October 1, 2020

“I did not feel my role was to push medicine onto them, but to support them in a way in which they did things.”

Joan Takamori wears an umber-colored t-shirt with triangular shapes cascading down the left side of her tee.  She has matching earrings that mimic the pattern on her shirt. I notice it immediately and ask if it were intentional.  “No it just felt like I should wear it today,” she grins.

Aunty Joan has been bringing her UH nursing leadership team to Hoʻoulu ʻĀina for the past three years.  Today she is hosted by our lāʻau practitioner, Pua Pinto.  Pua carries a few tools in her bag as the three of us make our way to the hale where we will weed the ʻahu.

Aunty Joan has always had a relationship with ʻāina even as a young girl.  Her mom believed in the healing power of plants and was constantly experimenting on the young Joan.

“Just take this,” her mom urged.

“Why?”

“Because you sick.”

“That’s gross,” she gagged.  “This is pretty bad.”

“Just take it.  It’s healthy.”

Surprisingly Aunty Joan ended up graduating from nursing school as a public health nurse.  She was disappointed that alternative medicine classes were optional and not integrated into the regular nursing program.   She could feel that the professors who taught those classes were not receiving the kind of support they needed from administration.

She also noticed a broken system as a public health nurse working with Tongan expectant mothers on the North Shore.  The families explained that in their homeland, giving birth occurred naturally at home – not in the hospital.  The only reason to visit a hospital is if you’re sick.  And so Joan would routinely visit the homes of the families to provide prenatal checkups – a state requirement.

Working with these families helped her understand how best to support the hāpai women in that community.  “And so I actually learned a lot from them – their choices, why they chose do it that way, and how they chose to raise their children. I did not feel my role was to push medicine onto them, but to support them in a way in which they did things. I think my upbringing helped me navigate that,” she says.

STAY TUNED next week for Part II of Aunty Joan’s ʻĀina Warrior story of resilience through lāʻau lapaʻau.