Native Hawaiian MMA Champion, Ilima-Lei Macfarlane | “I use my platform to highlight Mauna Kea and uplift Indigenous communities”

Ilima-Lei Macfarlane, Native Hawaiian professional MMA fighter shares why it is important to find community away from home, encourage our youth to pursue higher education, and support our larger Indigenous community. 

MMA Champion, Ilima-Lei Macfarlane | “I use my platform to highlight Mauna Kea and uplift Indigenous communities”. Photo courtesy of Ilima-Lei Macfarlane.

Tell us about your background and where you grew up.

I was born and raised in Hawai’i, on the island of Oahu and am one of 6 children. Growing up, I was lucky to attend a prestigious private school, Punahou, where Barack Obama attended. 

When I graduated from high school, I moved to San Diego and attended San Diego State University. My undergraduate degree was in Cultural Anthropology, and I did a Master’s in Liberal Studies program focused on Indigenous issues. I’ve been in San Diego for the past 10 years, and I consider it my new home base. 

How was the college application process? 

I was very fortunate, since Punahou was a college prep academy. In my Junior year, we had a mandatory course that covered the admissions process. This course basically guided us through the whole application process. It’s critical to have someone mentoring you and keeping you accountable to those deadlines. I was fortunately given all the tools and resources I needed to apply, and in hindsight, I wish more students had access to these resources. 

I do wish schools didn’t care as much about the numbers - how many students get into institutions of higher education. It’s important for students to understand all of their options (trade schools, community colleges, junior colleges, etc) and how finances factor in to the decision as well. There were definitely other options that I could have taken and that could have totally saved my parents a ton of money. 

There is extremely low Pacific Islander representation in higher education. How did you find your community away from home?

PIs were super underrepresented in my college. At the time, only 2% of the student body was PI, so I definitely experienced culture shock. When I got there, I told myself that I wanted to experience college life, and one way to do that seemed to be through the frats and sororities. I did rush, and right away was like — hell no. I straight up almost got into a fight. I also found some multicultural sororities that were almost a good fit for me, but that’s when I found PISA (Pacific Islander Student Organization) and realized, ok. This is for me. This is my crew.  

In college, I was heavily involved in the Pacific Islander Student Association (PISA). There’s very low representation of us in higher ed, so our group’s focus was on high school conferences to encourage more PIs to attend secondary school from higher education. 

How did you get into MMA fighting? 

I really wanted to be a teacher or work in the nonprofit sector. As soon as I finished my undergrad, during the summer off before grad school, I decided that I wanted to get in shape, so I joined a random MMA gym. 

I ended up loving it and fighting all throughout grad school. Eventually, I was fighting amateur for 3 semesters. When I finished my graduate program a semester early, I had so much free time, which allowed me to train and fight until I started my career as a teacher.

Surprisingly, I had an opportunity to fight professional, and that’s when my MMA career took off. 

Fighting has allowed me to pursue my other passions — working with Indigenous communities. 

MMA Champion, Ilima-Lei Macfarlane | “I use my platform to highlight Mauna Kea and uplift Indigenous communities”. Photo courtesy of Ilima-Lei Macfarlane.

Tell us about how you use your platform to empower other. 

People think fighting is the coolest thing ever, and for some reason, they listen to you. MMA has given me a platform to talk about things that are close to my heart, like Mauna Kea and Indigenous communities working with youth. While I initially planned on becoming a teacher, I can still be — but outside of the classroom. 

I’m in a position where other Native youth, especially girls, are looking up to me and saying wow - I can do that, too. I can be a strong powerful female in this patriarchal society. I love that I’m in a role model position showing girls and women around the world that they can be a strong wahine. I don’t need a man (screw gender stereotypes). You can be a boss. That’s my mantra when I walk into the cage. 

It’s been heartwarming when young girls or even women message me. Women going through hard times or a transitional phase reach out to me and tell me how I’ve helped motivate them. Its makes me feel like everything is worth it. 

There’s a worry that leaving the island means loosing your identity. Do you have advice for students who are nervous about pursuing higher education outside of their island nation?

It’s important to have representation in the highest levels of education. Even though it’s a western curriculum, and it’s important to be a proponent of Indigenous knowledge and identity, we also need to learn Western curriculum in order to better serve our Indigenous communities. 

I encourage women and all students to pursue higher education. While it’s not the only way to lead a successful life, it can be very beneficial when we return back to our communities. You will not lose your identity by going to a western higher education or leaving home. I actually felt stronger ties to my community after my experience abroad. 

Some of our kings and queens of the past would say “the only way we can fully serve our people is if we leave.” That’s important. If you want, you can leave the island. It might be hard, but you will return better and stronger.

MMA Champion, Ilima-Lei Macfarlane | “I use my platform to highlight Mauna Kea and uplift Indigenous communities”. Photo courtesy of Ilima-Lei Macfarlane.

You work to support not only Pacific communities, but more broadly speaking, Indigenous communities. Why is it important for us to support our larger Indigenous fam?

I believe in the idea of unity and solidarity. A lot of people ask if I’m Native American, because I work a lot with them. I have Native American dancers walk me out of my fights, and I’m at ceremonies weekly.

To me, we’re all just family, and I find it important to share solidarity amongst Native people. It doesn’t matter if you’re Native Hawaiian or pan Indigenous. We’re seeing even with Mauna Kea, that everyone’s coming together and showing unity. We all share the same histories, being oppressed Nations. We have many similar cultural beliefs, traditions, and strong ties with the land. It ties us all together. 

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