Alumni Bubba Au, a recent political science graduate and only child from Maui, said his parents taught him to be “stubborn in a good way.” “Sometimes you gotta put your foot down for what you believe is right in spite of what others may say,” said Au of his parents’ teachings growing up. Just a little over half Hawaiian, he also listed Chinese, French, German, and Portuguese as part of his conglomerate cultural heritage. Au attended the same high school his parents did—Kamehameha Schools—a private school designed to foster a greater knowledge among native Hawaiian students of their Hawaiian ancestry. “Everyone there was Hawaiian in some form. If you were to ask you'd say, ‘Well, they don't look Hawaiian,’ but they were,” said Au. “I've come to associate Hawaii with the gospel. Even though we don't look the same, act the same, talk the same, in spite of that, we’re still the same. We’re still one people regardless of all the eccentricities history has impressed upon time. In spite of all the identities we take upon ourselves, we are still one in some form.” His last two years at Kamehameha Schools set in motion a love for film and editing, because he chose the Arts and Communications Academy at the school as his emphasis. Currently, Au interns at BYU-Hawaii’s Media Production Services, where he worked during the majority of his university schooling. Through his time working there, Au said he has filmed devotionals, live broadcasts, Seasider basketball games, been tackled by basketball players in the process, and learned how to handle complicated, expensive equipment. “I enjoy it because it helps you understand how constructed our world is,” said Au. “Everything we see comes from a perspective, all sorts of different things. There's always a specific point of view. And in political science, too. I learned in my major that a lot of things are artificially constructed.” Troy Smith, professor of Political Science, and one of Au’s teachers, said upon meeting Au, he thought he was shy, but through more interaction discovered him to be intelligent and very thoughtful. “I admired his intelligence, his steadiness. Bubba is someone you can rely on. He’s quiet, he doesn’t need a lot of attention, but you give him an assignment, and he takes care of it,” Smith stated. “Get to know him. He is a great guy.” Political science was a choice, Au said, highly motivated by its lack of mathematical curriculum—or at least that was his reasoning behind the initial decision. But after reading, taking the classes, and having the opportunity to spend a week in Washington, D.C., he came to understand that it’s “complicated to try and understand humanity.” Au said he found life in D.C. to be a very fast-paced, different way of life, and enjoyed being able to interact with legislators and political science students from other BYU schools. “Politics in general is difficult to understand because there are so many things going on,” said Au. “At its most basic level, it deals with the concerns and needs of people, and when you have a country with over 300 million people, it’s difficult to satisfy everyone.” Going to D.C. was one opportunity BYUH offered him, but another was a 3-month trip teaching English in Thailand. “I learned I can’t be quick to judge a situation or circumstance,” said Au, who described living with a family in a small village with dirt roads, in a house that wasn’t fully constructed and sleeping with bed nets, using squat toilets and water that, despite being drinkable, appeared slightly yellowish. “Despite all those difficulties, they had satellite TV, a fridge, a government health clinic just down the road, and basic Wi-Fi that you had to huddle close to for it to work. In spite of all these difficulties, they lived happy lives. It made me feel more grateful for what I have, having been born in a first-world country. I learned that I can tolerate a lot more than I thought I could.” Au had difficulties of his own and admitted the past decade has been the hardest 10 years of his life. “A month and a half before graduating high school, my mother suffered a stroke,” said Au. “And this is my mother, my mother who is knowledgeable and faithful –so to see her slowly degrade over the years has been very sad.” Both of Au’s parents are living in care facilities back in Maui. His father is a retired veteran. Au joked about how his parents, despite always teaching him to be a good person, also taught him through example what not to do. He said he learned to “magnify the best in them, but stay away from the bad parts.” “In whatever difficulties I’ve encountered in my life,” he continued, “they have always shown me the deepest devotion and love, and I'll always appreciate them for that, as much as any child would hope to.” Au said his parents transferring him to Kamehameha Schools in 3rd grade was their way of teaching him appreciation for his culture. “It helped to establish the lineage I come from,” said Au. “It’s a very special culture. I come from a culture that explored the Pacific Ocean. It was the world’s largest expanse of ocean, and they explored it. I hail from that culture. They were highly intelligent in what they were capable of. They used advanced astrological navigation in their sea voyaging and constructed great works of architecture.” Au said he looks to the future, hoping to attend graduate school in the mainland but said it can sometimes be daunting to think about. “It has been difficult and it continues to be difficult,” said Au, “because it’s getting out of the house and trying to figure out what kind of person you are, and realizing you got a long way to go. And every day is different. But in spite of all this, I can still be content.” Uploaded Feb. 4, 2016
Writer: Leiani Brown
