This green expanse in the middle of Waikīkī is Fort DeRussy, named in honor of Brigadier General Rene E. DeRussy, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who served in the 19th century. It started as a bastion of defense, but today it serves as a place of recreation and relaxation for U.S. military personnel and their families. If you turn toward the mountains, all the land you see before you extending into the foothills of Mānoa Valley was planted in taro for many centuries. But, as the number of Hawaiian farmers in Waikīkī died off and the demand for poi decreased, by the 1870s taro production practically ceased. Successful rice planting experiments led to a kind of “rice fever” which swept the lands.

Chinese rice planters took over abandoned taro patches and turned Waikīkī into a vast rice plantation. For a few years, rice not sugar, was king in Hawaiʻi. The disappearance of taro from Waikīkī marked an economic change, but a cultural change as well, Hawaiian mythology says the first man was born of Hāloa, the sacred taro plant. The planting and eating of taro was for ancient Hawaiians the basis of their existence and their spiritual sustenance as well. When taro disappeared from Waikīkī, as it did from so many areas, so did the spirit of Hāloa.