Out of State

What role can traditional culture play in making a home out of a prison or in gaining a sense of self strong enough to guide one through life's most difficult circumstances? The quiet documentary Out of State offers a memorable exploration of these questions and prompts its viewers to consider how cultural expression fits into the hierarchy of needs we each require to live well.Out of State1 was conceived and directed by Native Hawaiian filmmaker Ciara Lacy in 2017. Lacy received the Sundance Institute's inaugural Merata Mita Fellowship (named in honor of the late Māori filmmaker), designed to support women-identifying Indigenous filmmakers in directing a feature-length film. The production team and budget were small. Lacy's cousin Beau Bassett—previously a deputy public defender—served as co-producer. Because of prison restrictions, recording equipment was largely limited to one camera and one lens, deftly managed by cinematographer Chapin Hall. As a result, Out of State provides a surprisingly intimate portrait of David and Hale (pronounced Hahl-eh), two individuals imprisoned at Saguaro Correctional Facility in Eloy, Arizona, as they navigate the transition from incarceration to independence.We are introduced to David and Hale as they sweat alongside 20 or 30 other imprisoned individuals in Saguaro's open yard, with a chain link and barbed wire fence as their backdrop. They are practicing ‘ai ha'a, a hula step with bended knees and bombastic chanting—a dance of power and respect performed as part of Makahiki (New Year) celebrations. The men have shed their khaki uniforms, revealing tattoos on bare chests above exercise shorts or malo (loincloths). They sweat under the desert sun, moving together with strength in a collective shedding of their temporary prison identities. Without an audience, they dance for themselves and for each other. Stomping and chanting in sync, losing themselves in the motion, provides momentary escape, a sense of self that ties them to home. “Every dance I do with these guys and every time I come to this place, it takes me away,” explains Kalani. The cultural knowledge learned inside Saguaro is precious, perhaps most visibly so when we see Kalani, an alaka'i (teacher, guide) who is serving a life sentence, flipping through his notebook full of rows and rows of hand-drawn figures spelling out choreography.Prisons in Hawaii are overcrowded, and Native Hawaiians make up the majority of the prison population, despite being only 24 percent of the population of the islands. This figure is from “The Disparate Treatment of Native Hawaiians in the Criminal Justice System,” a report commissioned by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in 2010, which also states that the number of people incarcerated has grown by 900 percent since 1977. Much of this increase is because of mandatory minimum sentencing for crystal methamphetamine (meth) offenses. Hawaii is among the states hardest hit by the drug; in the early 2000s, it had the highest per capita meth usage rate in the country (Solomon 2016). The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a complaint to the Justice Department in 2017 in response to findings that Hawaii's corrections facilities were over capacity by 50 percent—30 years earlier, a similar ACLU lawsuit against overcrowding and “harmful and intolerable” conditions resulted in temporary federal oversight of Hawaii's prisons (ACLU 1999; CorrectionalNEWS2017). The state began exporting its imprisoned people in 1995 to facilities in Texas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, each run by CoreCivic, the largest private prison company in the United States. In 2007, Hawaii contracted with CoreCivic for exclusive use of the newly built Saguaro in Arizona (Thompson 2017). Today, most adult males sentenced to prison for state offenses in Hawaii serve their time at Saguaro, about one hour south of Phoenix and roughly a six-hour flight from home. The pandemic has wrought new pains on an already insufficient infrastructure. According to the nonprofit investigative news organization, Honolulu Civil Beat, in July 2021, a federal court ruled that the state has shown “objective deliberate indifference” in the correctional system response to COVID-19; as of March 2022, 10 incarcerated Hawaiians have died from the virus (Dayton 2021).The creators of Out of State chose not to integrate expert interviews or contextual facts and figures into the documentary. Instead, the film's sole narrators are the men in prison. As Lacy explained to me in a Zoom interview on August 31, 2022: “When it comes to data points in the prison system, there are a lot of statistics in our community that have been flatlined in a very dire way for quite some time. . . . I wanted to provide a human lens to add to the conversation.” Her choice to not include context empowers its protagonists, David and Hale, to speak for themselves. The viewer meets David and Hale as individuals. For those unfamiliar with the state of Hawaii's prison system, it effectively instills curiosity in viewers to learn more about why the men are serving their time—15- and 16-year-long sentences—in the Arizona desert. However, including some framing data on how Native Hawaiians are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system would make Out of State even more powerful for audiences unfamiliar with the situation.In our interview, Lacy explained that she was moved to tell the story of Saguaro after seeing a local Arizona news clip featuring imprisoned individuals practicing traditional dance. “That video really started this journey,” Lacy shared. “For me it was personal, knowing that they were finding their culture and community in such an unlikely setting.” She set out to make fellow Hawaiians her primary audience, wanting to educate them about this other Hawaii in Arizona and to raise questions around the healing power of reclaiming traditional culture. “As a Native Hawaiian, the metaphor of our cultural practices behind bars was immediately overwhelming, evoking profound resentment for the ramifications of the colonization of our people,” shared Lacy in an October 2017 interview with Ka Wai Ola (a publication by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs). “To date, we struggle at the bottom rung of so many socio-economic factors in our own lands, including a striking overabundance of our people populating local and distant prisons. . . . What captured me in this prison space was the humanity and connection between men” (Ka Wai Ola staff 2017).Access to time, space, and materials, such as Hawaiian language textbooks or dance dress, is possible at Saguaro because practicing religion in prison is a civil right. Folklorists and other cultural workers have a role to play in broadening our understanding of cultural rights, expanding official understandings of religion to encompass Indigenous spirituality and its practices, and in increasing access to traditional culture for incarcerated individuals. The experience of incarceration is designed to disempower and depersonalize; the ‘ai ha'a dance is an antidote to the system. Innovative prison programs that give a sense of purpose and pride back to inmates—such as gardening—are proven to reduce recidivism rates: There is even evidence that traditional arts programs in prison have broader positive impact. For example, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts launched its Arts in Corrections program with an emphasis on cultural traditions in 2013, and incarcerated people in the 18 institutions it serves find “a sense of relief, safety, belonging, and healing” through participation, according to the program website (https://www.actaonline.org/program/arts-in-corrections/). Correspondingly, for David and Hale, learning and embodying Native Hawaiian culture gives them a sense of pride and hopefulness that once they are free, their lives will be different. David describes how his identity was tied to substance abuse and crime; by rooting himself in Hawaiian culture inside Saguaro, he can now imagine new possibilities to live a pono, or righteous, life. But what if there had been systems in place that encouraged this kind of cultural participation at a young age? How might that have changed the trajectory of these men's lives? And what is owed to communities who have had their cultural identities suppressed, appropriated, and commercialized for generations?Out of State invites its audience to consider strength in cultural identity as essential to survival, particularly to communities suffering the impact of colonialism. “You need to know your own culture to know who you really are,” says David in the film's opening scenes. “I never knew one ounce of Hawaiian before I even came to jail. I learned everything in jail.” The legacy of colonialism and forced acculturation—for instance, it was illegal to teach the Hawaiian language between 1896 and 1978—continues to impact both the socioeconomic position of Native Hawaiians and their ability to learn and practice their traditional culture individually and in communities.The access and support Saguaro provides for Hawaiian culture is a kind of passive cultural repair, with potent potential. Out of State does not delve into how this movement began or how it is currently organized, but we witness peer-to-peer learning and hear of visits by teachers and community leaders from Hawaii. In our interview, Lacy explained to me that the program developed organically, driven by the incarcerated men's interest, which was made stronger given their distance from home. Two essential “angels” (to use her term) were at its foundation and core. These dedicated volunteers—Kaiana Haili and Kini Burke, both Native Hawaiian community members—paid their own way on repeated visits to introduce cultural offerings to Saguaro, share traditional knowledge, and donate materials the men needed to perform cultural protocols.In the classroom, Out of State will yield rich analysis and discussion of performance, context, and identity. This documentary would be a compelling addition to any public folklore curriculum. It invites us to consider how traditional arts offerings can increase well-being in our most vulnerable communities—and maybe even achieve real social progress. With more research, and more programs like ACTA's, or those co-created with incarcerated people, folklorists could help make a compelling case that—especially for Indigenous communities—state support that ensures access and participation in the traditional arts is a necessary form of cultural reparation. Out of State has garnered new legislation in Hawaii that, hopefully, will yield more traditional culture offerings in prisons. In 2021, five years after the film was released, the Hawaii House of Representatives passed HCR No 171, HD 1: “Urging the Department of Public Safety to Recognize the Value of Culture-Based Rehabilitation Activities in the State's Correctional System.” The resolution calls for expanded access to culture in correctional facilities and asks that participating in cultural activities and gaining cultural expertise be considered in parole decisions.As the film ends, we leave Hale and David as they continue to adjust to life back home in Hawaii following their release from Saguaro. Hale marries the woman who supported him through his sentence, he continues the airport driving job he started in the prison's work furlough program, and he is expecting a grandson. Sadly, David does not have all the tools or support he needs to succeed after he is released. He is hired by Ho'omau ke ola, a sober living house, to teach ’ai ha'a, but his hours are cut, and we learn there are issues with his teaching style. He struggles to find full-time work, the pressures to pay child support and rent grow, and, in the last scene, we see David unhoused, living in a tent on a beach.Traditional arts programs with therapeutic benefits related to strengthening identity, pride, and a sense of community are reparative, but are just one small action among many required to restore equity, justice, and wellness to people impacted by colonialism, racism, and capitalism. Folklorists have a role to play in advocating that access to culture is a necessary component to harm-reduction and reparation.