For our Simple Gifts performances, Jeremy Wong shared a story of gratefulness for our audiences, especially the ones with important things to teach us.
“As I was growing up in Hawai’i, I found my musical home singing with the Hawai’i Youth Opera Chorus, a K-12 youth choir that met on Saturday mornings and drew students from all over the island of O’ahu. Every organization has its cultural quirks, and at HYOC, we referred to our teachers not as “Mr. or Mrs.,” but rather “Aunty, and Uncle.” After I completed my musical studies and returned to my choral alma mater to direct the middle school chorus, I was called “Uncle Jeremy” at the ripe old age of 22.
This is not just an isolated, organization-specific quirk. It is a very common expectation for young people in Hawai’i to call anyone significantly older than themselves “aunty or uncle,” and this practice goes back for generations.
Now, I’m sure many of us have heard of the Hawaiian word “‘ohana,” notably from the cinematic masterpiece that is Lilo and Stitch. “Ohana means family. And family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten.”
It’s an interesting nuance that the word ‘ohana is not limited to the nuclear family—it is a word that encompasses extended family across multiple generations, and can even include people who are not related, like friends and neighbors. If you have ever been to the islands, you can see how this concept truly shows up in the culture of community care that permeates the land. Lilo and Stitch is a poignant representation of a concept that all of the people of Hawai’i have known: family is not defined by blood alone.
“Hawai’i Aloha,” widely regarded as Hawai’i’s second anthem, is a song that is sung, holding hands, at the end of many gatherings as a testament to unity and community. To me, this song is a reminder that, though I no longer live at home, Hawai’i is within me, and that spirit gives me the strength to build my own ‘ohana, my own chosen family, no matter where I live.”
Read the next story of gratitude from Simple Gifts 2026.
And there’s still time to join us for Simple Gifts online (Oct 23 – Nov 8) to hear more of our stories of gratitude paired with some of our favorite choral classics and newly beloved tunes.
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