By Kai Curry
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Kauakanilehua Māhoe Adams
Even though the total number of Pacific Islanders in King County is less than 1% of the overall population, it is a tight knit community that relishes celebration of Pacific Islander heritage. Kentridge High School alumna, Kelli Kauakanilehua Adams, grew up around this community. A poet and author of books for children and young adults (YA), Adams’ short story in verse will be included in an upcoming anthology titled, “Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories,” out in August 2025 (edited by Cynthia Leitch Smith and published by Heartdrum/HarperCollins).
In high school, she was known as Kelli. Her father is Native Hawaiian. Her mother is not but grew up in Hawai’i. Being of mixed race, Kaua, whose writing name is Kauakanilehua Māhoe Adams, is not always readily recognizable as Pacific Islander. People did not know what to make of her. Sometimes they still don’t. Yet at home, the embrace of the islands was 100%. Her parents were (and are) very close to the land and the sea.
“My house just felt like a very different experience,” Adams said.
There was never a time when Adams did not want to be a writer. In high school, a senior-year English class teacher (shout out to Hilari Anderson) sparked Adams’ interest in poetry. In college, she laughingly explained, poetry classes were easier to enroll in—as prose classes filled up faster. Adams had for a long time assumed she would write sci fi or fantasy fiction as those felt like more welcoming genres in terms of identity than, say, contemporary “realistic” novels, where Adams had not really ever seen characters with her ancestry and background. But with poetry, she found a place to express her feelings and write more about what she wanted.
Adams first YA book, “An Expanse of Blue” (Heartdrum/HarperCollins), is set to come out in 2026. The book and book deal came out of Adams’ decision to take some time away from teaching, her most recent occupation, to focus on her writing (including obtaining an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts). The story talks about the main character’s identity as a mixed race person like Adams, and also tackles issues of religion that Adams surprised herself by writing about. The book follows the Catholic liturgical calendar (Adams grew up Catholic) and is about, Adams said, a Native Hawaiian teenager growing up in Washington state and struggling with her own idea of what it means to be faithful and her understanding of what it means to be good.
Though she lives in California at the moment, Adams so far has written stories set in Washington and Hawaii. The short story that will be featured in “Legendary Frybread” follows a young girl whose grandfather has just passed away. She flies from Washington to Hawai’i to attend the funeral and memorial. As Adams explained, the heroine has very bad anxiety, yet always felt strong and brave around her grandfather, which parallels her two identities—one as a Native Hawaiian and one as a Washingtonian. Like Adams, the character has an English first name and a Hawaiian middle name.
Adams has for some years been evolving in her identity, her faith, and her career. When she wrote what she calls her “anchor poem,” it became pivotal in the writing of what would become her debut novel. It was about church. Although she grew up in the Catholic church, Adams recognizes the colonialism embedded within it, and also embraces Native Hawaiian spirituality. After college, Adams lived in Hawai’i while teaching as part of the Teach for America program. There she met her fiancé and the two ended up living in a bird sanctuary in California.
“I’m incredibly passionate about being Native Hawaiian,” Adams told the Asian Weekly. “I’m constantly trying to learn more about my own culture…It’s kind of been my own personal journey, trying to figure out how I merge two worlds.”
For instance, in her poem titled “Hawaiian Baby Food, circa 1997,” Adams describes the passing down of one’s heritage from ancient roots to one’s modern community and family: “Her grandson pounded the kalo/into pa’i’ai, just as his father had taught/him to do…A neighbor gifted us the pa’i’ai, wrapped/tight in shiny green ti leaf./My papa mixed water with the pa’i’ai until/it was silky, until he could call it poi./He scooped out a mouthful with two fingers/and placed it on my tongue./He nudged my lips closed and/told me to eat.” In several Pacific Islands, poi is a sacred and traditional food made from taro. This poem by Adams, of which the above is only an excerpt, was recently published in the 2024 to 2025 San Diego Poetry annual and was a finalist for the Steve Kowit Prize.
Adams chose the YA genre because she wants to give young people the types of characters she herself did not have. Her deepest desire was to see people like herself in stories, she said, and she did not—but now she can make sure that others do.
“I’m having a really great time pulling these little nuggets from my childhood and putting them into stories,” she said. “Maybe there’s one kid out there who has a similar sort of childhood to me and they can get their hands on [my] book and see themselves reflected.”
For information, including pre-order links, about “Legendary Frybread,” visit www.kauamahoeadams.com/legendaryfrybread, or any bookseller. To learn about “An Expanse of Blue,” go to www.kauamahoeadams.com/books-1-1.
Kai can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.
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