Pacific Islander Inspirational Quotes

Paradise” is a suffering word, grossly overused and ineptly devalued in everyday hype and blurb. Yet, tired as it is, it will have to do. Nothing else conveys that sense of place that can inspire a blissful contentment.

For over two weeks, the defenders of Wake Island held off a vastly superior force of Japanese ships and troops, inspiring the whole nation with their plucky spirit and sacrifice. Unfortunately, Navy leaders at Pearl Harbor, struggling to protect what was left of the shattered Pacific Fleet, canceled a relief mission, allowing the island and its defenders to fall without support. Wake damaged the long-standing trust between the Corps and the Navy, a memory that still rankles Marines and shames sailors.

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lighting, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.

I am a bomb but I mean you no harm. That I still am here to tell this, is a miracle: I was deployed on May 15, 1957, but I didn’t go off because a British nuclear engineer, a young father, developed qualms after seeing pictures of native children marveling at the mushrooms in the sky, and sabotaged me. I could see why during that short drop before I hit the atoll: the island looks like god’s knuckles in a bathtub, the ocean is beautifully translucent, corals glow underwater, a dead city of bones, allowing a glimpse into a white netherworld. I met the water and fell a few feet into a chromatic cemetery. The longer I lie here, listening to my still functioning electronic innards, the more afraid I grow of detonating after all this time. I don’t share your gods, but I pray I shall die a silent death.

When the islands were taken over, the princess, Ka’iulani, who had been tricked out of her kingdom cried out to Aloha Ke Akua.” The dots danced into the figure of a young woman, broken-hearted, sobbing on the floor beside her bed. “Aloha Ke Akua’s heart was torn apart by what he saw, so in one last act he touched the island of O’ahu.” The dots formed a giant hand and finger that touched the shape of the island. “And created Hunaia Awāwa. A sanctuary. The resting place of the resting place.

The spirits of our ancestors are all around us, Emmalehua. They speak to us in the rustle of the leaves, the whisper of the wind, and the song of the sea. We must listen to their wisdom, and let it guide us on our journey. For they are the keepers of our history, the guardians of our culture, and the inspiration for our future. We must honor them, respect them, and carry their legacy forward, so that their voices may be heard for generations to come." (Kneubuhl 89)

We would like to inspire young Banabans to uphold their rich culture and traditions for many future generations.