#nativehawaiians

Past research suggests creating group communities and protesting are the best forms of advocacy. Creating more group communities supporting Native Hawaiian’s voices can help build networking among the community as well as provide support when protesting (Sonn and Fisher, 1998). An issue I feel strongly about is the Hawaiian voice, this includes not only the language, but also their advocating voices. Like I mentioned in “Taking our Voice”, the Hawaiian language is a dying language. There are smaller programs to help teach it in schools, but is it enough? Sometimes, the commute can look undesirable or unachievable for those who want to learn, or maybe they just don’t have the opportunity. It doesn’t help that our voting rates are so low in this state. Possibly, making a group focused on raising voting rates could promote getting the Hawaiian’s voices back into politics to promote change. Change to add more Hawaiian language programs or anything else needed to help the people of this state and the islands itself. When voting doesn’t work there’s always protest and having a group to help makes the challenge easier. Protests seem to raise awareness in Hawaii, if we look at past protests like the Hawaii Superferry, the telescope building on Mauna Kea, and the hotel worker strikes on Oahu and Maui, it really gets the attention of those in power as well as the community itself. Although, we can’t just rely on the Hawaiian people to be making changes, allies and the rest of the public should be making them too. An anti-oppressive education seems like a good start in the right direction. Educating our future to become more knowledgeable about our history. How history is taught now, is through the dominant lens. That’s what I learned growing up, never really learning about what happened to the Native Americans until I was a lot older. An anti-oppressive education emphasizes switching that lens towards the point of view of the other (Kumashiro, 2000). If we, as a nation can enforce this type of education, it’ll stop the unwarranted glorification of this country and portray the truth of this country’s oppressive mechanisms. We can help Native Hawaiians, as well as many other oppressed groups receive at least a little bit of reparation by admitting this truth instead of trying to hide it.

Kanani Duarte (Hula Dancer)

If there is one detrimental thing the White settlers took away from this culture it was our voice. The biggest hit towards Hawaiian culture was the bans of the 1800s (Trask, 2000). The Hawaiian way of storytelling was through spoken word and when the missionaries came, they took away both of our forms of language. The first was hula, it was more than just a tourist attraction or a form of art. It played an important role towards the Hawaiian history, through dance and chant one could keep the genealogy, culture, mythology, and history alive (Haley, 2014). Taking that away was taking away another form of our language. Thankfully, I got to learn the dance of Hula growing up, but it always dawned on me that while I danced, I would never really dance like those in the past because I could never understand what story I was telling. This leads to the next language ban, the Hawaiian language itself. It was taken after the overthrow of the kingdom, entirely banned from schools and government (Trask, 2000). Taking away the children’s chances of learning the culture as well as making it even more possible for White settlers to gain their foothold in government, After all, if the government affairs were in English, they would know exactly what was going on. This has heavily affected the present as well, with only “0.1 percent of the population able to speak the Hawaiian language” (Haley, 2014, p. 339). Sadly, I too am a part of that 99%. This was a language that one couldn’t learn at home, ironically now it is a language that is often taught in school, yet only a few schools offered to teach it. On my island there were only a few Hawaiian Immersion programs and if one wasn’t close to your home commuting was the only option. The only way to fix this is through governmental change, but I feel history plays a role in the present once again when it comes to governmental affairs. Not only were the Hawaiian forms of speaking taken, so was their advocating voices. The Hawaiian people felt helpless after the unlawful annexation of Queen Liliuokalani took place, petitions and protests were held, but nothing seemed to change (Haley, 2014). Now looking at the present, I can still see that projected helplessness. A lot of my family members don’t vote, they have a negative outlook towards the government and much of the state seems to have the same mentality. The Hawaii voter turnout ranked dead last out of 50 states for the 2016 election (Nakaso, 2017). Now there wasn’t any significant correlation between the past and present, but it seems very coincidental. Our voice was taken away from us in the past and it’s still affecting our present, but it needs to be brought back for our future.

#NativeHawaiians Native Hawaiians : There are several shapeshifting legends out of the Hawaiian islands including the famous volcano goddess Pele who could shift into whatever appearance she wanted. There are also several shark-shifter legends.

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