What is a millennial?

I never really thought of myself as an individual that belonged to a certain classification of people. Being that I was lucky enough to grow up in Hawaiʻi, I never associated myself with the mainstream American perception of an “average teenager.” However, as I became more exposed to the criticism that my generation is associated with, I decided to take a closer look at what my generation was really about. As I started to research more, one word kept popping up, “millennial.”

So what is a millennial? As defined by Terri M. Manning, Ed.D., director of the Center for Applied Research at Central Piedmont Community College, “the millennial generation is the generation of people born between 1982 and 2002, some 81 million children.”

During this time period of about 20 years, the world has experienced extraordinary changes. Home telephones became mobile devices that you could take anywhere with you. Handwritten letters turned into emails that could be sent anywhere around the world with the click of a computer key. Along with the creation of the Internet, the world in which our parents grew up in was rapidly changing. With more and more of these tools becoming commonly available, many of us of the millennial generation cannot remember a time when this technology was absent in our lives. Life became easier, so much so that our elders often deem us as lazy, selfish and coddled. These traits were becoming the definition of our generation. Time Magazine even dubbed us the “Me Me Me Generation.”

But I am proud to be a millennial. I feel, however, that is a blessing and curse. We have the power to do things that previous generations were never able to accomplish. We also have the technology and capabilities to do things that generations before us would never dream of being able to do. I feel that with all of these opportunities available to us, we must make full use of them in a positive and thoughtful manner. All of the criticism directed at us should be used as motivation to prove the older generations wrong. Besides, I feel that they are criticizing us because we have the technology and capabilities that they were not fortunate enough to have. If it were available to them during their time, I feel they would be acting and doing the same things we are doing.

Since I come from a strong Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) background, also being a millennial is something that I really need to take to heart. In the generations prior, the language, culture, and even the country of my people, were taken away from us. My ancestors were punished for speaking their own language and looked down upon for practicing their culture. As a consequence, their children would not learn their own language and culture, such was the shame.

As we fast forward to the 1970s and the emergence of the Hawaiian Renaissance, more and more native people were becoming interested in learning about their language and culture. I am happy that, today, there are opportunities to learn the Hawaiian language and culture. I feel that millennials like myself should take advantage of them, so we can ensure the perpetuation of an indigenous culture that was unjustly suppressed.

We must understand that in all we do, we do not only represent ourselves, but we represent those who have laid down the path for us to follow. In the words of my kūpuna: “I ka wā ma mua, I ka wā ma hope,” in order to move forward, we must look to the past.

Jacob Bryan Aki is a freshman at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa with an interest in Hawaiian Studies and ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi. A graduate of the Kamehameha Schools, Aki is also a part of hauMĀNA and co-organized the Aloha ʻĀina No Koʻolauloa Silent March.