{"id":63264,"date":"2025-04-09T01:00:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T09:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/?p=63264"},"modified":"2025-04-08T16:09:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T00:09:58","slug":"hawaiian-taro-takes-root-in-oregon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/2025\/04\/09\/hawaiian-taro-takes-root-in-oregon\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawaiian Taro Takes Root in Oregon"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was co-published and supported by the journalism nonprofit\u00a0<\/em>the Economic Hardship Reporting Project<\/em><\/span><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

In the Kumulipo,<\/a> the Hawaiian creation story, the goddess Ho\u2018oh\u014dk\u016bkalani gives birth to a stillborn son, who is buried in the fertile soil. In her grief, she waters the soil with her tears, and a sprout emerges, becoming the first kalo plant. This plant nourishes her second-born son, H\u0101loa, the first Native Hawaiian.<\/p><\/div>

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For Native Hawaiians, kalo, also known as taro\u2014a tropical plant prized for its starchy, nutritious,\u00a0 rootlike corm<\/a> as well as its leaves\u2014is not just a traditional food source<\/a> but an ancestor, symbolizing a lasting and reciprocal connection to land. As a staple crop, kalo has sustained Pacific Islander cultures for generations.<\/p>\n

Especially for those who had left the island many decades earlier, it was monumental to see kalo being planted in Oregon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Now kalo has sprouted thousands of miles from its ancestral home in the Portland metropolitan area, where a growing Native Hawaiian population resides. The land for the garden\u2014or m\u0101la, in Hawaiian\u2014started with just six square feet but has expanded exponentially, with multiple locations. What these gardens produce is more than just food and a bond with Indigenous culture; it is a thriving community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe give a safe space for our Hawaiian families,\u201d said Leialoha Ka\u2018ula, one of the garden project\u2019s founders, describing its greater purpose. \u201cIt [is] also food sovereignty, that relationship to \u02bb\u0101ina, or land. It\u2019s a place of healing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ka\u2018ula, like many Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI), left the islands due to the high cost of living there, combined with low wages and lack of jobs and housing<\/span>. It\u2019s part of a pattern<\/a> that followed the illegal overthrow<\/a> of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and declaration of statehood by the U.S. in 1959. Then as now, emigration is fueled by unaffordable living costs, low-wage jobs<\/a>, and a housing crisis driven by tourism<\/a>, luxury development, and an influx of mainlanders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2020, the U.S. Census reported that, for the first time, more Native Hawaiians<\/a> live in the continental U.S. than they do in Hawai\u02bbi, with Oregon having nearly 40,000 NHPI residents<\/a>. Many in the diaspora long for stronger ties to their home and cultural identity.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Ka\u02bbula and others<\/a>, the relationship with kalo is binding, and without it, Native Hawaiians lose vital connections to their culture and mana, a Hawaiian term for spiritual and healing power. But growing kalo is not as easy as just planting it in the ground. Cultivation took years of effort and help from multiple hands.<\/p>\n

Land Access and Indigenous Blessings<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"a<\/a>

Ka \u02bbAha L\u0101hui O \u02bbOlekona Hawaiian Civic Club (KALO HCC) Executive Director Leialoha Ka\u02bbula demonstrates the art of making laulau with fresh kalo leaves from the club’s m\u0101la, or garden. (Photo courtesy of KALO HCC)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>

Born on O\u02bbahu and raised on Hawai\u02bbi Island, Ka\u02bbula was steeped in Hawaiian culture through her family. Her grandmother introduced her to the Hawaiian language when she was little. Wanting to continue those studies, she attended a Hawaiian immersion charter school, where she also learned cultural practices like hula, chanting, and the traditional farming methods of her ancestors, including how to grow kalo.<\/p><\/div>

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Ka\u02bbula came to the Pacific Northwest in the early 2000s to study psychology at Washington State University and eventually settled in Beaverton, Oregon. From her first days in Washington, Ka\u02bbula dreamed of growing kalo there, but accessing land was a challenge.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, she started a hula academy<\/a> in Beaverton to help carry on the traditions of her elders. She also helped found Ka \u02bbAha L\u0101hui O \u02bbOlekona Hawaiian Civic Club (KALO HCC)<\/a>, one of several such clubs across Hawai\u02bbi and the continental U.S. promoting Native Hawaiian culture, advocacy, and community welfare after the dissolution of the Hawaiian Kingdom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ka\u02bbula envisioned growing kalo through the Civic Club as a part of a new youth program, but it wasn\u2019t until she met Donna Ching, an elder at the hula academy, that plans began to take shape.<\/strong> Ching, also Native Hawaiian, served on the board of the Oregon Food Bank<\/a> (OFB), which has gardens where immigrant communities can grow culturally important foods. Ching helped secure a modest plot for the youth program in the Eastside Learning Garden, in Portland\u2014and the kalo project was born.<\/p>\n

The next step was to ensure a blessing for the m\u0101la. KALO HCC invited Portland-area Indigenous community organizations like the Portland All Nations Canoe Family<\/a> and Confluence Project<\/a> to request permission to grow native Hawaiian plants on local land.<\/p>\n

The ceremony and the planting<\/a> took place in August of 2021. After chanting and prayers, NHPI youth from the club tossed in handfuls of rich, black soil and planted dozens of baby kalo, already sporting several tender, heart-shaped leaves. The elders in the community watered the bed. Especially for those who had left the island many decades earlier, it was monumental to see kalo being planted in Oregon.<\/p>\n

The First Harvest <\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>

In the first season, KALO HCC harvested 25 pounds of kalo leaves, called lau, which are used for food, medicinal purposes, and ceremonies.<\/p><\/div>

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For her role in procuring the land, Ching was given the first harvest to make lau lau\u2014a traditional Hawaiian dish of fatty pork or butterfish along with vegetables, all wrapped in kalo leaves and steamed. The kalo leaf softens in the process, adding an earthy flavor. The leaves are also an ingredient in other dishes like squid l\u016b\u02bbau. The roots, technically called corms, were left to keep growing beneath the soil; they are used to make poi, a nutritious mash that has been a dietary staple for centuries.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"a<\/a>

Siblings bond while caring for the land, or \u02bb\u0101ina, during a spring “Community M\u0101la Day” on April 22, 2024. (Photo courtesy of KALO HCC)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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\u201cI haven\u2019t made lau lau since I left home, because [lau is] really hard to find here,\u201d Ching said. \u201cWhen you think about how more of us now live on the big continent than in Hawai\u02bbi, if we move and we don\u2019t take some of that \u2018ike\u2014that knowledge\u2014with us, or find a way to grow [it], we\u2019re going to lose it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to the garden\u2019s success, Oregon Food Bank allotted an additional 75-square-foot space to plant the following year. KALO HCC harvested 500 pounds of leaves, most of which were distributed to community members for free. They were also able to hire one paid staff member to help take care of the m\u0101la, thanks to a partnership with Pacific Climate Warriors<\/a>, an international youth-led grassroots network led by Pacific Islanders to address climate change.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now the garden produces other crops, too, including carrots, m\u0101noa lettuce (a variety developed in Hawai\u02bbi), bok choy, and kale, all of which are eventually given to community members. The garden holds weekly work parties, and some 160 volunteers from diverse backgrounds help out over the course of the year, raking mulch, weeding, fertilizing, and harvesting.<\/p>\n

One volunteer drives monthly from her home in Olympia, Washington, nearly two hours away.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s worth every mile,\u201d said Nicole Lee Kamakahiolani Ellison, who also serves on the board of KALO HCC. Ellison left the islands when she was 8 years old and grew up in Las Vegas. She is is a project manager with IREACH at Washington State University, a research institute that promotes health and healthcare equity within Indigenous and rural populations.<\/p>\n

Ellison got involved with the garden a year ago while working on a project with Ka\u2018ula\u00a0about Native heart health. She said she didn\u2019t believe kalo could be grown in Oregon\u2019s climate.<\/p>\n

\"close<\/a>

A KALO HCC member harvests garlic from the garden in July. (Photo courtesy of KALO HCC)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

\u201cYou go down [to the garden] and you\u2019re not in Portland anymore,\u201d Ellison said. \u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re somehow transported back home on some weird magic carpet ride.\u201d She added that a bonus of volunteering is connecting with the k\u016bpuna (elders) who also volunteer, as well as hearing the sound of pidgin, Hawai\u2018i Creole<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Caring for Kalo<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>

On the islands, kalo, a canoe crop<\/a> \u2014one of the plants carried to Hawai\u2018i by the first Polynesian voyagers\u2014is grown in both dryland<\/a> (or upland) and wetland environments, the legacy of sophisticated <\/a>traditional <\/a>irrigation <\/a>systems<\/a> that ran from the mountains to the sea in land divisions called ahupua\u2018a. (Those traditional systems for kalo, once central to Hawai\u02bbi\u2019s agriculture, were displaced by private land ownership, the sugar industry, and the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom.) Wetland taro is routinely flooded; dryland kalo doesn\u2019t require that, but needs regular rain and humidity. Optimal temperatures for kalo are in the 70 to 90 degree range.<\/p><\/div>

\n

Planting in the Portland dryland garden typically starts in the spring, with the kalo leaves and corm maturing in about nine months. The garden uses primarily an Asian strain of kalo, but also includes descendants of cuttings from O\u02bbahu, Mau\u02bbi, and Hawai\u2018i Island. The kalo in the Oregon dryland garden is adapting well to its new location and growing strong.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"On<\/a>

Ka \u02bbAha L\u0101hui O \u02bbOlekona Hawaiian Civic Club (KALO HCC) members transplanted baby kalo plants at Pacific University’s garden, preparing the garden for winter, last October. (Photo courtesy of KALO HCC)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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Ka\u02bbula said the club members have learned they can grow garlic to keep the soil warm, which accelerates the kalo\u2019s growth in the spring. They also leave the kalo corm, the starchy root of the plant, in the ground during the winter, where it multiplies. One root can quickly turn into 10, she said. For now, the group is electing not to harvest the corms so that they continue to grow.<\/p>\n

This winter, they put a dome over the kalo plants to see if they would last through the freeze\u2014which they did. Now the KALO HCC can\u00a0 have kalo year-round, just like in Hawaii.<\/p>\n

Native Hawaiian Foods and Health<\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/div>

The success of the m\u0101la comes at a time when it may be needed most. Recent data shows that nearly 60 percent<\/a> of the NHPI \u00a0in Oregon lives below the poverty line. The food bank has taken hits from the recent federal funding cuts, losing 30 truckloads of food due to the USDA\u2019s food-delivery cancellations across the U.S., and said they have already seen a 31 percent increase<\/a> in visits to their locations compared with the previous year.<\/p><\/div>

\n

\u201cOur [cultural] diets are healthy, but food is expensive, and when it\u2019s expensive, many move away from that diet to something more affordable\u2014and a lot of that affordable food is not healthy for us,\u201d Ching said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that our l\u0101hui (community), our ali\u02bbi (royalty), and our k\u016bpuna (elders) did was never about one person. It was about, how does it trickle down? How does it create a unified community?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In October 2023, KALO HCC published an academic paper<\/a> about their Portland kalo project, describing how establishing the m\u0101la in the continental U.S. connected people to the land, improved their mental health, and created a sense of place for Native Hawaiian community members. The paper also suggests that the garden, through cultural foods and practices, might improve health outcomes overall.<\/p>\n

\u201cCulture is health, is what we\u2019re trying to argue,\u201d Ka\u02bbula said. \u201cSometimes people say that traditional healthcare aligns with the Western models, but we\u2019re trying to say no, we want Indigenous healthcare. Can we get the FDA to approve poi as medical support? Can we get the FDA to approve kalo as a supplement, and how can we ensure better access to all of that?\u201d<\/p>\n

KALO HCC is currently conducting another study, this time through clinical trials, in hopes of finding the connection between traditional foods, physical health, and emotional wellbeing. For this study, they are working with Oregon Food Bank and Oregon\u2019s Pacific University to collect and analyze data. Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders living in the U.S. have some of the highest rates of heart disease<\/a>, hypertension, asthma, cancer, obesity, and diabetes in comparison with all other ethnicities. Research<\/a> ties these poor health outcomes to colonization and historic inequities, multigenerational trauma, and discrimination, as well as poverty, lack of housing, education, and environment.<\/p>\n

\u201c[From] what we see in other Native communities, their views of food and how it relates to health is huge,\u201d said Sheri Daniels, the CEO of Papa Ola L\u014dkahi<\/a>, a Native Hawaiian health organization that advocates for the well-being of Native Hawaiians through policy, research, and community initiatives. Daniels said that providing data can be challenging, but offering resources and opportunities for people to improve self-esteem and strengthen cultural identity are always possible, and can yield insights, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cool thing about kalo is that you get to build community, you get to meet and see others who might be in the same [emotional] space as you, trying to establish that bond of what it means to be Hawaiian,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

As of this March, new kalo plants had already started sprouting through the soil. They will triple in size in a month, providing more nourishment to the local community in the upcoming year. KALO HCC has also created additional m\u0101la at Pacific University, where 25 percent of the student body is Native Hawaiian, and at schools in Tacoma, Washington and within the Beaverton School District.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that our l\u0101hui (community), our ali\u02bbi (royalty), and our k\u016bpuna (elders) did was never about one person,\u201d Ka\u02bbula said. \u201cIt was about, how does it trickle down? How does it create a unified community?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story was co-published and supported by the journalism nonprofit\u00a0the Economic Hardship Reporting Project. For Native Hawaiians, kalo, also known as taro\u2014a tropical plant prized for its starchy, nutritious,\u00a0 rootlike corm as well as its leaves\u2014is not just a traditional food source but an ancestor, symbolizing a lasting and reciprocal connection to land. As a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1182,"featured_media":63308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[485,4480,3266],"tags":[],"coauthors":[43229],"class_list":["post-63264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food-access","category-health","category-urban-agriculture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNative Hawaiians in Oregon Grow Taro to Find Community | Civil Eats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By tending taro (kalo) gardens in Portland, a civic club produces food while deepening its connection to Indigenous Hawaiian culture.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/civileats.com\/2025\/04\/09\/hawaiian-taro-takes-root-in-oregon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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