as different. It would be nice, she supposed, to look like the little girl that she saw, dirty blonde and green eyes, and lightly tanned skin. Not brown, anything but brown.

She decided that this colour was not what she wanted, especially not if she was to be in this "Family of Nations", as she was told she was accepted to be a part of.

Hazel seemed to notice what Hawaiʻi was thinking, and she took her hands, putting them on her own face. She closed her eyes. "Miss Hawai'i, do I look funny to you?"

Hawaiʻi blinked in surprise at the question. "No, you are very beautiful."

"Well, You look like me, Hawai'i Nei. When you think you aren't beautiful... others are going to feel it too." Hazel said quietly.

Hazel was brown. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown skin. Brown like koa wood and like the dust beneath her feet and like the ships that came and brought so many good things.

Brown like earth.

—1900—

"Look where you are going, please." Hawaiʻi said, her voice getting an irritated tone as she bumped into the man next to her, and he dropped what he was holding. When Hawaiʻi bent over to pick it up, she was met with a general distaste, and a certain word.

The word, that horrible, terrible word, that was mostly used for a very specific type of person. But, as evidenced, when ignorant people in privileged places refuse to see others as people like them, they often don't stop to ask what type of other the person they are throwing slurs at are.

"I am not, I am Hawaiian. There is a big difference." Hawaiʻi would say, her voice an irritated scowl, explaining for the hundredth time that Hawaiian was not pōpolo, it wasn't that. It wasn't to say there was anything against people with black skin, and she could see the similarities between her and them, it was just...

She was brown. Not black, not white. Just brown, a middle colour that kept her from enjoying the life of someone several shades lighter, but also prevented her from the outright scorn of someone several shades darker... mostly. She was a background blank brown, an unnoticeable colour that faded away quickly.

Hawaiʻi looked in her reflection in a puddle, and irritatedly threw a rock at it. It sprayed brown water in the air, muddling her reflection with mud at the bottom of the puddle, until it was all one, unassuming shade of brown.

Brown like dirt on clothing, like muddy water in the kalo patch, brown that needed to be scrubbed away to reveal a cleaner colour, a better colour.

Brown like dirt.

—1924—

"The makeup that will suit you is unlike anything I have ever used for me, so I had to go out and find someone with your skin colour to make sure you look your best with it." Stella said, smiling as she took lipstick and a stencil from the bag. "For instance, I wouldn't ever wear anything besides red, but you would probably look better in plumb or a darker colour."

"I'm not really one to get dressed up like this, Stella." Hawaiʻi said, and Stella rolled her eyes.

"Of course I understand that. You were raised very traditionally. So was I. But it can be fun to get all dolled up, can't it?" She said, and then went back to her work. "There we are. My mama constantly tells me lipstick is for only ladies of the night, but you know what? I think it looks good on anybody, and if it's good enough for Clara Bow, it's good enough for me and you, isn't that right?

"Stella, is that really me? Really, is that me, looking back?" Hawaiʻi said, watching this person in the mirror start to smile, start to laugh. "Oh I look wonderful! I could just kiss you! On the cheek. As a friend."

Stella laughed. "Like I said, sweetheart, you just gotta work with what you got. And you've got a lot."

"Thank you, Stella." Hawaiʻi said, watching that mirror person, that beautiful smiling, laughing person. "I look so different."

"Not really. It's all you, just enhanced a bit." Stella said, smiling, "Look at me. Such pretty brown eyes and hair, like a clean slate. Sure, I get compliments for my hair and eyes, but they aren't very good to work with if I want to switch things up. Some colours just don't work well with red or green. But you? You look great in anything you wear."

"You really think I look nice?" Hawaiʻi asked,

"I do." Stella said, laughing.

Hawaiʻi looked at the girl staring back, and grinned.

She was brown, like wood to be painted, like mountainsides, like logs for the stove and like a farmer's land, waiting for the first sprigs of green to pop their heads from the ground and reveal wonderful flowers.

Brown like freshly tilled ground.

—1989—

Graduation season was always full of colours, greens and pinks and oranges and whites all over the place. The person graduating? Anuenue, Hawaiʻi's younger friend, just out of highschool. Her siblings, Hawaiʻi, and Kālahui cheered as loud as they could when they heard her legal name, Paul Kainalu Waiona Baker, although it wasn't the name she wanted to go by.

Oh well, it was alright.

She had graduated high school, the first in her family to do so. She'd be the first to college, the first to live and love and be happy in the way that she wished. She was a good kid.

"I want a picture with you, please?" Anuenue asked Hawaiʻi after she was eye-level covered with leis of all different types. "I wouldn't be here without you, Aunty, and I want a photo of me and you and Keone here."

Kālahui looked excited for that, and Hawaiʻi was roped into several photos, and it was beautiful in that time, despite Hawaiʻi hating photos of her of any kind. But it was what Kālahui and her best friend wanted. So she could deal with it.

"I'll copy these photos and send them to you, okay?" Anuenue said, grinning. "Which ones do you want?"

"Oh, that's alright. I like to have many photos of myself. I don't like them very much." Hawaiʻi laughed, smiling. "You know?"

"I would be taking as many photos of myself as possible if I looked like you, you know that?" Anuenue said, and Hawaiʻi tilted her head.

"Why?"

"Because..." She tried to think of the words quietly, mouthing them, before whispering to Kālahui, who eagerly whispered back.

"Sure. Flattery gets you nowhere, you know that, right?" Hawaiʻi said, laughing.

"Just take one, alright Aunty?" Anuenue said, and handed her a photo before going off to find a friend of hers that she wanted to celebrate with.

Hawaiʻi traced her face on the photo, hers and Anuenue's and Kālahui's. Three different shades of brown, Anuenue being the darkest. All wonderful, beautiful browns.

Hawaiʻi loved the colour brown.

Brown like her people, the ones she loved. Brown like wood and mountains and dirt and dust and logs and the fur of animals and clay and chocolate and coffee and tea and all these wonderful and beautiful things. Brown was all colours together, mixed into a lovely and warming soup of people and their cultures.

Brown like people. Brown like soil, like dirt, like ground.

Brown like Earth.