The View from Here:

Into the Place of Hopes and Dreams:
My Journey with the Children of Hawaii

Lynne K. Fukuda
Instructor, Institute of Biology, Hawaii Pacific University
E-mail: lfukuda@hawaii.edu

Dedicated to David, James, Annie, and Mike; teachers, staff, tutors, and student workers; and especially all my students at HUB and all my students young and old, who taught me about hope and dreams.

The Hawaii Upward Bound program, which was one of the remaining classic Upward Bound programs in the country, was started more than thirty years ago by my former director (who was a product of the program). The director, who was my boss and a math teacher who were former upward bound students, came back to serve, succeeding in finishing college with their degrees to give back to the program as adults. The HUB program was a rigorous college-prep course that required students to devote a part of their high school years to extra-curricular activities and study in addition to their own high school curriculum. Now the old HUB program at Leeward no longer exists, a victim of government cuts in educational funding. Perhaps the economy and the program had been in decline in the last few years, but the students, staff, and others were happily oblivious, enjoying the program as they had in its heyday until the very last minute.

The HUB program, as we all call it, is designed primarily to help high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds, parents who have not attended college, and people of low socio-economic status attend college. In addition to their desire to go to college, these people find in common the desire to achieve and attain a better future. The program provides funds for students to have meals, field trips, campus tours, guidance, dorm stays at the University of Hawaii during the summers, and other activities that would otherwise not have been possible without the generous funds from the government. Students can also utilize tutoring and full classes on Saturdays.

The Leeward program potentially served 80 students but usually had 30 to 40 regulars who came to after-school tutoring sessions at their high schools or at Leeward Community College; students also attended Saturday sessions, called "Saturday Academy," and participated in all events, service projects, and field trips. Some students came to receive tutoring after school, often riding the bus for two hours and then walking up to campus from the main road. They did this with the determination of decades past, whose students knew the true value of education. My father's family, being children of poor farmers in a rural area of Kauai, walked three hours to attend the only high school on their island; their parents emphasized the value of a good education as a way to get out of poverty, have better opportunities, and a better way of life. Now, some of the HUB students emphasize these values as well as their parents.

Some may wonder why HUB only services a select few when such funds could help many more students who wish to go to college. There is always, as expected, a waiting list of students who do not get into the program. However, students are selected on the basis of willingness, discipline, maturity, and other factors. Good grades are not always a requirement of HUB. Students who truly need help and would benefit from the help are invited to join. Who else but devoted, academically inclined students would join such a demanding program? What other group of young people would sacrifice a part of their youth, their free Saturdays and afternoons in order to study harder than anyone else? These students hardly compared with my previous high school experience.

I shook with fear when I recalled the times I taught high school as a substitute teacher. The private school students were a calm bunch, but could lie their way to skipping class or remain in the restrooms until break time. The reputations of public high school students were worse. I imagined myself being torched or wallpapered. I imagined disruptive students erupting into a riot like a pack of maddened chimpanzees. The news always showed high school students swinging chains, having riots, or becoming violent with their teachers.

My first meetings with the students were not very successful. I was suddenly shy, unable to communicate one-to-one with teenagers. I was a teenager nearly twenty years ago, and I was sadly out of touch. I was old enough to be their mother. Some of their mothers were in fact teenage moms and younger than I. Since I had no children of my own, I was immature in the ways of discipline. "What can I say to them? They were so different from college students," a voice whispered in my head.

One of the boys came up to me to speak. He was surprisingly soft-spoken and respectful. I looked at the earrings he wore, the ski hat on his head, and his rebellious countenance and was reminded of high school gangs. But it was neither hate nor disgust that came across in his speech and face--it was respect and friendliness. I saw among the others a boy with a crocheted cap who also reminded me of a gang member and a few girls who seemed tough and a bit scary. I imagined the worst. But scary-looking students were simply shy. I had misinterpreted their body language. I knew they were sizing me up, looking at my conservative clothing and my citified mannerisms. I felt suddenly out of place. And yet, the students took the initiative to introduce themselves and made me feel comfortable.

I worked my way in with HUB, where I met students who came from troubled homes much like mine. My own family life was not the clean, upper middle-class home that some people believed it to be. I had a father who was an alcoholic, who disowned both my sister and me, so that I grew up never knowing a father from the age of seven. My single mother wept daily; we lived in poverty in a small, one room apartment in an industrial area of town. Being the eldest, even at seven, I worried about my mother's failing health, about finances, household things such as groceries, and about school. I went grocery shopping at times by myself because my mother became depressed and did not want to leave the apartment. I was unhappy at school, bearing the stigma of having no father and a divorced mother. It seems barely noticeable in our world now, but in those days divorce was considered a horrible, shameful thing. My mother was no longer welcome in the Catholic church and her high-moral friends also chose to abandon her and acted as though she were dead.

I suffered academically, hating school although I had kind friends. Little did I know that in the area I resided, many of my classmates were fatherless or came from very poor homes or homes with domestic abuse. I was oblivious to the suffering of others.

Eventually, my mother remarried. I did not get along with my new father, but I behaved civilly with him, grateful that he made my mother happy and that he gave us a house and supported my sister and I as his own children. Yet, even the years or the decades did not bridge the rift between my new father and I, especially as my parents' marriage began to deteriorate.

So my early experiences, much like those of many of my students, prepared me to work with youths who came from environments of deprivation and turmoil. I worked with elementary-aged children at an emergency shelter until they were placed in foster homes. I could never be certain I would see them again. I played games with them, cooked meals, and accompanied them to picnics and outings like a favorite aunt. They flocked to me for the affection that they so sorely missed in their young lives. I wept for each of them and prayed at night for the guardian angels to come out in full force.

I also worked briefly with runaway teenagers at a shelter near my childhood home, the beautiful Manoa Valley, which is filled with mists on the low mountain peaks, green forests above, and a cool, spring-like breeze throughout the year. The rains would bring rainbows, a symbol of childlike dreams. It was here that I felt troubled youths from all over the island could come to heal. Being older, they were less likely to be placed in foster homes. Some came from abusive homes with cigarette burns on their legs, scars, and emotional wounds that would follow them into adulthood. Yet, once in their group homes, it was like a college dorm. They laughed a lot and engaged in youthful teasing. I helped them with homework, guided them in craft and other activities, and accompanied them to picnics and outings. My role there was not "substitute mommy" with a shoulder to cry on (as in the emergency shelter) but "jail keeper." I had to ensure that the girls in the girl's home did not decided to run away again, this time into more dangerous territory. A young girl under the age of 18, unemployable and naïve, could be prey to bad men, fall into prostitution or drugs abuse. Thus, my role was important, and I followed them like a shadow. I knew their annoyed glances were mingled with relief that a responsible adult was nearby at all times to guide them and to protect them from harm. I did not stay too long with the shelter because I was often too sad to see their plight and did not feel that I could help them, being only a little older than the girls myself.

My journey continued as I learned from my students the ways of life. Some words that sum up those experiences then are transformation, maturation, self-actualization, and enlightenment. In those years I learned more about life than if I had worked an ordinary nine-to-five job.

It was more than ten years later, after working with young school children and older students that I came to fill in the gap in my life, fate working in its strange ways to lead me to the youths who desired to overcome adversity and to finally "make it" with a college degree. I met many military students whose aspirations were also the same, although their routes were different. Many became great world-travelers, great parents, and happy individuals who served our country and still wished to go to college. Perhaps some of them might have used the HUB program and skipped military service and gone on to college if they had known about it.

Thus, when I met my new high school students, my wish was that they would never know war as my military students had. These students would never die in war, but instead earn college degrees and go on to careers and become humanitarians who would understand the downtrodden of the world, the unforgivable condition of poverty, and strive to make the world better than the one they knew as children. This is not to say that I do not value sacrifice, especially that of soldiers who knew they might die protecting their county. I admire and am moved to tears by their efforts, for without them, who would defend our country and defend justice? And yet, I wish for a better way. I steered some of my students away who wanted to sign up for service, feeling guilty that I was not being patriotic.

I wanted my new students to prepare for a future that would be kinder, a world with fewer wars, a world more concerned with the spread of disease, poverty, inequality, environmental destruction, and bad governments. I saw visions of them becoming doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers, mathematicians, scientists, politicians, and many other professionals. My HUB students also expressed the wish to become such individuals and to make their families and teachers proud. Many of the brightest students had dreams of earning degrees from prestigious colleges and having great careers. They saw college as an opportunity to leave to islands of Hawaii, which often did not have enough jobs and were much too costly for young families. They would find work on the U.S. mainland and raise their families there, perhaps returning to Hawaii to retire.

My admiration of these young students made me overcome my fears. I was afraid that I would disappoint them, and that I would not be the teacher they wanted. I feared that I would not be able to communicate with them or be able to manage my class because I was not a good disciplinarian. And yet, my desire to teach them made me sure that I no longer cared if I were mobbed by a group of angry students. I only wanted to guide them. I was not a great tutor--although I hope I was a good Saturday teacher--but I tried by example to be a good role model, give the students personal advice, and to relate to them how wonderful the college experience could be.

I know academics is highly important, especially in a college-prep program, but I wanted to emphasize that enjoyment--to study a field one loves, to land the career of choice or attend the school of one's dreams. No matter how brief their stay on the Mainland, four years perhaps, their migration to a culture and a world away would become something to feed them in their later years. Later, in years of hardship, work, or in marriage, my students would reminisce about their college years. Perhaps they would not learn very much in college classes. Maybe their majors would change three or four times. Some might drop out of college to go to work or to start families. But the experience of being there, of achieving the goal of going to college--perhaps as the first in their families--would be the golden prize.

I know that I will cry when my present students graduate at our special Upward Bound graduation this May. I am so proud of all of them, even the ones who are not graduating until next year or later. The once-scary maddened chimps of my imagination have grown on me. I love them with all my heart as a mother would. I know that when I leave my job at the end of May to go to the University of Hawaii at Hilo to perhaps mentor online students, I will be thinking of my HUBBIES, who gave me the valuable experience of working with teens and a view into their world.

What keeps me teaching and working in my career? It is to see that spark in my students' eyes, to see hopes and dreams of those young and forever young, to see the efforts of those who struggle against adversity and come out on the top to lead happy, productive lives and give back to their communities.

I joined HUB at a very unhappy period of my life, when the war in Iraq took my military students to the fields to death, and lost a few of my precious students in that war. I almost lost my hopes and dreams but was comforted by the high school students who were cheerful in spite of hardship and never gave up. Some students found their parents in the hospital, some suffered abuse, and others lived in unstable homes. Yet, they never gave up hope and never failed to find love in a world of deprivation and abandonment. These students enveloped me in their special teenaged world where one was forever young and anything could be possible. In the process of teaching them, I was healed.

Teaching them and scolding them when they were naughty, hearing their light-hearted laughter, I too was a young student. While the war raged oceans away, I was oblivious to the terror beyond. While I taught at HUB, I was able to hope and dream about a better tomorrow, a tomorrow without war, suffering and death.

I wish to thank my present and former students for the gifts they gave me in their admiration. They allowed me to be no longer childless, but the mother of many, many students of all ages and backgrounds.

I pray that the new HUB program at Leeward, which merged the Math-Science Program and HUB into one, will continue the tradition of both academic devotion and a place to have fun, socialize, and learn the values that come with a good education. The HUB program's legacy is apparent in its students' lessons in perseverance. Its advice is simple: no one should ever lose hope or throw away dreams.

Academic Exchange Extra invites reader responses to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.

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