For much of her life, Sara Kehaulani Goo felt pulled between her journalism career and her Kanaka ʻŌiwi identity.
That conflict about her legacy came to a head in 2019 when she received an email from her father about their ʻohana’s land on Maui. Its property taxes had jumped by 500%, and Goo’s family members were faced with a choice: Pay or sell.
“We just wanted to figure out: How do we hold onto it? How do we keep it?” Goo, 48, said.
From her home in Washington, D.C., she had tough conversations with relatives across generations and time zones. All the while, Goo balanced the crisis with her marriage, her children, her career and the global pandemic.
That era of her life culminated into her new book, Kuleana – A story of family, land and legacy in Old Hawaiʻi, which Flatiron Books will publish on June 10. Cities along her summer book tour include Washington, D.C.; San Francisco, California; Los Angeles, California; Hāna, Maui; Honolulu, Oʻahu; and Seattle, Washington.
Goo has long felt called to write about her ʻohana’s land and further the public discourse around Hawaiian issues like economic displacement.
“What I really wanted to do with this book is to tell a real, honest story about the experience of not just my family, but what is a common experience for many Native Hawaiian families,” Goo said. “It’s a story that needs to be told.”
Goo’s ʻohana has roots on the islands of Maui, Oʻahu and Hawaiʻi, but she was born in California. Her parents met at the University of California, Irvine, and raised their four children in Orange County.
Goo, the firstborn, enjoyed her seaside upbringing, though she couldn’t stifle her curiosity about the rest of the world – including Hawaiʻi. “I hungered to understand more,” Goo said.
Her grandparents helped her connect with her ʻŌiwi culture. As the eldest grandchild, Goo treasured the time she shared with her tūtū wahine, Mileka. She recalls trips to Maui to visit her kūpuna and the heiau on her family land in Hāna.
Mileka was born there, while Goo’s grandfather, Richard, hailed from Pearl City, Oʻahu. The couple had eight children, including Goo’s father. Her paternal side is Kānaka Maoli, Chinese and Okinawan.
“They really raised us with that cultural sense about being Native Hawaiian,” Goo said. “That kuleana for our land was also a really important thing.”
Despite living on the continent, Goo still experienced Hawaiian traditions. Every holiday felt like a lūʻau. The celebrations would last days, with family members feasting on kālua turkey and teriyaki spareribs. Weddings meant Goo’s aunties danced hula.
But her burgeoning passion for journalism began to overshadow her culture. Goo worked as the co-editor of her high school yearbook, then she embedded with the Orange County Register.
She was instantly drawn to the newsroom’s energy.
However, “it meant putting aside other nagging questions about Hawaiʻi that I had for myself,” Goo said.
She majored in journalism at the University of Minnesota. The decision to move to chilly Minneapolis was purposeful: Goo wanted to expose herself to unfamiliarity and learn to embrace it. She worked at Minnesota Public Radio, the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a law magazine. Goo also interned in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a summer.
“I just kind of wanted to do it all,” Goo said.
After graduating in 1998, she drove her Toyota coupe to Boston, Massachusetts, for a job at The Wall Street Journal. For two years, she covered New England’s tourism industry for a weekly section on the regional economy.
Following a layoff, Goo was hired at The Washington Post as a business reporter in 2001. She was excited to build her new life in Washington, D.C. Then, the 9/11 attacks happened.
Goo remembers a city on edge. She was assigned to cover airlines, then homeland security and the government’s anti-terror effort. “It honestly felt like a duty,” she said.
In 2003, she met her future husband, Michael, at a salsa dancing class. Michael, who is of German ancestry, impressed Goo with his curiosity and appreciation of other cultures. Early on in their relationship, the couple traveled to Hawaiʻi and Michael met Goo’s grandparents – a fortuitous sign in her eyes.
Sadly, Mileka passed away before Goo and Michael wed on Maui in 2005. Goo’s grandmother never saw her dream of a house on the family land come true.
Goo began to reckon with her ʻŌiwi identity when her first son was born in 2007. She had to decide whether to give him an inoa Hawaiʻi – and how to nurse his understanding of their Indigenous heritage.
“If I’m going to give my son the family name – Kahanu, in this case – I needed to really live up to that as a mother and for myself,” Goo said.
Silas Kahanu was born, and Michael’s daughter, Isabella, became his stepsister. In 2011, Chloe Mileka followed as the family’s youngest.
At The Post, Goo was promoted to senior news director. After 11 years, she left to spearhead a data journalism project at Pew Research Center from 2012 through 2015. Then, in 2016, she returned to the news industry as the managing editor of NPR’s digital news operation.
And two years after that, she finally found a cultural outlet on the East Coast dancing hula at Hālau Nohona Hawaiʻi under Kumu Hula Kaimana Chee.
In 2019, Goo joined Axios Media as its executive editor and later took on the role of editor-in-chief. She left the media company this year. Goo is currently focusing on her book, though she plans to continue working in the journalism industry.
One day, she hopes to return to Hawaiʻi.
“I felt that I was given breadcrumbs,” she said. “I knew that, someday, I would come back.”
