Being Local in Hawaii

Julia Estrella (Keiko Matsui Higa) lived through the bombing of Pearl Harbor as an infant, to experiencing institutional racism in school, church, and the larger society. When Julia attended graduate school at University of California Berkeley in the 1960's, she began to find out for the first time the truth about the illegal occupation of Hawaii, the detonation of sixty-seven atomic and nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands, and the colonization of the Philippines by the U.S. Julia shares the causes that are important to her, from the scariest situations affecting our planet today to her belief in the need to reinvent health care and the signs of hope she sees all around her. Most of all, Julia invites her readers to "talk story" with her--a phrase that means telling our stories (and hearing back from readers) so we can learn from and better understand each other; then we can use the wisdom gained to create more pieces of "paradise on earth."