Auliʻi Cravalho was only 16 years old when she voiced her breakout role as Moana. And today, eight years later, she is reprising the iconic Disney character at the premiere of the much-anticipated sequel, “Moana 2.”
“Playing Moana has been the opportunity of a lifetime — voicing a character who isn’t afraid to grab a demigod by the ear and take him on a journey across the sea is a ton of fun,” Cravalho said in an email interview, referring to Moana’s superhuman friend Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson).
Moana sailed out on her first big screen adventure in 2016. She used the ancient navigation technique of way-finding, which relies on the stars, wind, waves and other clues from nature to find a path or direction.
Way-finding can also be applied as a philosophy, a way to find your true self in the world. And this year, “Moana 2” builds on that initial adventure of self-discovery with a much broader mission that can put her leadership to a test: bringing different island peoples together.
“As we meet her in this sequel, three years have passed in the ‘Moanaverse,’” Cravalho said. “To be able to watch Moana grow into the leader she was always meant to be is incredibly special, and I know I’m not the only one excited to see just how far she’ll go!”
Cravalho said that before Moana, she found inspiration in another Disney character — a Chinese folk heroine.
“I remember watching and re-watching the movie ‘Mulan’ and resonating with her background of Asian/Pacific Islander and her dedication to family and culture. She also was the first princess to run off into battle and kick butt! I still watch that film even as I’m turning 24, and she’s still one of my favorites today,” she said.
Cravalho's — and Hawaii's — multicultural heritage
Moana is widely recognized by viewers as a Polynesian hero.
Cravalho said that her character "showcases way-finding and navigation by the stars, which is a true piece of Indigenous knowledge," and that she feels great pride in celebrating the people of the Pacific on the big screen.
But while Cravalho is partly connected to her character’s culture through her own Native Hawaiian decent, she also has roots in another island roughly 6,000 miles east — Puerto Rico — as well as Chinese, Irish and Portuguese ancestries.
“I’m of proud mixed descent and grew up with many traditions in my house!” she said.
Cravalho said she connected with her mixed heritage through the foods she ate at home.
Cravalho would celebrate Chinese New Year by eating noodles for long life, corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day and Hawaiian dishes like lau lau and lomi lomi salmon for graduation parties. Homemade pasteles and arroz con gandules — Puerto Rican dishes — were "staples" in her family's fridge, according to Cravalho.
In a way, Cravalho’s diverse background reflects a small part of the much larger history of migrations, including Latinos, to Hawaii.
One popular example: Hawaii’s musical instrument — the ukulele — was brought over by Portuguese contract workers who migrated to Hawaiian sugar plantations in the late 1800s.
Similarly, a 1901 New York Times article about the "Porto Rican exodus" reported on the migration of contract workers from the Caribbean island to Hawaii to work on sugarcane plantations, just as they had in Puerto Rico.
Other Spanish-speaking migrants also left footprints in the Aloha State.
Mexican cowboys taught Hawaiians how to rope, slaughter and breed longhorn cattle in the early 1800s. In fact, the Hawaiian word for “cowboy” (“paniolo”) is a version of the word “español” (“Spanish”).
In addition, a Spanish sailor wrote the first record of Hawaii’s state fruit — the pineapple — in 1813, almost 90 years before James Drummond Dole opened the Hawaiian Pineapple Co.
Looking at the two other lineages of Cravalho’s mixed ancestry, less than 5% of Hawaiians identified as Irish in the most recent American Community Survey — just over 66,000. And almost 237,000 reported Chinese ancestry (excluding Taiwanese) in an older survey.
Reflecting on her beloved character, Cravalho said Moana's bold actions redefine how girls and women can identify as heroes in pop culture.
“I think Moana has truly allowed the words ‘hero’ and ‘princess’ to become interchangeable," she said. "It’s amazing to see the waves of her impact, not just for young women of Pacific Island decent, but for countless people across the world."