It's Labor Day weekend, and Betty Kane cannot imagine being anywhere but here -- at the ninth annual E Hula Mau, a celebration of hula dancing, chanting and all things Hawaiian.
So eager was Kane to join in the three-day festival at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center that she cut short a business trip to -- where else? -- Hawaii and flew back to the mainland on Thursday night.
Now it's Saturday afternoon and she's enjoying Thai noodles, Japanese cole slaw, rice balls and Hawaiian corned-beef patties with members of her extended family, the Naluais and the Kiilehuas. The family is spread out in California these days, but one weekend a year it's Long Beach and E Hula Mau or bust.
"The families, the food, the dancing, the kids, it's the high point of our year," said Kane, who lives in Oakland.
Sponsored by Na Mamo (the Cherished Offspring), an Orange County-based nonprofit group of expatriate Hawaiians and Hawaii loyalists, E Hula Mau is proof of the drawing power and cultural durability of that rhythmic, storytelling form of dance called hula.
Contestants in the hula and chanting competition come from throughout California and from the unrecognized hula hot spots of Texas and Oklahoma.
The event, which ends today, draws an estimated 6,000 people a day.
And though there are lectures about lei-making and Hawaiian native medicine, and booths selling Korean barbecue, Hawaiian popcorn and Hawaiian-themed trinkets, it's hula -- sometimes seductive, sometimes raucous -- that's the big draw.
"Hula is universal," said Malia Craver, who judged contestants on their fidelity to the Hawaiian language.
"Hula is a way of life," said Jolinda Goodrich of La Verne, who married her husband, Robert, a postal inspector, on the beach at Hilo. "Even though we're not Hawaiian, we try to live the Hawaiian way, with aloha and love for everybody."
Southern California, particularly Orange County and coastal Los Angeles County, is chockablock with Hawaiian groups and Hawaiian tinged activities.
In two weeks, "The Queen and the Bishop," a play about Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani opens at Whittier College. And next month, the second annual ukulele festival is set for Cerritos. In November, a Hawaiian concert is set for Redondo Beach.
Sometimes there are so many Hawaiian events in Southern California, they bump each other.
