Joshua Morris, of Warwick, with his parents, James and Alisia. He and his father are wearing leis from Hawaii.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

WARWICK –– Alisia Morris speaks with pride about her Hawaiian heritage, but it wasn’t always so.

Growing up with her five siblings on the island of Oahu, in a town called Waianae — she prefaces what she’s about to say by acknowledging, “this is horrible to say”— she always wanted to be white.

“Because being white meant you had money,” she says.

She and her family didn’t speak “proper English,” she says, but they also didn’t speak Hawaiian — it was thought to be a “dying language,” she says.

“We were second rate, always,” she says of her impression of her family’s place in society.

As she has gotten older, though, this Warwick Neck resident says she has gained an appreciation for her culture — especially its music, but even more so, its emphasis on the importance of family.

Morris, 49, shares her Hawaiian culture with her three sons — ages 27, 18 and 16 — and she’s no longer afraid of “the stigma that goes with that.”

A lot of Hawaiian families don’t have much money, but they manage, she says, with the strength of their families, like her large extended one. She was one of six siblings. Her mother’s oldest sister had 18 children, and one of her mother’s brothers had 13. Her cousins, she laughs, number in “the millions.”

“No matter what, family is most important,” she explains. “You could lose everything, but as long as you have your family, it doesn’t matter.”

In recent weeks, Morris has been taking calls on her cell phone from a sister in Hawaii, and she has spent evenings online seeking the best method for honoring her middle son as he became the first of her children to graduate from high school.

She knew Joshua, who graduated June 11 from Pilgrim High School, needed Hawaiian leis — or “garlands” in English — to mark the milestone.

In Hawaiian culture, a lei is a token, Morris says, “of love, gratitude and a multitude of things to the person you’re giving it to.” They are given on big occasions and “just to say hello,” much like someone here might give a bouquet of flowers.

After much deliberation, Morris bought leis made from orchids — the heartiest kind and, therefore, the kind best suited for their voyage via FedEx from Hawaii. She bought one crafted out of woven tea leaves, too, for it will dry out nicely, and he can preserve it.

The leis arrived Saturday for her son’s graduation party on Father’s Day.

Joshua Ikaika-Bass Morris takes pleasure in saying he was half the Hawaiian population at Pilgrim. His younger brother, Dylan, was the other half.

Together with the hula his mother will dance for him Sunday, the leis are gifts from mother to son. The hula is how the Hawaiian people communicate to show love, gratitude and respect, Alisia says, and it is the kind of gift one cannot buy.

Joshua’s hyphenated middle name is a combination of a Hawaiian word and a family last name. In many ways, he has grown into the Hawaiian half of his middle name and the culture it represents, as his mother has become more comfortable passing on her family traditions.

Although Alisia’s ethnicity is Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino and Spanish, and her husband’s is French-Canadian and English, Joshua, says, “I only say one. I say I’m Hawaiian.”

Although his mother translates the Hawaiian part of his middle name as strength, Joshua says the other definition, warrior, may be more fitting.

He has grown up in a military family. His father, James Henry Morris, is retired from the Navy, where he was the executive chef for the president of the Naval War College in Newport.

Just six weeks after Joshua was born, Alisia’s nephew was killed in the Persian Gulf War. His mother’s eyes still fill with tears when she talks of taking baby Joshua to his cousin’s funeral, a family story Joshua has grown up with.

Joshua has already joined the Army and went to basic training last summer. In August, he heads to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for advanced individual training. Although he is planning for college, he says he has already talked with his parents about perhaps serving one active-duty tour before college.

“It’s something that I want to do now,” he says. “I can’t really say I serve my country until I actually serve my country, if you know what I mean.”

And someday, he says with certainty, he will live in Hawaii. Even though he has visited his mother’s homeland only once, he still refers to where he lives now as “the mainland,” just as his mother does.

kbramson@projo.com