Meet The Team Behind Hulu Kūpuna

Tanya Mailelani Naehu is an educator, performer, artist, community organizer, and activist of Aloha ‘Āina from the island of Moloka‘i, Hawai‘i. Stemming from a very diverse multi-racial genealogy, she is Boricua being of African, Taino, and Spanish descent as well as Kanaka Maoli, Portuguese, and Chinese. Maile was born and raised in Hawai‘i and educated at Kamehameha schools for Hawaiian children. An alumna of UH-Mānoa Kamakakūokalani, Center for Hawaiian studies,  she obtained her BA in traditional Hawaiian Society(Pre-Cook). As co-founder of Ka Hale Hoaka, an online school of Hawaiian Knowledge, her teachings are grounded in indigenous philosophies and practices such as mo‘olelo, ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i, hula, and oli. She is also the director of the Moloka‘inuiahina project, a multi-generational community art project that is founded on traditional storytelling. By teaching via various art mediums through the vessel of mo‘olelo she emphasizes the great importance of building communication skills, self-confidence, and a new generation of storytellers. Her teachings are rooted in the belief that the ancient wisdom of our ancestors is the answer to our modern-day problems. As a cultural practitioner she has represented Hawai‘i as a delegate in the World Wilderness Congress- Spain, a presenter for WIPCE(World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education), a Panelist on, “Feminism in Hawai‘i,” at the Hawai‘i Peoples Congress, and serves as a Hawaiian cultural consult and policy builder for ocean conservation with Taiatea-Aotearoa a partnership with The World Wilderness Federation and Auckland Museum. Kumu Maile, as most refer to her as, is Vice-Chair and Program Director for Hui o Kuapā 501c3 and the Hawaiian cultural arts consultant for Kualapu‘u Public Charter School. Together, Maile and her husband Hano have three children that they raised together: Kahale-Pomona College ‘21, Kapili‘ula-Princeton ‘24, and ‘Ilikea, who like her older siblings attends the only Hawaiian Language Immersion Elementary School on their island home, Moloka‘i. Maile and Hano, share the hip hop stage as, “The Paniolo Prince and His Queen Maile.”