HEAVY METAL NOBLE MISSION
A Hollow Union is giving back by doing what its members know best - rockin’ the house in a benefit for the Sex Abuse Treatment Center
By Darlene Dela Cruz
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with rock’s DIY ethics in tow, decided to do something about it. He formed the production company Dead Scene Division and worked through his job at Anna Bannana’s to give A Hollow Union a stage for its efforts.
“We got tired of asking people to play in their venues,” says Miyashiro.”(At Anna Bannana’s), the venue was already there.”
The band held its first fundraising concert for the Youth Outreach Center, a success by the standard of raising almost $1,000 for the cause. Proud of its efforts, A Hollow Union began contacting other organizations to find more ways to help the community. They stumbled upon a partnership with the Sex Abuse Treatment Center after meeting with staffer Adriana Ramelli. The SATC has been fostering a campaign called “Respect,” which urges people to prevent violating situations through ensuring mutual consent and holding in regard the values and limits one’s partner has about sex.
“I was most impressed with Mike and Lee’s genuine compassion for victims of sexual violence,” Ramelli says. “They also understood the importance of prevention, and together we discovered that by promoting the ‘Respect’ message at the event, they could take the lead and communicate the importance of ‘doing the right thing’ by respecting the sexual limits of others. We want young people to communicate in healthy and respectful ways, and A Hollow Union is going to help us in our mission to do this.”
That sincere understanding of the toll of sexual violence and finding steps to prevent it comes from empathetic compassion - Lee and Higa both have had to deal with the emotional implications of sexual abuse. Higa’s past girlfriend had been a victim of rape, a situation that he says left him feeling “helpless” and “like I failed as a boyfriend and as a person.” Upset that he wasn’t able to protect her from what happened, Higa says he began to take out his anger on himself.
“I was moody, angry and excessively combative with her, and since I also wasn’t participating with the treatment, it got worse and worse, thus destroying the relationship,” he says. “I wasn’t talking to anyone about how I was feeling and it festered inside of me.
“She was so fragile in the beginning, I felt that I needed to be the ‘bubble wrap’ that protected her from everything,” Higa adds.“I thought that since it didn’t happen to me, I don’t have a reason to feel the hurt I was feeling. I began to totally neglect myself. My personality became very different. My faults became more and more prevalent in my everyday life.”
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Miyashiro was the victim of sexual violation when he was abused by a family member as a child. He says he appreciates what the SATC does for sexual abuse victims, including medical care and a 24-hour hotline available for crisis counseling.
“Nobody believed me when it happened to me,” Lee says. “We didn’t have this kind of stuff in Hilo.”
Ramelli says that the SATC appreciates A Hollow Union’s fundraising event, since the SATC has had to scale back some of its efforts to promote the “Respect” campaign due to a lack of funds. She hopes that the “Respect” concert, which also will feature local rock bands 86 List, Arson Recoil, The Malcognitas, Ciot’s B.F.F. and O*D*M, will be a good boost to get the organization’s message out.
“In 2007, SATC served 623 new clients, 543 of them were female,” Ramelli cites.“This equates to 1.4 female clients seeking SATC services each day. We will need to rely on the generosity of the community to help fund this very important sexual violence prevention campaign.”
A Hollow Union has taken up that “call to alms,” donating its time and talents to yet another charitable cause. And even though some members of A Hollow Union hope to move to California in the coming year, Miyashiro hopes to continue the band’s benevolence by embracing other causes in the future.
“It’s a way of making living amends for the wrongs that we have done to society,” says Miyashiro, a recovering drug addict who has been in and out of jail. He wants A Hollow Union’s audience to know that “there is hope. That no matter how messed up your situation is, there are people who know how you feel because they’ve been there, too.”
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