Ancestral Voyage

Ancestral Voyage

English | Spanish

Transcript of the audio piece with Dr. Keolu Fox, the first Native Hawaiian to earn a PhD in genome sciences, featured in the exhibit Race: Power, Resistance & Change.

I am the proud descendant of people
who, over a thousand years ago,
made one of the boldest choices in human history.

They left their homeland
and sailed into the vast Pacific Ocean,
guided by nature, deep knowledge,
and the courage to find what had never been mapped.

Today, as the first Native Hawaiian
to earn a PhD in genome sciences,
I carry that legacy forward.

I realized in graduate school
that the story of our ancestors lives
not only in our songs and stories,
but in our DNA.

Our moʻokuʻauhau, our genealogies,
are written into our genomes.

These inherited patterns
carry the memory of migration,
adaptation,
and also trauma.

Our DNA is shaped
by the paths our ancestors traveled
and by the disruptions of colonization.

By studying genomes
from present-day Pacific Islanders,
we can begin to understand our history
in new ways.

We can estimate how many voyaging canoes
may have arrived in Hawai‘i,
or trace ancestral patterns
that echo the journeys
of legendary navigators.

This work is not only about the past.

Genomics can help clarify
how colonialism affected our health
and contributed to current disease patterns.

It can also support land and resource claims
by offering evidence of long-standing ties to place.

Long before Western science had words for it,
my ancestors practiced a science of their own.

They studied stars,
ocean swells,
birds,
and weather systems.

They built double-hulled canoes
and crossed thousands of miles of open ocean,
one of the greatest migrations in human history.

This knowledge was passed down
through our ʻōlelo, our language,
through mo‘olelo, our stories,
and through hula,
our embodied memory.

I grew up with stories
of how Maui pulled the islands from the sea.

And I learned how Herb Kāne,
Ben Finney,
and Mau Piailug
helped revive non-instrumental voyaging
with the wa‘a Hōkūle‘a.

Their journeys retraced ancestral routes
using traditional knowledge,
reading the ocean like a living map.

Today, through community-led research,
we’re refining our understanding
of how the most remote islands were settled.

Our methods challenge a long legacy
of extractive science,
where DNA and cultural items were taken without consent.

We do things differently.

Communities guide the questions.
The work is collaborative.
We walk backward into the future,
grounded in tradition.

This research also helps explain
why some diseases affect our communities
more than others.

After migration or epidemics,
small populations can face bottlenecks
that increase the chances
of certain genetic conditions.

Understanding this helps build
more effective care,
tailored to our histories,
our needs,
and our right to be seen.

Today, fewer than one percent
of genome-wide studies
include Indigenous peoples.

That has to change.

We’ve seen the global impact of mRNA vaccines.

For too long, genetic research has focused mainly
on people of European ancestry, leaving Indigenous
and many other communities out of the picture.

Now imagine what we could do
if genomic research reflected the complexity
of all peoples, not just those at the center of power.

Genomics can also support Indigenous land rights.

It can offer evidence in court,
verifying generational ties to territory.

These are not abstract stories.
They are encoded in us.

Our DNA carries both pride and pain.

It remembers voyages and loss,
resilience and disruption.

But just as our ancestors used the stars
to find their way across the sea,
we can use knowledge
to navigate toward a future
grounded in care,
sovereignty,
and justice.

Once used to deny our humanity,
the genome can now help illuminate
an Indigenous future we define for ourselves.

Adapted from I ka wā mamua, ka wā ma hope by Keolu Fox.