Don't Call Me Moana by Nina Macheel

Rural Wisconsin of the 1950s, where Nina Macheel grew up, was a plain-vanilla place where everyone looked the same. Except for her mother. She was Hawaiian, and she didn’t look like anyone else for miles around. She still called her far-off island home and she used a Hawaiian word to describe her kids—the word hapa, meaning “mixed.” She didn’t like questions about their origins, so Nina never asked

Years later, as an adult, Nina arrived in Hawaiʻi for a year-long hiatus. There, her hoped-for relaxation was waylaid by the apparition of her great-grandmother Waipuilani, of whom she knew nothing. Waipuilani’s message was fierce: It was time to delve into the family history that her mother had kept in the shadows.