Latest / The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi / Jennifer Santos on joining the Mayor's Office of Culture and the Arts

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Jennifer Santos on joining the Mayor's Office of Culture and the Arts · The One Oʻahu Podcast with Mayor Rick Blangiardi

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Welcome to the One Oahu podcast.
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I'm your host, Brandi Higa, and today is Thursday, September 4th, 2025.
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And this week we're sitting down with one of our newest members of our City
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and County of Honolulu Ohana and Jennifer Santos,
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Executive director for the Mayor's Office of Culture and the Arts.
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Jennifer. Well, welcome to the city.
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Mahalo. I thank you for making some time for us.
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Yes. Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate it.
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So first of all, tell us a little bit about yourself.
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Where did you grow up?
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Where did you go to school?
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Hobbies. What do you enjoy?
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Yeah.
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So I grew up in the Bay Area of California.
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Born and raised there.
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Close ties to Oahu.
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So constantly visiting family. Friends.
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Since. Since baby.
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But grew up in private school.
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Went to into the, tech world.
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And so I often say that's the career path that chose me growing up in the Bay area.
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It it was prominent. And so,
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what my focus was in that space,
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was customer experience or customer success,
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which is actually actually a framework to help understand who your end user is.
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Meet them where they are and help them towards their goals.
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And I feel like that's a very transferable practice.
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So alongside of that, I've, been in the nonprofit sector
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volunteering, serving on boards and really applying
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a lot of those frameworks into spaces that may not typically be aware of them.
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And so I've been doing that for a number of years through halau,
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through, nonprofits for my children's school.
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And so, I'm thrilled to be able to bring that mindset as far as like,
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strategy planning, operational, rigor
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into the space here, which is MOCA.
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And so where did you work before this?
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I worked at Cisco Systems for the majority of my career.
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And I worked at VMware directly before this,
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and they're all software tech companies.
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Okay. So software and tech.
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And then where did your passion for culture and where did that.
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That's right.
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So I've been raised in culture in arts my whole life.
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So I can't necessarily pinpoint a moment where my interest was, was peaked
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because it's really just who I am, how I live, how I learn, how I lead,
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and it's all it's always been a part of my life to some capacity.
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I think that perhaps, how it escalated, like certain moments,
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I should say, where things were kind of prompting me like, I need to do more.
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I need to be not to do more, but be more involved, be more proximate to this.
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Some of those, moments were just through my time in halau.
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And I've been a practitioner of of hula
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for about, I would say, 20 years.
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Both on the floor as well as helping to
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lead, operations and managing, the international space of that
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and some of the other, curriculum, programs that run through halau.
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Through my work in tech,
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I was always trying to find opportunities
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to naturally embed awareness and education on culture.
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So always being a part of, like the Asian American Pacific Islander,
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ERG or employment resource groups.
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Taking leadership roles in that throughout my years at Cisco.
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Trying to find opportunities while I was at VMware to speak about what
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was happening in Maui during the fires and just always consciously
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finding ways to educate my team, my organization, the greater company,
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around these things
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and luckily, when I was at Cisco, that place, it is
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Dei and those efforts come first for them.
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So it was a very natural thing for me to be able to do.
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And then alongside you know, in the time that I had outside of work,
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doing the same sort of programmatic development
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in the spaces that I was in, within my community.
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Another time, like, for example, during the pandemic
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and a lot of the attraction that was being focused
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on, like the Asian communities and having, you know, all all of the hate like that
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change the climate of the Bay area tremendously.
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And so finding ways to educate like people
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within my company and outside, like Asian Pacific
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Islanders, is like this grouping, but it's not a monolith.
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And so giving the distinctive classifications,
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which is also is also compartmentalized right, to a certain extent,
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but really trying to speak to, you know, Polynesian, Micronesian, Melanesian,
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Asian-American being like, just so inclusive of so many different
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people, culture, voices, traditions
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and, and feeling as though that would create a more open
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understanding to conversations where if you take the time to connect,
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you'll realize there's more that brings us together than that which divides us.
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And I truly believe in that.
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And sometimes those conversations are hard to have,
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but those are the ones that we need to have the most.
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I think.
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Yeah.
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No, that's not I mean, but but it's interesting
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because you're telling me, you know, in your previous capacity
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or your previous job, you kind of had to to look for these opportunities.
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So what does it mean to you now?
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Because in your role, you get to promote culture and art as your main job.
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This must feel so full circle, must have so fulfilling.
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It is in a lot of ways, I feel like I manifested this
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because I would always dream like I wish I could be in a role
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where I could just be my true self,
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where I could promote and and
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and talk about the things that are important to me, you know?
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And so I say like the tech world chose me, but but this is what I choose,
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you know, this is my purpose. This is my passion.
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And so there is no delineation.
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Now, I don't have to like, go to work and feel as a why.
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I can only talk a little bit about that because I don't want,
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you know, like this is it like, this is who I am, this is how I live.
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Like I'm already in my own sorts of communities and the spaces that we serve.
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And now I'm trying to take what I've been able to develop by way of,
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you know, the
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company spaces is where, our children go to school.
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And so I've been fortunate to serve on the board in those capacities
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to be able to do a lot of the program programmatic,
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educational,
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coming together within the communities, finding what the community wants.
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You know, how it's not about serving the community,
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but it's about providing opportunities for the communities to feel served.
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I've been doing a lot of that, and so now I feel like I have this
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capacity to do more.
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I have a bigger platform.
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I have a a bigger cooler and a bigger kuleana
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to be able to have broader reach.
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And that's amazing.
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I just feel so blessed and honored to be able to be in a position to be able
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to serve.
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Yeah.
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And I think we're honored too, because, you know,
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you do bring that background, like you said, tech.
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And then you kind of
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have this data background where you're organizational in that way,
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or you have the resources needed to help promote the groups
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and the culture that you're talking about.
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But with that, what brought you to the city?
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I mean, you could have taken that.
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Yeah. Anywhere really. Right? Right.
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Before coming into this role, I spent the last year really like searching, like,
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what is it that I want to do and even before the last year.
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But I think that that's when I took a hard look at like,
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how am I going to be spending my time?
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How do I want to apply
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my skills and strengths, and who is it that I want to benefit from that?
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And I always knew the answer,
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but that's really when I started, like the steps I needed to take to
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like with full transparency, like there's benefits with tech.
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But to me, those benefits are don't override
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the benefits that I could have in, in, in serving my communities.
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And so making that sacrifice was something that I, I was willing to do.
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And so I wanted to I wanted to be in a position
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where I was here wholeheartedly.
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I wasn't in a different time zone.
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I wasn't like trying to find opportunities to poke these holes and insert that.
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I wanted it to be like, here,
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because this is where I am and this is where my family is.
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And so I was just I had a different lens, and I was searching
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for opportunities that would be able to to fulfill that.
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And I came across a mosaic. Yeah.
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Well, we're glad you're here.
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And, you know, maybe we should take a step back. Okay.
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You mentioned you're here what your title is, but for those who aren't familiar,
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what is your role?
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What do you do?
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Like, if you have to what do your children think you do for work?
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Mom goes to work and does work. Right? Right.
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So I think that the Mayor's
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Office of Culture and Arts has a lot of different perceptions.
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But how I've how I've come to see it in the short
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and I think 6 or 7 weeks that I've been hearing about,
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are that number one, we, we oversee all of the city
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owns art, artifacts, installations across the island of Oahu.
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That's massive.
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There's an extensive an extensive collection
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that is under the city's purview.
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And so that's managed by Marian, who is our, curator.
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Another facet of Moca is,
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we do
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sponsorships with existing nonprofit organizations that are, looking to expand
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reach into their communities by way of events and programing.
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And sometimes that requires navigating the systems within the city.
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And that's difficult to do.
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And sometimes you don't even know where to start.
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And so we'll support them in that effort in providing somewhat of a pathway,
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and sponsorship to some extent in areas
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that were able to where it makes sense for the event.
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We oversee the Mission Memorial Auditorium,
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which is a space that's actually open for nonprofits to be able to utilize
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for performing arts, for, for practice.
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We a lot of our city agencies utilize the space
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agency h PD
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but what what I'm trying to do in this new phase of Moca is to create
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grounding opportunities that come from us,
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and the only way we can really understand what that means and what that entails,
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is by going out into our communities and to see the areas that are not,
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that are not reached today, to see the voices that are not heard.
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Who is us?
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So first and foremost, the native Hawaiian communities,
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but then also the collective,
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vibrant communities that complement Oahu,
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are the communities that we serve going a little bit further into that,
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like if we look in the different, districts within within Oahu,
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one of the things that I'm doing is partnering
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with the council members to understand who are their communities specifically.
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Right. Community is like it's a big word, right?
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So within the different districts, who are the communities that are looking
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for opportunities for support from a culture and arts standpoint?
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Is there an opportunity to look for spaces
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that need to be activated that can be repurposed, revitalized
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for celebrations, for programing specific to those areas?
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That's something that we're looking into doing by way
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of working with the schools in that area, with the communities
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to understand what is, what is, what are the stories to that space?
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What is the more olelo that ties these people to, to, to their particular home?
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And how can we work with the people of the community
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to bring those stories to life, to bring murals to the spaces,
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to bring more or gardens to those spaces so that it's a collective.
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It's a collective undertaking where people are getting their hands in it.
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They feel as though they are proximate to building this together.
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They see themselves represented on, on the walls and, and in, in the mala,
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and they feel like they're seeing it represents them.
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And it's something that they can be proud of.
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It is a place that they can go.
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It's helping the businesses around that area to increase.
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Positive, foot traffic to patron their businesses.
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That's one of the things that I'm hoping to bring.
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Decentralizing are not limiting art to traditional senses,
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not not cultural tradition, but the the thought
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that art belongs in a gallery or for, you know, wall Rome.
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I want to break out of that.
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I want wahi pana is a perfect example of that.
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And credit to everyone who had contributing,
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hands and ideas and
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efforts that went into that before my time.
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But wahi pana is taking
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aina based more or Lalo is taking
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the stories of these particular spaces,
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and it's showing our people what was there before.
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What you see now through the interpretation of the artists,
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it's it's giving us insight into the history,
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the significance, the deep stories that are
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tied to these particular places,
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before everything that we see.
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And in place of that now.
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And I think that's a beautiful thing.
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And I want to create more of that.
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One of the things that I'm looking to do is to create incubation spaces.
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I want to be able to have a wrap around.
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So support for artists and creatives and cultural practitioners.
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I think that one of the things that we're hearing in in speaking,
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for example, at the town
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hall that we co-sponsored with Councilmember Tyler dos Santos,
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there's actually a couple of them through the discussions of Koka,
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which is our commission of Culture in the arts.
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And, and just the the other nonprofits
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that we have as pillars in our respective communities.
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A lot of the feedback that we're hearing is that there is limitation on access
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for creative processes to have to take place.
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So I'm looking for ways that we can partner with the city
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to utilize perhaps city owned spaces and have Moca be one
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who are partners with the local nonprofits to manage those spaces
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and then convert those spaces into incubation services for our,
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creatives, for our for our the people
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who are providing culture and arts to their communities.
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And when I when I say incubation to clarify that, what that means
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is it's providing mentorship for young artists
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who are considering or can turn to culture and arts
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as a a positive path forward.
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For young artists who are getting started and need
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networking opportunities and creatives that are
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a little bit, maybe further along in their journey that they can provide,
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it's partnering with OHA, for example,
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to create programs around development, business development.
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So artists and creatives and cultural practitioners
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could take that the work that they do and sustain it
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into something that becomes a livable wage for themself, for their family.
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It's beyond just like one exhibition, like, how do we look ten steps forward?
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How can we plan beyond month to month?
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How can we make this something that has longevity, sustainability?
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It's space for performance artists to be able to practice.
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It's space for,
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visual artists to be
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able to display it, space for people to be able to workshop.
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I think that that's something that Oahu needs.
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Yeah, but I think it'd be difficult to push what you're talking about
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because, you know, when you look at school programs,
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oftentimes art, culture, music, those programs get cut first.
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And now you're saying,
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you know, if you are interested in pursuing something like this,
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this is your opportunity.
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But on the other hand,
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there's so many people saying, but you could make more
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when you go into fields like math, science, tech, right, looking at you.
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Right.
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But then how do you push that forward when really this is something
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that's cut in so many other places.
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Because of the curves, it's even more compelling for us to find a path forward.
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I think those cuts shouldn't be a deterrent for someone who believes
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in this.
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To be able to know that this is something that they can do and pursue.
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One of the things that I'm trying to do, from a Moca standpoint,
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is to showcase the value
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that these, that these contributions make,
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measuring like understanding where we are like.
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So, for example, if we were to take a project within a
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particular district,
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understanding the state of that district and capturing that, talking
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to the businesses and seeing the pain points, the things that they're looking to
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perhaps push forward with this new space that could be revitalized,
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understanding that first and then plugging in certain programs,
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certain installations, certain practices that will start to revitalize
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and being able to show the difference in how we're moving the needle forward,
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how the people are perceiving this space now, how art and culture
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is being showcased as really the catalyst to drive that forward
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value is what is going to drive people's interest.
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Right, is either on the receiving end or from a business aspect.
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If I'm a business and I'm investing in something,
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I want to know that there's value, that there's going to be some sort of return.
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It's the same thing
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with culture and art, but culture and art seems to be so ambiguous at times.
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People can't measure what that value is.
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We're going to try and start to do that.
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We're going to and it's capturing those insights.
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It's being able to partner with the people who are impacted by these programs,
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by these installations, by these changes that culture and art will be driving
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and those success stories will be captured.
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Those, those success stories on how creatives are contributing
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to not just culture, wellbeing, but to the economy as well.
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And that will change the narrative
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of people thinking, oh, you can't make a living off of that.
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Or, you know, there's so many cuts like turn your interest into something else.
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People who are creative, people who are artists and cultures like it.
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It's not something that they can just turn off and go do something else.
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Like, this is part of who they are.
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It's part of what they believe.
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And it's and we need that because it helps identify who we are.
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That identity is so compelling for for our people here on Oahu.
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And I don't I
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just don't believe that there's a substitute for that.
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I understand what you're saying in concept,
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but can you give you an example, like where where has this worked?
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Or, you know, have you in your travels or where you've lived in the past,
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have you seen something where this has been successful
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and you're like, you know what, that's it. That's the model.
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There are there are success stories in small and big scales.
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One of the smaller scale stories that I can
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I can give first hand experience, lived experience.
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An example of that is at my children's school.
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So they attend school. Okay.
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Pretty or unknowingly, that school is the only standalone new school
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that has kindergarten through high school
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in one location across the entire pipeline.
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That shouldn't be the case, but it is.
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And we're located in Palo Alto.
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Palo Alto is not centralized to where most of the students live.
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And so we're considered a community, commuter school.
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I mean, you can count on, you know, one hand,
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the percentage of people who actually live in the neighborhood of Palo Alto.
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And so most of the island, I mean, most of the students
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come from the west side of the island, from Como Hana, from the moku of of Ava,
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from the moku of white, and I basically from Aya, all the way up to Makaha.
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And so they're hopping on a bus and taking,
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you know, upwards of a two hour ride into school.
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And then they have to get to school
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and perform and learn and do all these things.
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And so one of the things that I'm on the board
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for an alcohol, which is a board that serves on the NEA
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and and the surrounding communities, and one of the things that we have
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prioritized as an objective for the past, we're going into the fourth
21:27
year is is Nicola, which is school beautification.
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And that's not just esthetics,
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like fresh paint on the walls or anything like that.
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It's it's it's a sense, it's building a sense of pride
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through what the children are seeing so that they, when they come to school
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and they're,
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you know, they're making this commute in, they're tired and they get there.
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They have a sense of pride.
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They have they they're revitalized by what they see around them.
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So what we did is there's five storage containers
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on this big open field, and they serve a purpose.
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It's important stuff that they hold. But they're old.
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They're rusty.
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You know, they were donated mats and containers.
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And so,
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you know, the kids
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go to the area where they play and they see like these big rusted containers.
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And so we thought, well, why don't we work with an artist
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to be able to depict stories of this place, tie to color,
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or tied to the different stories
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that are present that they're already learning about in their curriculum.
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Why don't we take these stories and work with the students to create the art?
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To work with an artist, to take that art and to depict it on these containers.
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And so we worked with an artist, by the name of Gavin.
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He's from Rec and Shop, and he's done other art on campus.
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We worked with Pokemon him to plan out what that five themed,
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not curriculum, but the five themes would be to represent those containers.
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And then we went to the kumu of the school and we said, hey, we have this project.
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We would love if you could collect art from your students
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to depict what they think of when they hear these themes.
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And it was amazing because they see their art now depicted on these containers.
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And so the story is from it's Coca Cola.
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Okay. So it's from the mountains to the sea.
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And so we start with like the green pastures
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of the mountains as kind of like the color wave theme.
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And we end at the ocean, which is the biggest container.
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And it's the container that carries the,
23:38
the kernel for the, for the paddling club.
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I tell this story because you ask a question
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about like value and how how it's worked and a success story that could exemplify
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like how how art and culture is seen as a way to contribute to the community,
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the sense of pride that the children have now and just
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seeing the one container that just completed last month,
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it's not something that you can measure, but everyone's going to take pictures
24:05
in front of it. They're talking about it.
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They're seeing their own art that they put their hands into.
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They were part of the mural process.
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We had a weekend
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where all of the community, not just the students, but the families,
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the neighboring communities, came together and they participated.
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It was amazing.
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And they want more of that now.
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And so that's something that we built together with the communities,
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for the communities they're feeling seen.
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It's it's change and it will continue to change.
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The outlook of the people who
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come in contact with it, it will help tell the stories.
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They can tell those stories to, you know, their peers and to
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and for generations to come.
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And this logistically, what did that mean?
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Does that mean
24:49
that the money that would have gone to maybe an outside vendor for repair,
24:54
maintenance, a fresh coat of paint, went instead to the artist.
24:58
So for this particular example, Pokemon Baba
25:01
am one, an award and
25:05
Like a grant or.
25:07
Yeah.
25:07
So it was and my apologies for not having the name, but
25:11
all of the principals,
25:13
on Oahu, I believe,
25:16
were, you know, they were asked to
25:18
people had submitted their names for this, for this grant, and,
25:23
Paul Como won.
25:24
And so he contributed all the funds that he got from
25:28
that grant and awarded from that grant to this project.
25:31
But aside from that, we do fundraising with his sponsorship.
25:35
So that we have,
25:37
well, we try to have an ongoing,
25:40
fund that will contribute to,
25:42
to these sorts of things specifically for a culture and arts.
25:46
So for you, this kind of tells on that.
25:48
What's been the toughest part of this job, this new role for you?
25:53
I think the toughest thing is, number one,
25:57
trying to find programmatic ways to do all the things.
26:03
I think that organizational health is one of is one of my goals.
26:07
For the first, I have a 3690 plan.
26:09
And so within the 30 organizational health as part of that,
26:14
I think it comes back to our own identity.
26:18
And understanding who we are.
26:20
We talked a little bit about, you know, everyone thinks if you ask everyone
26:25
what Moca is, you'll probably hear different definitions.
26:29
So we want to bring clarity because we want people to know who we are.
26:32
We want people to know who we aren't.
26:34
We want we want to establish things like our mission, our vision, our values.
26:39
We've been spending time on that, since week one.
26:42
And our objectives in what we do
26:45
outward will be a reflection of that and will support those.
26:49
Those mission is grounding us in who we are, who we serve,
26:53
and how the vision is what we strive to do
26:58
and what impact that will have.
27:00
And so when we have that set, our mission and our vision, that's
27:04
kind of like where we are now and we're where we strive to go,
27:08
we can build objectives to hit and measure
27:13
performance, progression and milestones for our communities within that.
27:17
So I think one of the challenges is trying to set that foundation
27:22
first and make time for that while jumping into the work that has to be done.
27:27
And, and, you know, run, run the organization
27:31
in the agency and not change direction.
27:34
Right, right, right. Stop to work on this.
27:36
You still have, you know, in events right here on the Fossey grounds.
27:39
Right?
27:40
But it's important for us to make the time. Yeah.
27:42
To invest in that because how can we serve the communities
27:46
if we don't even know who we are.
27:48
And so really, really prioritizing that and grounding us in
27:53
that has been a worthwhile experience for everyone.
27:56
I think the second challenge is knowing
27:59
the realization that we can't serve everybody on our own,
28:03
like Moca is not doing all these things that we're looking to do by ourselves.
28:08
We need to establish partnership.
28:11
We need to understand who in the community can help us.
28:13
Spann can help us keep this going.
28:17
We need to partner with our
28:18
our council members again to get like the first pass of what that looks like.
28:22
They know their communities already.
28:24
So what are the needs that they're hearing?
28:27
How can we align on that?
28:29
And again,
28:30
pausing to understand who those stakeholders are and where
28:34
those needs are is important because while I want to jump in and do all the things
28:39
we we have to, we can either go fast alone or we can go far together.
28:44
And I want to go far together.
28:46
And so that is something that we, we, we are taking the time in
28:51
and understanding who those people are and where the needs are.
28:54
We don't have all the answers.
28:56
We're not the experts in all these things.
28:58
But there are people out there who are.
29:00
And so it's important for us to establish trust and intention
29:04
and partnership with those entities so that we can go forward together.
29:09
Yeah, I can I just ask you about challenges.
29:11
But on the flip side, is there anything that has surprised you about this job?
29:16
In a good way?
29:17
I think that what surprised me is the fact
29:20
that there are so many people out there doing the work.
29:24
There is so much work that's already being done
29:26
in the process of being done and has been done.
29:29
Let's connect that.
29:31
I think that today it could appear to be bespoke,
29:36
isolated moments like let's connect those into an ongoing movement.
29:41
Let's let's let all the communities know,
29:44
like, hey, these are all the programs available in your area.
29:47
And Moca could be kind of like a holding place
29:51
to bring visibility into all of that.
29:53
But yeah, it's amazing to just know that there are
29:56
so many people who are already vested into the work.
30:00
And I knew that within my my own communities.
30:02
But all throughout it's just a matter of connecting them.
30:07
There's so much like mindedness, there's so much
30:10
commonality in the things that we're looking to achieve.
30:13
How much more empowering would it be if we were to go for them together?
30:17
So, so so that's been amazing to see.
30:20
And it continues to unfold.
30:22
You know, I think a common misconception that people have is that,
30:25
you know, they this office only covers Hawaiian.
30:29
It's not the mayor's Office of Hawaiian Culture and Hawaiian Art.
30:32
Correct. We really you know, we take care of Korean Fest.
30:34
We have so many other players in the community.
30:37
You know, what would you say to someone who thinks, well,
30:40
why do they only focus on Hawaiian culture and Hawaiian art?
30:44
I honestly think that the opposite is true today.
30:46
I feel like a lot of the programs that we co-sponsor
30:49
are within our other communities.
30:53
And, and I feel like
30:55
there is a space for Moca to do more for the native Hawaiian community.
30:59
Yeah, yeah.
31:00
Do you have any role models or anyone who's leadership style you try to mimic?
31:06
Okay, so for the role model question, I don't have one role model,
31:10
but I can tell you that my kids have been my biggest inspiration.
31:15
They're growing up in a different way than my generation.
31:19
My husband's generation grew up.
31:20
And a lot of that is attributed to the fact that they're growing up here.
31:25
And so them growing up in a space
31:29
where they are free to know,
31:32
live and be who they are is empowering
31:36
and the confidence that has been instilled in them,
31:40
through the curriculum and the knowledge and the sense of identity
31:44
that company brings them is truly just inspiring.
31:49
And it's
31:49
I feel that it's my job as a parent to learn and live that journey with them.
31:55
I would say from a leadership style standpoint, people will say, oh,
32:00
I lead from the front
32:01
or I lead from the back, but I feel like I lead from the middle.
32:04
I'm not a leader who leads from the front because I'm not someone who says,
32:08
I know all the things.
32:09
I'm not a leader who only leads from the back.
32:11
Because while I do want to empower my teams and in the communities
32:15
around me, I want to know what is within those communities.
32:19
And so I take the approach of leading from within, leading from the middle,
32:24
so that I could have proximity and purview to everything that's around me.
32:29
Well, Jennifer, thank you for your time.
32:30
Is there anything that we missed?
32:31
I would encourage everyone to follow Vahid Pena on Instagram.
32:35
If you don't already, check out the Instagram.
32:37
Check out the website.
32:38
There's a wealth of information there, and we will continue to be pushing out
32:43
new information about phases one and two.
32:45
We have phase three that's coming, soon in December.
32:49
I would say that our own Instagram, which is Shanell
32:53
underscore mocha is also going to be revived.
32:56
And so you'll start to notice some additional content that's being shared.
33:00
Definitely follow us.
33:02
Because we've got good stuff
33:03
coming up for Hawaiian History Month that will be putting out
33:07
and then another note on Hawaiian History Month, we have events
33:11
that we'll be hosting a couple days holiday, and we're excited about that.
33:15
If you haven't already been there recently to see the Omega lol,
33:19
which is an, amazing,
33:22
installation by Melina Meyer.
33:25
We're going to activate that throughout the month of September,
33:27
so please be on the lookout of events to come.
33:31
And yeah, I mean, we want to hear from you.
33:35
If you have any ideas of how you'd like to be involved in any of the things
33:38
that we have under our purview, please let us know.
33:42
Reach out. And thank you so much for your time.
33:44
Thank you.
33:45
And mahalo to all of you for listening.
33:47
And until next time, Aloha.