The article about Indegionous Economies in Samoa, made me think about the family down the road from my house in Kahalu'u that sells Lau Lau, Pateles, Kulolo, and other goodies every weekend. For the longest time I remmber seeing their homemade signs on the side of the road advertising their grinds. I am not sure how successful their sales are but being that they have been doing it for at least 5 or 6 years (as far as i remember) they must be doing okay. I feel that this would be a successful indigenous economy, because it distributes food to the local community, made by a local family. However in this heavy colonized time, guarantee their are also choke people in the community that have never bought anything from them because they do not feel comfortable buying something from someones house as opposed to a store. Now that I think about it there are a lot of people in my hood selling food on their own. There is also the unko that cruises inside his car with the sign that says SMOKE MEAT next to the car. I have much respect for these sellers and also for the people that support them.
This also made me think of my Navajo friend from Arizona. I met her in this Indigenous Artist Conference in SF. Over here it is really hard to make it strictly as an artist because there is not a big market for Hawaiian Art and crafts. The biggest buyer in the business is Mickey Mouse. However over on the continent my Navajo freind Mellisa was ballin as a traditional Navajo weaver. She was only 28 and making like 80,000 dollars on one piece. As an artist it was real inspiring to meet her, however unfortunately I don't think we will ever have a market like that for Hawaiian art.
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