Keao Nesmith
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Tutu’s Hawaiian and the Emergence of a Neo-Hawaiian Language Keao NeSmith I am deeply grateful to the following people for helping me articulate my thoughts in this paper with their insight and gen- erous input in: Michael Puleloa, Dr. Walter Kahumoku, Dr. Albert Schütz, Dr. Victoria Anderson, Dr. No‘eau Warner, Laiana Wong, and ku‘ualoha ho‘omanawanui, but most espe- c i a l l y, my grandmother, Annie Kealoha Kaaialii Borg e s Kauhane, and the Ni‘ihau community. Ua kiponaia kuu naau i ke aloha io no kuu akua, kuu lahui, kuu aina, kuu mau kupuna, kuu mau makua, kuu mau hoahanau, a me kuu mau hoaloha. Ke pahola maila keia manao haili aloha nana e kiheahea nei i kuu manawa ia‘u e alana nei i keia wahi puolo manao ia oe, e ka mea heluhelu. Ke aloha o ke Akua mawaena o kaua. He Mo‘olelo (A Story) It is 1996, and I am attending a two day training conference at Tokai University in Honolulu for Hawaiian language immersion teachers. It is good to see colleagues, many of whom I have not seen in a while, and to renew friendships made over years while working together in developing the Hawaiian language immersion educational system. We feel a sense of kinship with our ancestors because while we’re learning to speak Hawaiian, we also are working to pass on our language to a new generation. In all, more than forty people who all speak Hawaiian to some level of proficien- cy are in attendance. Five are native-speakers1 from the Ni‘ihau community who teach at Ke Kula Ni‘ihau o Kekaha on Kaua‘i or at Ni‘ihau School on that island.2 The remainder of those in attendance are second-language (L2) speak- ers, most of whom have learned Hawaiian by taking courses at tertiary institu- tions (community colleges or universities). While the meeting is conducted in Hawaiian, none of the keynote speakers are TRAD speakers acquire Hawaiian language native-speakers; instead, our native-speaking skills. Typically, NEO speakers acquire the lan- colleagues sit quietly at the back of the room. guage from educational institutions which employ other NEO speakers, while TRAD Later, time is devoted for small group discus- speakers acquire Hawaiian as a first language sions on various topics. Our group addresses the spoken in the home. This has resulted, albeit question, “How does a Native Hawaiian view inadvertently, in differences in Hawaiian cultur- the concept of art?” One of the native-speakers al values, and ultimately, in different cultural in our group is a Ni‘ihau woman who is fluent identities, which have led to conflicts or misun- in Hawaiian, while her proficiency in English is derstandings between the two intersecting limited. After others present their ideas, she groups. In addition, I will argue that NEO offers an alternative view on art, sharing that it speakers are changing the way Hawaiian lan- is an expression of skill, deftness, and thought guage (and in extension, Hawaiian cultural val- which ranges from very pedestrian to the most ues) is understood, expressed, and embodied. grandiose acts. For her, art is an aspect of the Such change, though slow, is transforming person rather than his or her product. As soon as Native Hawaiian identity. she finishes, one of the L2-speakers shares an unrelated thought about some of the more com- Background mon aspects of art today. The discussion follows that line of thought without exploring the view Since the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian of our native-speaking group member. Kingdom in 1893 by US Marine-backed American businessmen, Hawai‘i’s political Introduction environment has been hostile towards Hawaiians.5 In 1896, the de facto government It is perhaps difficult to conceive that all people of Hawai‘i, comprised of the conspirators of the of Hawai‘i spoke only Hawaiian at one time. overthrow of 1893, enacted into law Act 57, Population estimates for the Hawaiian archipel- which made English the “medium and basis of ago at the time of Captain James Cook’s arrival instruction in all public and private schools.”6 in Hawai‘i in 1778 range from 200,000 to over Although petitions were submitted after the one million.3 Despite Act 57, which mandated passing of Act 57 by some schools to reinstate English as the official language of instruction in Hawaiian-medium education, they were sum- the public school system, Hawaiian language marily rejected.7 Act 57 exacerbated the decline continued to be commonly spoken until about in Hawaiian language usage by making it World War II when the number of people liter- impossible for Hawaiian language education to ate in Hawaiian no longer amounted to a viable exist.8 By 1940, Hawaiians made up only 15% market for the newspaper industry, as evidenced of the total population of Hawai‘i; Native by the closure of the last Hawaiian language Hawaiian speakers made up only a fraction of newspaper, Ka Hoku o Hawaii, in 1948.4 No that percentage.9 census has been taken in recent years of native- speakers; with the exception of the Ni‘ihau My mother was born a few years prior to community, most Hawaiian native-speakers Japan’s bombing of American military installa- today are elderly, and quickly passing on. tions at Pu‘uloa (commonly known as Pearl Harbor) and KÅne‘ohe in 1941. Her generation In this essay, I advocate that the differences experienced a strongly negative stigma about between what I am calling Neo-Hawaiian lan- being Hawaiian, a label which often embar- guage speakers (NEO) and Traditional Hawaiian rassed them. Because of pressure, from resident language speakers (TRAD) are a direct result of foreigners, it was undesirable to be a speaker of the different ways in which NEO speakers and Hawaiian or to live according to traditional cul- tural practices for fear of being humiliated and Alegado (1980) report that initial political even hit by teachers in front of peers for speak- activism began in 1970 with the protests against ing Hawaiian, or for not speaking “proper” or the evictions of Hawaiian families from Kalama “standard” American English.10 Valley, O‘ahu.11 Since that time, the University of Hawai‘i campuses have become important Because of these humiliating childhood experi- centers where Hawaiian issues are discussed ences, my grandmother and others of her gener- and debated, and activities centering around ation transferred the “no Hawaiian” rule to education in Hawaiian language, culture, poli- home, hoping to spare their children the same- tics, history, and arts are found. Thus, the efforts humiliation or hurt. They did not speak by Hawaiians to learn their language and culture Hawaiian to their children so as not to “hinder” are as much political as they are cultural. their progress in school and society. Thus, my mother’s generation, for the most part, do not As Dr. Walter Kahumoku III explains in his dis- know Hawaiian language or the cultural prac- seration on the subject (2000), it was not until tices it supports, such as traditional Hawaiian the 1970s that a new sense of pride and activism mo‘olelo (stories, histories). As my mother has emerged among Hawaiians.12 I refer to this time said, even today, many Hawaiians of her gener- of Hawaiian political and cultural activism, ation find it difficult to appreciate things which extends to the present, as the period of Hawaiian. “Neo-Hawaiian Nationalism” (NEON). This period of cultural and political re-awakening for While most Hawaiians of my grandparents’ gen- Hawaiians is seen in the increasing interest and eration were fluent native-speakers who could awareness of the importance of Hawaiian histo- recall accounts of Hawaiian heroes, genealogies, ry, culture, tradition, language, and nationalism. chants, and old songs, most of my mother’s The era also represents Hawaiian efforts to generation know virtually nothing of these reclaim at least a portion of what was denied things, and thus cannot pass them on to their them since 1893. This new period, I believe, is children, grandchildren, and great-grandchil- an attempt to recapture what I call the “Original dren, even if they want to. Because Hawaiian Hawaiian Nationalism Movement” (OHNM) language was almost completely wiped out by which began in 1840 when the Kingdom of the mid-twentieth century, it was often catego- Hawai‘i joined the world of nation-states with rized as a “dying language.” But with the revi- the establishment of its first Constitution, and talization of Aloha ‘ıina, or the Hawaiian ended when Hawaiian national pride and hope Nationalist Movement in the 1960s, the seeds for the restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom for Hawaiian language regeneration were plant- waned around World War II—a period spanning ed and nurtured. The focus shifted from catego- one hundred years.13 rizing Hawaiian as a dying language, to asking the question, “Can the Hawaiian language once The general sense of hopelessness and loss, again be a thriving language?” products of years of negative external influ- ences, resulted in the massive decline in popula- Ke Aloha ‘ıina (Hawaiian Nationalism) tion in the 19th century due to deaths from for- eign diseases, the illegal overthrow of the Over the past thirty years, the trend of Hawaiian Kingdom, the subsequent occupation Hawaiians studying the native language has of Hawai‘i by the United States, and the helped to awaken the current generation of English-only policies that directly led to the Hawaiians’ interest in being Hawaiian. This decline of spoken Hawaiian. This despair felt by drive has coincided with the political activism Hawaiians in the late 1940s is also reflected in of Hawaiians in the 1970s.