Once some youths from Kalihi Valley stopped by the local pool hall where young Cayetano and his friends were gathered and asked for help, and the two groups of teenagers piled into cars and drove to Palolo Housing to settle a score. Men from a party in the project poured into the street to join the fight, with one man attacking the Kalihi boys with a hammer. The Kalihi crowd received a terrible beating and fled in a panic. Maumalanga knew a deeply divided neighborhood, one that had been so completely carved up by gangs that he felt he needed a weapon to embark on a trip to the neighborhood market. By the time he attended Kalakaua Intermediate School, Maumalanga was deeply into gang life.
Every street get their own gang, every block.
Couple streets down from my house, we used to have our rivals. Like, every night we'd get drunk and go at it. While Hawai'i's governor is aware of how the Kalihi street scene of his memory differs from its current-day reality, he finds many of Maumalanga's childhood experiences incredulous. The Honolulu Advertiser A walk to the closest park could be deadly, which meant there were virtually no recreational opportunities for kids, Maumalanga said. It was hard.