“I don’t think I can write about the modern Hawaiian experience without showing it as a horror.”

I'm the AAPI Culture Editor here at BuzzFeed, where I cover everything from trending news to pop culture to AAPI issues.

She brought up the reactions she gets when telling people she’s from Hawai’i. "They try to tell you what it's about, or try to ostracize you from it. 'You don't really look it,' and 'I've never met a Hawaiian before, so how can that be you?' And 'Oh, I've been there, I've seen the luau. So, can you do that?' And that's like, here's your culture. Fit in that box."

"I wanted Lehua to be much more ambiguously Hawaiian, even though I'm white-presenting. I just liked this idea of her going there and finding this connection, like, it's home, you're welcome here, because it's interesting: Hawaiʻi is always welcoming to tourists, but not Hawaiians."

She said persimmons are symbolic in Asian and specifically Japanese culture, recalling Bashō's haiku. "It's basically as long as you have a persimmon tree, it's always drought-resistant, famine-resistant. And so, it just made sense to me that she's bringing this worldview that is very positive, like least harm. Because it is her home, and she does want to live there. In the end, she has to ultimately choose between the working class and being part of this, because the goal of the American dream is to join the white settler elite."

"Sorry, everyone who's not gay, but I'm just saying. King Kamehameha, Hiʻiaka, and the myths," she said with a big laugh. "More Hawaiian to be bi right now from where I'm sitting. But I didn't know that growing up, and I felt so much shame. I was just thinking I didn't want shame to be part of the story."

"In a way, it is full of ghosts with unfinished business, unresolved issues, and tragic historical events that continue to haunt the present due to their lasting impact. And the most I want is for people to understand that impact, and what the myth-making of paradise does, and who does it serve? Why are you being sold this story?"