appeal for hawai'i ola

8/9/2019 Appeal for Hawai'i OLA

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Will you please forgive our use of English only in this message? We feel that the most

important sovereignty needof Native Hawaiians is to recover normal use of the Hawaiian

language in an integrated and bilingual society. Indeed, theAha Punana Leo, theKulaKaiapuni Hawaii charter immersion school programs, and the Hawaiian language faculties of the

University of Hawaii atM noa ,Hilo and elsewhere have inspired us to this end. However, lately

we have become aware of a very real and present concern.

We have observed Hawaiian language students transfering out of Hawaiian language

immersion programs for the fear of not being able to pursue their scholastic and professional

interests in the tertiary school system. Such as these are afraid that they wont get accepted into

the colleges catering to their chosen professions. Some immersion charter schools have nowresponded to this perception by increasing English language courses in their curriculum in the

higher secondary grades. Other adjustments are being proposed by Hawaiian language planners,

however, in our view, such incrementalist planning approaches toward language revitalization

fail to acknowledge the systemic motivators to make the transition from the classroom to the

marketplace to be a predictable outcome for speakers of Hawaiian language.

There simply arent enough teaching and entertainment jobs to facilitate the Hawaiian

language capabilities of our youth who are dedicating their educational careers to our beloved

mother tongue. We believe Hawaiian language planners need to venture out of the comfort of the

language nest and acknowledge the diverse vocational needs of our Hawaiian speaking people.

While emphasis on language skills in places closest to the heart (in the home) is an essential

focus for revitalization efforts, this strategy is not sufficient to sustain language growth in a

competitive economic environment; it fails to address the communication needs of those who
http://www.ahapunanaleo.org/http://www.ahapunanaleo.org/http://www.k12.hi.us/~kaiapuni/http://www.k12.hi.us/~kaiapuni/http://manoa.hawaii.edu/hshk/kawaihuelani//http://manoa.hawaii.edu/hshk/kawaihuelani//http://manoa.hawaii.edu/hshk/kawaihuelani//http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/http://www.k12.hi.us/~kaiapuni/http://www.k12.hi.us/~kaiapuni/http://manoa.hawaii.edu/hshk/kawaihuelani//http://www.olelo.hawaii.edu/http://www.ahapunanaleo.org/


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must leave the home in order to sustain it. By their resistence to implementing a systemic

response to language revitalization requirements, certain Hawaiian language education planners

may be compared with those U.S. auto manufacturers who, failing to implement systems

management practices, gave their competitors in Japan the advantage in the marketplace.

Among Native Hawaiian leaders interests and goals, we have noticed a philosophical

division between those professional interests of bureaucrats and those of educators. Liability-

conscious bureaucrats, who are often disposed toward a long history of welfare policies that rely

upon racial entitlements for their beneficiaries, contend against a new generation of educators

who inspire professional achievement among Hawaiians with national idealism and self-

improvement. We feel that these educators sensibilities must not be ignored in the formation of

public policy. Other societies struggling withminority language preservation problems, such as

Canada and Ireland, indicate that systemic change at the highest levels of policymaking is

necessary in order to prevent a dominant language group from overwhelming the indigenous

minority. While any amount of governmental legislation will not, on its own, guarantee the

preservation of a language (although such legislation indicates the preservation of the same), we

maintain there are insufficient incentives in the present political economy of the State of Hawaii

to sustain widespread use of Hawaiian language, and so there is concern that a language

revitalization movement can collapse if appropriate systemic changes are not soon implemented

to make Hawaiian a language of not only the home but also the workplace.

To address this problem, we started a grassroots campaign to increase the availability of

Hawaiian language public services calledHawai'i Bilingual, or H2' . After only 12 months

presence on Facebook and Maoliworld over 2,000 members joined our cause, and this number

includes a broad base of interests such as Aha P nana Leo, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs,

members of the Univeristy of Hawai i faculty, and bipartisan support of several candidates and

current holders of Hawaii public office -- all of whom, through their subscription to Hawai i

Bilingual, support the right of every resident of Hawaii to receive public services in the

official language of their choice, Hawaiian or English. Eighteen months ago, Hawai'i Bilingual

initiated a monthly vigil comprised of two components:vigils of prayer and fasting that appeal

for divine intervention as well as consolidates intention for positive change along withvigils of
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creativity that demonstrate bilingual values in a way that enjoins the cooperation of the non-

Hawaiian speaking community in Honolulu.

It is a sad fact that speakers of Hawaiian today will not find very much in contemporary

Honolulu life to confirm their welcome in a city that once was their cultural capitol. Left both

abandoned by a monolingual militaristic program of 20th century American development and

alienated by todays nihilistic materialism and global economy, many Native Hawaiians have

opted for a life strategy of retreat, of withdrawl from modern urban life; they have sought to

reconnect with a traditional agrarian identity and lifestyle rooted in unskeptical nurturing love for

the ina , the land that feeds, drawing sources of inspiration from the narrative of their pre-

Western contact. Our indigenous Hawaiian familial way of relating with others and with our

environment is not practiced, much less appreciated, by most Americans whose worldview tends

to be mechanistic and atomic. And the democratic values of shared governance they do profess

are not practiced, or are withdrawn, when it comes to considering Hawaiis host culture. As a

result, there are many among us who now even advocate for a complete break with American

culture through outright secession from the United States, however, as a whole, we are not yet

convinced that this is a sustainable solution either.

Globally, it is now a well known fact that since the turn of the 20th Century many human and

civil rights of native Hawaiians have largely been ignored by American governance. Hawaiians

were taught to think that Hawaiian language and culture are inappropriate for a modern era; their

language would be phased out of public life and discourse through a coordinated program of

assimilation into American culture, since the majority of the burgeoning commercial wealth

being created through the States industrialization was dominated by its English-speaking

immigrants. Yet it was during the 1970s civil rights movements that the local-familial values of

traditional native Hawaiian ecology were rediscovered, and these values even found a

professional voice in governances environmental regulatory mission. And over the last few

decades, as an unanticipated result of the success of the Hawaiian language revitalization

movement, Hawaiian culture has demonstrated its resiliance, in its ability to adapt and evolve,

through its blending of traditional and western technologies and sciences. A glance through a few

pages ofM maka Kaiao, A Modern Hawaiian Vocabulary (a companion volume to the Hawaiian

Dictionary) published in 2003 by the University of Hawaii, through the work of the K mike
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Hua lelo (Hawaiian Lexicon Committee of the Aha Punana Leo and the Hale Kuamoo), will

easily confirm this fact.

Today speakers of Hawaiian apprehend and interpret complexities of contemporary urban life

in the Hawaiian language. Hawaiian is now being used to describe and explain mathematics and

physics, political and social sciences, urban design and engineering, geography and medicine, in

addition to theology and law. However, the inertia of regulatory forces that preserve the status

quo in the States economy shuns any accountability to Hawaiis indigenous language. The

manufactured products provided in todays marketplaces render the speaker of Hawaiian

incapable of making informed consumer choices, compromising their ability to even exert control

over their own persons and property while in the city. Those who speak only Hawaiian are not

served by various human and regulatory services that their tax dollars pay for. Further, it is

generally assumed that if one speaks both Hawaiian and English that she must speak English in

public life. Therefore, we must acknowledge the continuing existence of culteral genocide and a

de facto linguistic apartheid against speakers of Hawaiian in the cities and in most Hawaiian

public spaces, with Hawaiian language immersion schools and language classes, hula schools and

perhaps some churches and cattle ranches excepted.

In spite of official resolutions acknowledging the illegality of the American occupation of

Hawaii and the deprivation of Native Hawaiians of their human and civil rights, not enough is

being done through the initiative of Americans and Hawaii residents to effect the restitution of

losses sustained through the last110 years of cultural genocide. Apparently most Americans are

content to keep this problem swept under the rug. And when Hawaiis immigrants come to

realize that they may be contributing to the Native Hawaiians plight, they often feel helpless

because of their own struggles to eke out a living where jobs generally dont pay enough to allow

them to live comfortably, much less participate in civic life. Is it any wonder why so many Native

Hawaiians have opted out of the system? We presume that, until a comprehensive and

coordinated effort to address the cause of abuse of Hawaiian human and civil rights is

implemented, the stultifying feelings of victimization and hopelessness will continue.

Native Hawaiian leaders are presently challenged to stem the tide of growing hopelessness

and poverty, to promote positive change at the highest level of governance that leads to new hope.

It is widely understood that the health of the Hawaiian language indicates the relative health of
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Hawaiian culture. Therefore, we propose making Hawaiian-English bilingualism a cabinet-level

priority in the State of Hawaii as it is practiced in Canada and Ireland. By conditioning the

official status of the Hawaiian language inArticle 15, Section 4 of the Hawaii State

Constitution, there is widespread feeling that the Constitution does not recognize Hawaiian

language has having equal rights to those of the English language. Considering the extent of

governmental regulation undershich Hawaiians must abide, if we do not soon call for systemic

change, then those who have dedicated their educations to Hawaiian will feel unprotected by the

law-abiding Hawaiian community and seek solutions that the various secessionist groups offer.

Building on the successes of the Aha Punana Leo and Hawaiian immersion school programs,

were blending this enthusiasm for language revitalization into our governance problem by

advocating that regulation, even plans for future economic development happen more literally in

Hawaiian terms, indeed through the promotion of "official bilingualism." Its what Canada

finally did 40 years ago to avert Quebecs secession, and as a result of a long process that began

with its independence Ireland adopted their Official Languages Act just a few years ago. We

feel that its time Hawaii did the same, but without secession. We all know that its really what

the Americans should have done 110 years ago as part of their fiduciary responsibility of

administering governance in Hawaii.

This is what Hawaii Bilingual is all about, thatevery citizen of Hawaiishall have the right

to receive public services in the official language of their choice, Hawaiian or English. We

Native Hawaiians have come to understand that our lelo (language) is as essentialto our ea

(life) as is wai (fresh water, which is the root of our word for value - waiwai ). And so as to

relate to the dominant culture, we chose the chemical name for water (H2O) to indicate the

kaona for our acronym H2 for Hawaii 2 lelo (Hawaii Bilingual translated in Hawaiian

is Hawaii lelo P lua ).

So lets take a look what an Official Language Act would contribute to the cultivation ofHawaiis two official languages, Hawaiian and English. Inprinciple, the Hawaii Official

Languages Act will establish:

1. Equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to the use of official languages in all

institutions of the Legislature and government of the State;
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2. Full and equal access to the Legislature and legislative proceedings, to the laws of the State

and to courts established by the State government and Federal government in the State in both

official languages;

3. Guarantees relating to the right of any member of the public to communicate with, and to

receive available services from, any institution of the Legislature or government of the State

government and Federal government in the State in either official language;

4. Officers and employees of either institutions and public bodies of the State and Federal

governments or governments of the State and Federal republic should have equal opportunities to

use the official language of their choice while working together in pursuing the goals of those

institutions and public bodies;

5. English-speaking residents of Hawaii and Hawaiian-speaking residents of Hawaii should,

without regard to their ethnic origin or first language learned, have equal opportunities to obtain

employment in the institutions of the State Legislature or governments of the State and Federal

republic;

6. The State Legislature is committed to achieving, with due regard to the principle of

selection of personnel according to merit, full participation of English-speaking and Hawaiian-

speaking residents of Hawaii in its institutions;

7. The State Legislature is committed to enhancing the vitality and supporting the

development of English and Hawaiian linguistic minority communities, as an integral part of the

two official language communities of the State, and to fostering full recognition and use of

Hawaiian and English in the Hawaiian Islands;

8. The State Legilature is committed to cooperating with County and Municipal

governments

and their institutions and public bodies to support the development of Hawaiian and English

linguistic minority communities, to provide services in both Hawaiian and English languages, to

respect the constitutional guarantees of minority language educational rights and to enhance

opportunities for all to learn both Hawaiian and English languages;

9. The State Legislature is committed to enhancing the bilingual character of the State

Capitol Region and to encouraging the business community, labor organizations and voluntary

organizations in the State to foster the recognition and use of Hawaiian and English languages;


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10. The State Legislature recognizes the importance of preserving and enhancing the use of

languages other than Hawaiian and English while strengthening the status and use of the official

languages;

and inpurpose, the Official Languages Act would:

1. Ensure respect for English and Hawaiian as the official languages of the State and ensure

equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all governmental institutions,

in particular with respect to their use in the Legislative proceedings, in legislative and other

instruments, in the administration of justice, in communicating with or providing services to the

public and in carrying out the work of State, County and municipal institutions;

2. Support the development of Hawaiian and English linguistic minority communities and

generally advance the equality of status and use of the Hawaiian and English languages within

the Hawaiian Islands; and

3. Set out the powers, duties and functions of governmental institutions and publc bodies with

respect to the official languages of the State, including the establishment of an Office of the

Commissioner of Official Languages (and to define its functions),

4. Provide for the publication by a Commissioner of Official Languages of certain

information relevant to the purposes of this Act and related matters.

The Hawaiian Civic Club of Waimanalo submitted a resolution to the Association of

Hawaiian Civic Clubs November 2009 Convention in support of the State Legislature's adoption

of an Official Languages Act for Hawai i. (You may download a working draft of the resolution

replete with hyperlinks and supporting appendices as well astheHawaii OLA Workshopnotes

and petition form.)

If you are interested in working together toward realizing a bilingually functioning Hawaiian

society, then we would like to speak with you at your earliest convenience, so please email us at

[email protected]!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19519047/Submitted-HCCWaimanalo-Resolution-for-AHCC-Conventionhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/19432080/ResolutionWithHyperlinksAppendiceshttp://www.scribd.com/full/34241201?access_key=key-1jj66ixmza4b4lwxdncyhttp://www.scribd.com/full/34241201?access_key=key-1jj66ixmza4b4lwxdncyhttp://www.scribd.com/full/34241201?access_key=key-1jj66ixmza4b4lwxdncyhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/21146137/Hawai-i-OLA-Workshophttp://www.scribd.com/doc/19983334/Hawaii-Bilingual-Petition-Formmailto:[email protected]://www.scribd.com/doc/19519047/Submitted-HCCWaimanalo-Resolution-for-AHCC-Conventionhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/19432080/ResolutionWithHyperlinksAppendiceshttp://www.scribd.com/full/34241201?access_key=key-1jj66ixmza4b4lwxdncyhttp://www.scribd.com/doc/21146137/Hawai-i-OLA-Workshophttp://www.scribd.com/doc/19983334/Hawaii-Bilingual-Petition-Formmailto:[email protected]


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