WNPC Honolulu The Breakdown Wall
The Breakdown Wall at Ka Hale Ola carries notes in the languages of the Pacific -- English, Hawaiian, Filipino, Samoan, Marshallese, Chuukese, Tongan, and others -- mixed on the same surface like every WNPC Breakdown Wall, but carrying a grief that is distinctly Oceanic.
A note in Marshallese about a body that carries the legacy of nuclear testing -- the health effects passed from grandparents who were exposed to American nuclear weapons testing to grandchildren who were born thousands of miles and decades away but whose bodies remember. A note in Hawaiian about the pain of watching your culture's health destroyed by colonization and then being told by the healthcare system that colonization built that your health is your own fault. A note in Filipino about leaving home to work in a hotel in Waikīkī and being too exhausted after twelve-hour shifts to seek care for the pain that gets worse every year. A note in Samoan about a child's seizures that no one on the island could diagnose.
Mo added an element to the Honolulu Breakdown Wall that no other WNPC site has: a small bowl of water at the threshold of the alcove. In Hawaiian cultural practice, water can be used for spiritual cleansing -- washing the hands before undertaking something that requires release. The bowl is not required. It is offered. A patient who wishes to wash their hands before writing -- to prepare themselves, culturally, for the act of setting something down -- can do so. A patient who does not wish to simply walks past the bowl to the wall. The water is changed daily. It is always clean. It is always there.