It’s a cold day in Seattle, the kind where the wind carries the scent of pine and wet leaves. Thin branches sag under the weight of occasional rain, droplets shimmering whenever the sun slips through the sky’s thick gray veil.
Here, in her secret location, Native Hawaiian Tanya Jose is foraging for a lei. She moves through the brush in a puffer jacket and hoodie, her eyes trained to find foliage by decades of experience.
“We only take what we need, not the whole branch,” she says. “That’s how I was taught.”
The forest here carries a different story than the lush tropics of the Hawaiian Islands. Still, the practice is the same. With her scissors and brown bag in hand, Jose carefully gathers periwinkle, cedar, Japanese maple, moss, even wheat.
Born in San Diego and raised in Seattle, Jose has been making lei for 20 years. She grew up dancing hula with her hālau (hula group), Keʻala ʻO Kamailelauli’ili’i and Manawaiopuna, and began creating them for performances. Rather than relying on flowers shipped from Hawai‘i, her Kumu (teacher) Kamaile Hamada and his Auntie Kalili Hansen taught her to work with what was already around her. Through these teachings, she learned cultural practices of lei making that were passed down for generations.
“You carry your energy into the lei,” Jose says. “You have to go into making lei with the right intention.”
For Native Hawaiians in the diaspora, connection to land does not disappear with distance. It adapts. In places like Seattle, lei represents more than Hawai‘i. They reflect the rootedness in the places we now live.
Jose says the demand for lei, especially during graduation season, has increased as more Hawaiians move to Seattle. According to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the Native Hawaiian population in Washington State has grown by 83 percent since 2010, making it the second-largest Native Hawaiian community on the mainland.
In recent years, Jose started selling her lei online to keep up with demand. She also offers workshops that focus not only on the craft, but on cultivating deeper connection and understanding.
While some, like Jose, have carried lei making steadily through their lives, others find their way back.
For Kiera Silva, that connection was something she had to discover again.
Growing up on Oʻahu, Silva learned to make lei at four years old from her aunties in Mānoa Valley. But after moving to the Pacific Northwest, her practice fell away. Work and distance took over. For nearly 20 years, she did not make a single lei.
Then came the stillness of the pandemic.
“COVID happened. I needed something to occupy my hands, for sanity’s sake,” Silva says.
Livestreams from master lei makers helped guide her, along with her own memory. “At first I was so scared to even start,” she says. “I used anything, from hydrangeas to weeds like clover, just to practice.”
Over time, her hands remembered. She began gifting lei for celebrations. Each one became an extension of herself. Silva says relearning lei saved her, and is her space for joy.
“I get to connect people to my home, through me,” she says. “This is the manifestation of aloha. Whatever you put into the lei is what you give and what the person receives.”
For both lei makers, this offering is not just decoration or a party accessory. They carry meaning, intention, and responsibility.
That includes how they are cared for after they are worn.
“The proper protocol is simple. Do not throw your lei in the garbage,” Jose says. “Return it to the earth.” That might mean placing it in a garden, hanging it on a tree, or letting it return to the ocean, she recommends.
Jose also includes care instructions with her lei, guiding people to appreciate them the Hawaiian way. It is part of the exchange, just as important as the making.
But what she values most happens in person.
“When people pick up a lei, we walaʻau, we talk,” she says. “Sometimes they need that connection. And I love that.”
No matter where a kanaka (Native Hawaiian) lives, these moments are more than a transaction.
Both Silva and Jose say they are teaching their children in their own ways, weaving new stories within their ancestral lineage. Lei is one of the most visible ways we keep our culture close, even in our displacement. It sustains who we are, carried forward as new generations learn on Native land that looks and feels different, shaped by many histories.
For more information or to order a lei, visit Tanya Jose (@TJsleistand) and Kiera Silva (@west_seattle_island_leis) on Instagram.
Note: Translations of ʻōlelo are provided for accessibility and quick reference. Indigenous words carry layered meanings that English cannot fully capture. These translations are not meant to convey their full depth or significance, and meanings may vary depending on context.
Cris Romento is a Native Hawaiian-Mexican filmmaker and writer whose work focuses on healing through storytelling. Decades after her family was “priced out of paradise,” she returned to Oʻahu to create the award-winning documentary Dear Aloha. Her trauma-informed screenings held in Native spaces, including the Duwamish Longhouse in Seattle, provided vital mental health resources for Pacific Islander communities. For this work, Cris received the Seattle International Film Festival’s Courageous Filmmaking Grant. You can catch Dear Aloha on PBS’ YouTube channel, or at the Wing Luke Museum’s DISplace exhibit.
