ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the importance of food and land for the maintenance and meaning of health, as well as their centrality in the process of place making. In raising issues of access and transformation, these categories call the attention to colonial and contemporary intrusions that make it difficult for or prevent Native Hawaiians as a group and as individuals from being healthy and highlight the complexities of a Hawaiian political economy of health. Nohea's role-play between the developers and the Native Hawaiians' plea to save the medicines is indicative of the relationship between Native Hawaiians and outsiders. The negative impact of development and pollution on access to Hawaiian land, food, and medicine extends to the supermarket shelves. Kalo and poi are considered healthy Hawaiian food, whereas fruits and vegetables are considered healthy haole food: Food takes on symbolic significance in distinguishing between Native Hawaiian and foreign identities.
