Kuleana

A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai'i

By: Sara Kehaulani Goo

Narrated by: Sara Kehaulani Goo

Read by the author and set in one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes, Kuleana is the story of an award-winning journalist’s effort to hold on to her family’s ancestral Hawaiian lands—and find herself along the way.

“A powerful story of land, belonging, loss, and survival that challenges us all to think about what we are responsible for.” —Rebecca Nagle, bestselling author of By the Fire We Carry

From an early age, Sara Kehaulani Goo was enchanted by her family’s land in Hawai‘i. The vast area on the rugged shores of Maui’s east side—given by King Kamehameha III in 1848—extends from mountain to sea, encompassing ninety acres of lush, undeveloped rainforest jungle along the rocky coastline and a massive sixteenth-century temple with a mysterious past.

When a property tax bill arrives with a 500 percent increase, Sara and her family members are forced to make a decision about the property: fight to keep the land or sell to the next offshore millionaire. When Sara returns to Maui from the mainland, she reconnects with her great-uncle Take and uncovers the story of how much land her family has already lost over generations, centuries-old artifacts from the temple, and the insidious displacement of Native Hawaiians by systemic forces.

Part journalistic offering and part memoir, Kuleana interrogates deeper questions of identity, legacy, and what we owe to those who come before and after us. Sara’s breathtaking story of unexpected homecomings, familial hardship, and fierce devotion to ancestry creates a refreshingly new narrative about Hawai‘i, its native people, and their struggle to hold on to their land and culture today.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books.

©2025 Sara Goo (P)2025 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"[A] stirring debut memoir.... Goo’s heartrending saga serves as an urgent reminder that Indigenous culture is alive and braided with modern life, and that all Americans have a role in its survival."
—Publishers Weekly

“In her riveting memoir, Kuleana, journalist Sara Kehaulani Goo tells us more about the difficult past of one of the most beautiful places on earth than any history book can conjure. In it, a Native Hawaiian family struggles to reclaim the ancestral lands that colonization, tourism, and rampant development threaten to overrun. A veteran reporter, Sara plumbs every aspect of this story, spooling an engrossing narrative that informs as much as it engages. It is at once a chilling and inspirational tale.”—Marie Arana, author of American Chica and LatinoLand

“A sui generis book, Sara Kehaulani Goo’s Kuleana deftly blends memoir and reportage into a revelatory and refreshing exploration of connections—to one's heritage, to one's family, and to one's home.”—Jose Antonio Vargas, author of Dear America