Fall 2017 Volume 2 LANGUAGE SUPPRESSION, REVITALIZATION, AND NATIVE HAWAIIAN IDENTITY Shari Nakata J.D. (UCI Law), Ph.D. (Classics, UCI) Inland Counties Legal Services. I ka ʻōlelo nō ke ola, i ka ʻōlelo nō ka make1 Through language there is life; through language there is death Having been the target of colonialist suppression for over a century and a half, the Hawaiian language has experienced a period of revitalization that began with the Native Hawaiian cultural and political renaissance of the 1970s. This revitalization, achieved largely through the growth and development of immersion schools, has led to a dramatic increase in the number of official speakers of Hawaiian and to more widespread acceptance of the language. Suppression of the language, however, is still ongoing in different contexts, particularly in education, government, and the courts. This holds true despite Hawaiian’s designation as one of the two official languages of Hawaiʻi. Yet there are legal steps that might be taken to solidify the status of Hawaiian as an official language—not just in theory, but also in practice. I. The Native Hawaiian both by means of ancient was political, as it precipitated Renaissance methods; and the spiritual long overdue official practices of the ancient recognition of Native Hawaiian In the 1970s, Hawaiʻi was religion, including the rights. To this end, the Hawaiʻi witness to an extraordinary preservation and maintenance State Constitutional Native Hawaiian renaissance of sacred spaces. Moreover, the Convention in 1978 enacted that revitalized an indigenous renaissance gave rise to a amendments to the Hawaiʻi people long subjected to renewed interest in learning the State Constitution that Western colonial domination Native Hawaiians’ ancestral committed the state to the and suppression.1 This methods of navigation. In 1976, preservation and promotion of renaissance was multifaceted the newly-founded Polynesian Native Hawaiian culture. One and complex. On one level, it Voyaging Society2 launched of these amendments was a cultural renaissance, as it the Polynesian voyaging canoe established the Office of heralded a resurgence of Hōkūleʻa (“Star of Gladness”), Hawaiian Affairs, charged with interest in various aspects of which made a revolutionary the mission of improving the Native Hawaiian heritage: journey to Tahiti and back by well-being of Native traditional chants (oli), music, means of those ancient Hawaiians. The sovereignty and dance (hula kahiko); the navigation techniques, using movement for Native Hawaiian cultivation of traditional crops only celestial signs and ocean self-determination also gained such as taro (kalo) and the currents as guides.3 ground during the renaissance, practice of aquaculture through On another level, the as Native Hawaiian political the use of fishponds (loko iʻa), Native Hawaiian renaissance leaders and activists belonging 1 See William H. Wilson, The Hawaiʻi ke ola, ‘Life is found in the 3 Polynesian Navigation, POLYNESIAN Sociopolitical Context of Establishing Hawaiian language,’ INT’L J. SOC. VOYAGING SOCIETY, Hawaiian-medium Education, in LANGUAGE 123, 130–131 (1998). http://www.hokulea.com/education-at- INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY-BASED 2 POLYNESIAN VOYAGING SOCIETY, sea/polynesian-navigation/. EDUCATION 95, 98–100 (Stephen May ed., http://www.hokulea.com/. [https://perma.cc/AV5T-84MM] 1999); William H. Wilson, I ka ʻōlelo [https://perma.cc/8QFF-A98J] 14 Fall 2017 Volume 2 to different grassroots immersion schools began suppressed language goes hand organizations began organizing operating in 1984.6 These were in hand with a revitalization of and demonstrating on a regular the first official immersion a suppressed cultural and basis for the sovereignty schools in the United States political identity. Revitalizing cause.4 with an indigenous language as the Hawaiian language means the medium of instruction. In revitalizing Native Hawaiian “By 1983, there were only 1987, the state Board of identity. This Native Hawaiian two thousand native Education agreed to a pilot identity was erased in the speakers in Hawai’I.” program of Hawaiian language nineteenth century by a immersion in selected public “language shift and sovereignty Especially crucial, schools.7 Full-fledged shift in government and however, to the Native Hawaiian language programs education domains” that were Hawaiian renaissance was the and Hawaiian studies “simultaneous and symbiotic.”9 start of the revitalization of the programs—taught in Just as English supplanted the Hawaiian language (ʻōlelo Hawaiian—at the University of Hawaiian language as the Hawaiʻi). The language had Hawaiʻi, which had gotten off language of education and been banned in 1896 as a the ground in the 1970s, governance, so did the United medium of instruction in burgeoned in the 1980s.8 States supplant Hawaiian schools, and almost eighty This process of language sovereignty. Indeed, the years later, it was in serious revitalization has served as an linguistic dominance of English danger of extinction. attempt to resist the colonialist was largely dependent upon the By 1983, there were only suppression that the language language being granted the two thousand native speakers in had undergone over the past “sole legitimacy of Hawaiʻi, including fifty under century and a half. governance.”10 the age of eighteen, in addition In a number of ways, the to a number of much older “The language of a people revitalization of the Hawaiian native speakers, most of them is an inextricable part of language is no longer living in a community of full- the identity of that people. suppressed as it once was. It is blooded Native Hawaiians on Therefore, a revitalization now recognized, of course, as 5 the small island of Niʻihau. of a suppressed language one of Hawaiʻi’s two official Via a constitutional amendment goes hand in hand with a languages.11 It is now possible in 1978, the state had revitalization of a to receive a K-12 Hawaiian- designated Hawaiian as one of suppressed cultural and medium education in selected the two official languages of political identity.” public schools. The University Hawaiʻi. Due to the concerted of Hawaiʻi at Hilo offers efforts of a grassroots The language of a people is graduate degrees taught in organization of parents who an inextricable part of the Hawaiian: an M.A. in Hawaiian wanted Hawaiian to be their identity of that people. Language and Literature and children’s primary language, Therefore, a revitalization of a independent Hawaiian 4 For overviews of the sovereignty DAUGHTER: COLONIALISM AND 7 Id. movement, see, e.g., A NATION RISING: SOVEREIGNTY IN HAWAIʻI (1999). 8 Id. HAWAIIAN MOVEMENTS FOR LIFE, LAND, 5 NATIVE HAWAIIAN LAW: A TREATISE 9 Breann Nuʻuhiwa, “Language Is Never AND SOVEREIGNTY (Noelani Goodyear- 1274 (Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie About Language”: Eliminating Language Kaʻōpua, Ikaika Hussey & Erin ed., 2015). Bias in Federal Education Law to Further Kahunawaikaʻala Wright eds., 2014); J. 6 See A Timeline of Revitalization, E OLA Indigenous Rights, 37 U. HAW. L. REV. KĒHAULANI KAUANUI, HAWAIIAN BLOOD: KA ʻŌLELO HAWAIʻI, 381, 406 (2015). COLONIALISM AND THE POLITICS OF http://www.ahapunanaleo.org/index.php?/ 10 Id. at 405. SOVEREIGNTY AND INDIGENEITY (2008); about/a_timeline_of_revitalization/. 11 Hawaiʻi is the only state in the nation HAUNANI-KAY TRASK, FROM A NATIVE [https://perma.cc/C6VL-3FQB] with two official languages. 15 Fall 2017 Volume 2 Hawaiian12 and a Ph.D. in immersion schools have Courts neither accept Indigenous Language and regularly faced uphill battles documents in Hawaiian nor Cultural Revitalization.13 The for recognition and state allow Hawaiian to be spoken in official state motto and anthem funding, notwithstanding the court proceedings. are in Hawaiian.14 The state commitment to the preservation The revitalization of the and municipal governments use and promotion of Native Hawaiian language and Native official Hawaiian orthography Hawaiian culture in the state Hawaiian identity thus for words and names in official constitutional amendments of continues to face various documents and street signs.15 1978. These advocates have challenges. For all the There is a weekly radio also faced the skepticism of achievements of the Native program broadcast entirely in those who believe that Hawaiian renaissance, and Hawaiian.16 There is also a Hawaiian immersion schools despite the progress that the television station that will produce individuals who language has made over the broadcasts programs in are monolingual and unable to past forty years in avoiding Hawaiian,17 and the prestigious make their way in a country extinction, the Hawaiian hula competition at the Merrie where English is the de facto language is still far from being Monarch Festival is now official language. Moreover, an official language in practice. broadcast in both English and despite its official status, The aim of this paper is to Hawaiian.18 Banks in Hawaiʻi Hawaiian is not an official interrogate the Hawaiian even accept checks drafted in language of government in language’s status as an official Hawaiian.19 Hawaiʻi. Article XV, Section 4 language of Hawaiʻi by Yet in other ways, the of the Hawaiʻi State examining how and why current situation belies the Constitution designates English suppression of the language Hawaiian language’s and Hawaiian as the state’s continues to this day, both in designated official status. The official languages, “except that ways that are different from total number of speakers Hawaiian shall be required for those implemented in the (including second-language public acts and transactions nineteenth century, but also in speakers) is estimated to be just only as provided by law.” With ways that are not very different over 18,000 out of a state very few exceptions, state at all. Part II of the paper will population of 1.4 million.20 statutes and city ordinances are trace the history of the Advocates for Hawaiian published only in English. colonialist suppression of the 12 Master of Arts (M.A.) in Hawaiian Ponoʻī, composed by King David Language Policy and the Courts, 34 HAW.