From Planting Seedlings in Fiji to Representing Hawaiʻi in Okinawa: McKinley's Ariana Nath Is Carrying Two Worlds With Her
One of 42 public high school students selected for the 2026 Hawaiʻi Sister-State Study Tours.
Student Snapshot
Name: Ariana Jeannette Nath
Preferred Name: Ariana
School: President William McKinley High School
Grade: 11th
Home Community: Honolulu (McKinley/Mōʻiliʻili area)
Delegation: Okinawa
Travel Dates: March 14–25/26, 2026
Focus Interests / Extracurriculars: Singing, playing instruments, composing music; volunteered at Treasure House Orphanage in Fiji for 6 months; former class vice president; traveled extensively with mother (flight attendant) across Asia, the Pacific, and the US
Why They Were Selected
Ariana arrived in Hawaiʻi just this year carrying sixteen years of life in Fiji, extensive travel across the Pacific and Asia, and six months of orphanage volunteer work behind her. She is genuinely new here — still finding her footing — and yet she already recognizes something familiar in Hawaiʻi's rhythms. That perspective, of someone who has moved between worlds and knows what it takes to belong somewhere new, makes her a natural ambassador.
What They're Excited About
Visiting another country and experiencing its culture firsthand; comparing traditions and perspectives with Hawaiʻi; sharing what she learns with friends and family
She Spent 16 Years in Fiji. Then She Moved to Hawaiʻi. Then She Got Selected for Okinawa.
Ariana Nath has been finding new homes her whole life. She grew up in Fiji for sixteen years — learning to plant seasonal seedlings in the backyard to sell at market, volunteering at an orphanage, traveling across the Pacific and Asia with her mother. This year, she moved to Honolulu for the first time. And now, just months after arriving, she's been selected as a PAAC Sister-State Student Ambassador to Okinawa.
Ariana is a junior at President William McKinley High School, a singer, instrumentalist, and composer who spent six months volunteering at the Treasure House Orphanage in Fiji before making the move to Hawaiʻi. She arrived here as a newcomer navigating a new school, a new island, and a new chapter — and she's been doing what she's always done: paying attention, adapting, and looking for what connects people rather than what separates them.
What makes Ariana a natural ambassador is precisely that she knows how to arrive somewhere unfamiliar and find the thread of home inside it. When she got to Hawaiʻi, she noticed the beaches, the community, the way people move through their days — and despite everything being different, something felt recognizable. She carries Fiji with her: the self-reliance, the community rootedness, the understanding that belonging is something you build. That same instinct will serve her in Okinawa.
"The surroundings are different, the environment is different, the people are different — yet the lifestyle and the common interaction are phenomenal." — Ariana Jeannette Nath, President William McKinley High School, Class of 2027
When Ariana comes home to Honolulu after Okinawa, she'll have one more chapter to add to a life already full of them. For a student still in her first year at McKinley, still finding her footing in Hawaiʻi, this trip isn't a detour — it's exactly the kind of experience that will help her put down roots. And in a school as diverse as McKinley, the stories she brings back will matter to more students than just herself.
