Aloha, and some

These floppy floral shirts were invented in Honolulu, as was the practice of wearing them once a week to unstiffen the workplace. Our “aloha Friday” became everybody’s “casual Friday,” and “aloha shirts” became “Hawaiian shirts.” You didn’t ask. You have

Aloha to you, you ungrateful mainlanders. The Hawaiian dictionary defines “aloha” as “love, compassion, mercy, sympathy, pity, kindness, sentiment, grace, charity.” It is a synonym for “sweetheart” or “loved one,” “hello,” “farewell” and “beloved, loving, kind, compassionate, charitable.” It is also a verb meaning “to love” or “to show kindness, mercy, pity, charity, affection.”

The word means a lot to those of us with Hawaiian roots. So we were upset to hear that a fast-food chain in Chicago called Aloha Poke Co has been sending letters ordering companies in Hawaii and elsewhere to stop using “aloha” in their names. Aloha Poke sells food in bowls meant to resemble poke (pronounced “poh-keh”), a Hawaiian dish made of raw fish and seaweed. Nobody in Hawaii told these guys they couldn’t do this to our beloved poke, even though they are making it wrong, or that they couldn’t make commercial use of our greatest word. The reaction in Hawaii to the cease-and-desist “aloha” letters has been anger and disbelief. A native-Hawaiian poke-shop owner in Alaska said that after getting the letter, she abandoned the name “Aloha Poke Stop” and spent thousands of dollars removing “aloha” from her company’s signs and merchandise. Aloha Poke Co claims it was misunderstood. Its claim on the word

“aloha” is irritating and absurd. But maybe, we should all re-examine the world’s relationship with

Hawaii with an eye to reciprocity, ownership and fair compensation.

You may not realise that our ancestors found ocean waves terrifying. Mark Twain, visiting in 1866, saw islanders surfing and freaked out. We give him credit for trying it, though. People the world over have surf, but only the Hawaiians perfected surfing. It’s ours; please return it and find some other way to have fun in the water. Go ahead and keep Judy Garland’s song, but we would like Iz Kamakawiwo’ole’s version back. His voice is the pure heart of Hawaii that contains all the sorrow and joy and aloha in the world, which is why you can’t stop listening to it. Please stop. Speaking of country and western, the idea of men on horseback driving cattle to market — our paniolos did that first, in the 1830s, a few decades before American cowpokes and cowpunchers. If America could please rejig its movies and rewrite its frontier mythology and have its guys chase those dogies on foot or with ATVs or drones or what have you. Thanks. Who repaired all but two US warships destroyed inPearl Harbour in 1941, so theUS Navy could defeat the Japanese empire? Workers in Honolulu did. Where did those Japanese-American soldiers who fought for democracy and freedom in Europe come from? You know where. Today the United States is projecting its military might into the Pacific, where we are. It’s easy to be cynical if you spend any time in Waikiki. But the spirit of aloha is a real thing in Hawaii. It’s what makes honeymooners all honeymooney; they can sense it in the scented air the moment they get off the plane. It’s what keeps us going, despite our many problems of homelessness, income inequality, environmental ruin, rat-race traffic — the kindness of family and friends; the welcome to strangers; the warm, motley, mixed-up way our immigrant forebears and our Hawaiian host culture blended. It’s the way we relax with poke and ukuleles at the beach. It’s aloha, and it’s not for sale. This is said with love, affection, compassion, mercy, sympathy, pity, kindness, sentiment, grace and charity.

Back when Joseph Kekuku, a boy from Laie on Oahu, was a child, he slid a steel bolt along the strings of his guitar, making a lovely sound. He trained himself and others on the new way to play, which spread to the United States and into honky-tonk history. Please remove the twang from your music and return it to us.