AAPI Stories by PAVE NC: Edward Bruce Keohohou

by PAVE NC

In celebration of AAPI month, TCB will be sharing stories by PAVE NC, a local volunteer-run organization that highlights the stories of Asian-Americans in the South for the month of May. This story was shortened to run in print. Find the full interview online at pavenc.org.

PAVE NC sat down for a conversation with Edward Bruce Keohohou, a native Hawaiian who has called Greensboro home since the late ’80s. He spoke to us about Hawaiian culture, what brought him to Greensboro, and his political achievements.

Q A Q A

Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you ended up in Greensboro?

Aloha ‘auinalā, good afternoon. My name is Edward Bruce Kalaniopu’u Kamehameha Keohohou, which Kalaniopu’u Kamehameha means “the heaven protects the lonely one.” My surname, Keohohou, means Hope of life. It’s a pleasure to be here to share my voice as well as my experiences here as I challenge and help grow with the state of North Carolina. What brought me here to Greensboro, well, to the state of North Carolina, was my application to go to a graduate school here. I chose to go to Duke University. I graduated from the first E-MBA program, started in 1987, which was a 20-month program, and I enjoyed it. Every time I tried to go back home, I had a good job offer that kept me here.

So my love for North Carolina is great. I call it my hānai home, which is my adopted home. I can’t claim myself to be a Tar Heel, but I’ll claim myself as a Blue Devil.

Could you tell us about your family and growing up Hawaiian?

Well, to start off, I mean, like any other culture, normal growing up, teenage life, and so forth. I grew up in the church. When I say the church, it’s the Royal Church of Hawaii, which is Kawaiaha’o. It is considered the Westminster Abbey of Hawaii, where all the royal families who were Christian married, funerals are held and so forth.

My ancestry is very deep. Like I said previously, my great-great-grandfather served under King Kalākaua in the House of Nobles, as well as King Kamehameha V in the House of Nobles and my great-grandmother was the lady-in-waiting for Queen Kapi’olani, which was the consort for King Kalākaua. Also, she served as the lady-in-waiting for her Highness, our last monarch, Lydia Kamaka’eha Lili’uokalani.

Also, just recently, we lost one of our royal family, Abigail Campbell Kawānanakoa. I knew her very dearly. We called her Royal Grace, Abigail Kawananakoa, she was our “Mo’i Ali’i Kupuna, or Royal Chieftess. She was the one that brought me to Duke University because she was good friends with Doris Duke. I became a benefactor of the Doris Duke Estate. I’m really privileged and honored to have been a part of that experience.

As far as growing up, we surfed. I was always very active. Even when I was in... what you call middle school, we called it intermediate school, being

Q A class president and all that. When I was in high school, I was the first person appointed as secretary general to the state conference for all the high schools, which was appointed by the State legislature, as well by the governor.

And I worked closely at that time with Governor Burns. I have an uncle who served as a governor for two terms back in ‘86 to ‘94. My godfather is the late Sen. Daniel Ken Inouye. My uncle, my mom’s brother Daniel Akaka, was a congressman and a US State senator too, United States senator as well.

There’s a lot of diversity in Hawaii, at the same time it is also not immune to racism. Can you talk about that?

Well for me, when I was growing up, I won’t say it was racism so much as it was more prejudice. But as years went on, then I saw racism as what we see here, and it was primarily towards the other Pacific people like the Fijians, the Micronesians, the Tongans, the Samoans, and so forth.

As far as the nucleus of Hawaii, the people were always together. They were all sustained. And even when the Vietnamese came after the war, they were very well accepted. Hawaii is a very accepting place, but to compare it to the racism here, it’s really not much. It’s not so much, I would say, like the kind of racism we have here where we’re segregated and so forth. It’s just this mentality of why are they here and so forth.

Q A

Have you encountered racism in Greensboro?

I don’t see for me that I have been treated with racism. I’ve seen it happen. In fact, living here, I remember I was working at Tex & Shirley’s back in 1987, and in fact, I was their only male waiter at that time. It’s funny, there was this one guy that came in, and when I approached his table, he called the owner at that time, and said, “I don’t want this person waiting on me.”

The owner argued that I was a good waiter, but the customer said I was an immigrant. He said it right in front of my face. I don’t know what he was thinking, but he tried to get me fired. There was no reason for me to get fired, I was doing my job.

How did you end up in Greensboro?

Well, for some reason, Duke University gave my room and dorm assignment away. So they put me in an apartment complex about five blocks away from the university. I was unfamiliar with Durham, but I knew people here in Greensboro.

So two weeks into the semester — back then we didn’t have computers, so I went to the library. When I came back, all I saw was a swarm of emergency vehicles, ambulances, firetrucks, police department and I’m seeing all this activity going on. So I’m approaching to go to my apartment and the detective stops and asks, “Excuse me, sir, where are you going?”

I said, “I’m going to my apartment.”

So we go, and I open my door. A drug deal went bad, two people were killed. If I had stayed in my apartment where my desk was — the bullets came straight through the wall. I would’ve been dead. But something told me to go to the library. Thank God.

I called everybody I knew up here in Greensboro. I said, “I don’t care if I have to sleep on your front lawn, I am coming ‘cause I don’t feel safe here.”

Tell us about your political involvement.

In 1987 I was appointed to serve with the Board of Elections. This will be my 19th term with the Guilford County Board of Elections ‘cause I serve as a chief judge for a precinct and as a site supervisor for early voting at the old courthouse.

What was so funny is when I came to register to vote here in Greensboro, I called and asked for whatever documents I needed to become a voter here. When I went down there — this is very funny — I don’t know why, but the clerk, when I presented my documents that were requested, kept asking me for my green card.

So I pulled out my Greensboro library card ‘cause it was green. Then she said, “No sir, I need your green card.”

So I pulled out my First Union credit card. It was green. Then she asked me for my passport. I’m thinking, I haven’t left the country yet, so why would I need to show you my passport?

In the back there was another clerk yelling, “He’s a citizen. He’s a citizen.” I lost it when this clerk looked at me and said, “I didn’t know y’all were a state.” What is surprising is that there’s people still working there that remember that.