Dave Manu Bird teaches writing and linguistics at Leeward Community College.  His work as an author and editor includes iterary journals, books, poems, mele, magazine articles, personal essays, memoirs, and professional reports.  His most recent writing activities include working on the second volume of a book-length history of Yap, writing memoirs, and composing mele with his daughter, Mālia Helelā.

Manu teaches his students to record their family histories:

What has become increasingly apparent to me is that both younger and older people need to start creating records of their lives, including information about even the mundane aspects of their everyday experiences.  What seems commonplace and inconsequential today won’t be in 50 – 100 years.  Journals and memoirs are important for familial and historical reasons.  Without our records, how will our descendants know who they are and where they came from?  How will they have a sense of their place in the sweep of history?  In essence, this notion of loss when there are no records is one message in “Fishing for Grandma.”