Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 5, 1 May 1989 — Christian Hosoi [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Christian Hosoi

Part-Hawaiian Skateboard Whiz lnto

By Natalie Jensen Special to Ka Wai Ola O OHA Christian Rosha Hosoi is one of the new partHawaiian sensations who has achieved notoriety on a global scale. For those who don't know him, Christian Hosoi, age 21, born in Los Angeles, California, is recognized as a master ehampion of the sport called skateboarding. He is known to command a yearly six figure salary, and draws on the support and talents of his artist father, Ivan Hosor (of Kailua) and executive mother, Bonnie Puamana Cummings, of Wailuku. Just coming off of a snow-boarding injury that left him with pulled ligaments in ankle and knee, his phenomenal talent allowed him to still eome in third in the recent Town and Country NSA Skateboard Championship, held at a sold-out Neal Blaisdell Arena on Apnl 1. His part-Hawaiian mother Puamana reveals that, not only is Christian idolized in the United States because of his incredible expertise (he holds the world record for the highest "air" . . aerials that surpass the boundaries of the skateboarding ramp), but he also has the distinction of having two cultures adopt him as their own . . . Japan, for the obvious reason that his father is Japanese . . . and Hawai'i, because both parents are children of these islands. His eonnection with Hawai'i, and the fact that he is partHawaiian prompted me to investigate the possibility of nurturing a relationship between this partHawaiian success story and the youth of these islands, in particular, those of native Hawaiian descent. His mother, daughter of Robert Lawrence Cummings and Rebecca Alo and graduate of Kamehameha and Church College of the Pacific [BYU], agree that his island involvement could be beneficial ir encouraging our native youth to achieve the personal best. The horizon does not a prison make . . . our youth have to realize that we too are capable of aspiring to such greatness . . . and Christian Rosha, the grandson of Japanese, Chinese-Ha-waiian, Scottish-lrish ancestors has proven that success is possible. Natalie Kamahina Jensen, the daughter of Rocky K. Jensen and Lueia Tarallo-Jensen is a free-lance photographer/artist, trained in the arts since a child. Her first exhibits were at the age of 14, and she is now preparing for a show with her brother Frank.

Christian Hosoi