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Great Value! Heritage Objects and Da Kine

Asian American Resource Center 

Austin, TX

November 20, 2023-February 10, 2024

Solo Exhibition

I transform everyday consumer items to create new objects that represent my personal cultural heritage. My paternal ancestors came to Hawai’i from China to work on the plantations in the 1890s, my maternal grandparents emigrated to the United States from China in the 1950s, and I was born and raised in Texas in the beginning of the 2000s. While I am physically far from the places my family is from, I connect with my heritage through traditions, like lei making, routines, such as saving plastic bags, and buying canned delicacies at the store like spam. When my dad cooks at home he adds “The Secret Hawaiian Ingredient,” ketchup. While these are just items and every day routines, they are how I express my identity and connect with the traditions of my ancestors and with my community. 

Local Food and Da'Kine
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Seven Sisters in Spam

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Spam Leis

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Oyster Sauce Lady

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Packet Leis + Da Kine

What does, "Da Kine," mean?

Da Kine is a Hawaiian Pidgin word that sometimes translates to “that kind,” but also is used as a stand in for “those things,” “that thing,” etc. It can be used as a noun, verb, adjective and adverb. 

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Hawaiian Pidgin is a simplified language spoken in Hawai'i that developed on the sugar cane plantations on Hawai'i where people spoke many languages such as Chinese, English, Tagalog, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and Hawaiian

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Peppo's Pidgin to Da Max by Douglas Simonson (Peppo) in collaboration with Ken Sakata and Pat Sasaki is the unofficial Hawaiian Pidgin dictionary

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Lei Tradition
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Lei Project

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Leis Made in Texas

Plastic Bag Quilt Installation
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