Who’s Your Mama?
With Mother’s Day coming up on Sunday, MidWeek chats with Hawaii celebrities and their mothers about their special bonds
By Lisa Asato
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Nalani Choi and mom Betty Jenkins
right so as to not reflect poorly upon your family.
Betty, a retired school teacher who now works to further a renaissance in Hawaiian culture, says she sent all three of her children away to college just as Hawaiian leaders used to send their children away to broaden their minds. “People said why are you sending them away?” Betty recalls. “I said, ‘I’m not sending them away, I’m giving them an opportunity.’ “
Betty often returns to the subject of connectedness with the past, and connections through the generations become apparent as Nalani’s third-grade daughter Aulani grows older.
“She’s showing an interest in performing,” says Nalani, who at 28 left a branch manager’s position to pursue music full time with the famous trio from Kamehameha Schools. “It’s funny,” she wonders, “is it genetics, or nurturing?”
In 25 years the original three members, including Lehua Kalima Heine and Angela Morales, have recorded 17 albums, won 23 Hoku awards and collectively had 10 children.
On Sunday they celebrate their annual Mother’s Day concert at a new, larger venue, the Hawaii Convention Center, with special guests Kaukahi and the comedy team of Lanai & Kaleo. Tickets are available for two shows. Call 262-6300.
Domelynne Nash never played sports growing up, but she married a basketball player and raised another. The 5-foot-7-inch former University of Hawaii cheerleader stands a foot shorter than her son Bobby, a UH basketball player who hopes to play pro basketball
in Europe or “God willing” follow his father into the NBA.
Bobby Nash and mom Domelynne Nash
While Nash calls both his parents his best friends - his father is Bob Nash, the UH team’s new head coach - Bobby says his mom is “definitely a tougher coach than my dad ...
“When she sees I’m not playing up to my potential, then she’s going to get on me, and with all respect I like that. I enjoy that because it’s honest and it’s truthful,” says Bobby, who wears No. 33, just like his dad. “In life sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes it’s good to have that solid stability - ‘You need to do this to get better.’ That’s all you can ask for.”
Nash, who graduates this month with a bachelor’s in political science, moved home to Aina Haina his sophomore year so he could afford his first car. The trade-off from independent living? A curfew. “Twelve o’clock on weekends and 9:30 on weekdays,” he says, making a funny face when asked whether that’s do-able.
Domelynne says she and her husband always push their two children (Bobby has a sister Erika) to be “instruments in society ... and be the best you can be.”
“Even though I may not always tell him, he far exceeds my expectations,” Domelynne says, tearing up. “We have this special connection, even on the court he’ll look up every once in a while at me and just give me that little sign.” The sign she refers to is one Bobby has been signaling since he was a seventh-grader playing for Iolani. “Every time I score or have a good play I give her a little wink and I tap my heart because that’s where my mom lives, so I want to let her know that.”
Kutmaster Spaz and mom Linda Bulatao
Her son, she says, is especially affectionate. “He’s lovey dovey,” she says, her son throwing his head back in embarrassment. “I love that about him.”
The self-described “Universal DJ” Kutmaster Spaz inherited exuberance from his dad and a give-it-all-you-got attitude from his mom, a former MidWeek circulation director.
“I see how driven she is - everything, she puts her 100 percent, even walking. Look at this, this is her walk map. Who makes a walk map?” he asks, passing a hand-drawn color-coded map of her Kaneohe neighborhood.
Growing up, he considered her a best friend and someone he could confide in. “People would come into my life and stab me in the back or wouldn’t be true or do mean things so I always wondered why, but I could always trust my mom would be there and always have my back,” says Spaz, a self-made DJ and executive producer/owner of Dis-N-Dat Media Group, which produces a TV show, radio show and magazine.
Spaz lives in the Diamond
Head area with his wife Patti, and their children Victoria, Jazlyn, and Josiah, who’s 2. He’s been independent since 21, having set a goal to be self-sufficient as a DJ by 21. He achieved it along with other goals like making the cover of MidWeek, which he did in 1999.
When his dad Danny died of diabetes in 1995 he moved home to help his family. “We really saw that period through together,” says Bulatao. “It was him and I that would sit after dinner, we’d just talk and talk and talk, strengthen each other ... Spaz was there for the family at that time, for all of us.”
Crystal Akana and mom Sharon Akana
There’s a lot of laughing and joking around between the two, after all both are entertainers at heart. Bulatao, her husband and brother-in-law used to perform Hawaiian and oldies-but-goodies as the Backyard Serenaders. But she insists that Spaz is the entertainer, the one that “makes me famous.”
Radio personality Crystal Akana’s mom describes her almost-24-year-old daughter as the life of the party. But the same can be said for her.
“When you party with her, my friends, everybody thinks she’s drinking something because she’s just out there dancing, but she does-n’t need any alcohol to make her move,” says Crystal, who is known for her “Choke Traffic” reports on Island 98.5, with Lanai and Kaleo.
“There’s never a dull moment when Crystal’s around,” says mom Sharon Akana, an escrow assistant at Island Title. Sharon has five children, but says Crystal “in particular just totally stands out. And I think it’s because she was born five years after the last one. ... So when she came she had all the attention, and she’s still seeking all the attention.”
Crystal, a former student body president and homecoming queen at Kailua High, has a way with people her mom admires. She can wow any crowd from high school assemblies to audiences at the Waikiki Shell.
In elementary school at Benjamin Parker, Sharon recalls a parent asking to have her daughter removed from Crystal’s class because she couldn’t get along with her.
“I told Crystal, remember, you’re a Christian, you’re supposed to get along with everybody,” Sharon says. The fast-thinking fifth-grader replied, “Mom, I don’t have a problem. I can get along with her. She has a problem, she can’t get along with me.” Crystal won her over and they became best friends.
Crystal, a season-three American Idol contestant, says her mom shows her how to be “more compassionate toward others and enjoy the simplicities in life. We weren’t raised the richest family ... but we never complained because we always had clothes on our backs. My mom always gave us the last thing she had in her pocket, and we always had good food on our table.”
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