Haunani-Kay Trask : CONTEXT QUESTION 1 : How do you define the educational context in which your teaching takes place?

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Transcript

Colonialism for sure, that's the situation that we're in in Hawaiʻi.(1) We're a colony and colonialism is everywhere present, not only in the physical plant that is Honolulu and the University of Hawaiʻi, but in the classes.

Who gets to take the classes?
Who's admitted to the university?
How much money is available? 

So when I come into the classroom, I'm already conscious that all of these students are the product of 200 years of colonization or more.(2)

And almost all of our students are Hawaiian, so it's an audience that is aware of their historical subjugation. They're aware of it, they may not have the word “colonialism” for it, but they're very attuned to discrimination against Hawaiians, to the sovereignty movement,(3) because right now we're in maybe the middle of a 20-year struggle.

They are conscious too because of the movement that they are at a distinct disadvantage compared to all the other students, because they have to carry the burden of responsibility to the lāhui.(4)

They can't just be individuals - that's not allowed - and they don't think like that in any case. So they have the burden of the obligation to finish their education and do something constructive and supportive of the people.

Most students who come to college wherever they may be don't feel that. Black students probably do, American Indian students surely do, but definitely white students are individuals. They are, if at all, obligated to parents who pay for it or to maybe a family name, but they don't have a lāhui, they don't have a nation.

So it's a burden to both come to the university and to graduate, because expectations at this moment in our history are very high, and those expectations are not only their parents', they're mine. I tell my students, "You are not only fortunate but you are obligated, and you can do whatever it is you decide personally or culturally is your talent and your mission - if you want to use that word - but you have to do something." There's no individualism that runs your life that takes precedence over the lāhui.(5)

And that's a burden, and it's a burden because they're the poorest students, they have the largest families, they have tremendous debts. Hawaiʻi is very expensive - all my students work for example - I don't have any students… Even the scholarship students work, even those that have financial aid, because they cannot afford to live in Hawaiʻi. And if they try and move out and not live with parents or family in general then they have four or five students in one place.(6)

And then I found out there are specific difficulties for students themselves. For example, I have students that live in the dormitories from the neighbor islands and they call themselves legals and illegals. And I said, "Well what's an illegal?" (It's interesting because it conjures up "illegal aliens" and all this sort of continent shifting between Mexico and Los Angeles…) and their answer was, "An illegal is someone who doesn't have a dorm room and who then goes from friend to friend and sleeps on the floor." Because the dorms are very high priority for neighbor island kids, and if they don't get it then…

And I thought, well, this should give me a sense of appreciation of how difficult it is to come to school if you are sleeping on a hard floor or in a roll-up mattress. You have no sense of home or place. Even though Hawaiʻi is your place, that doesn't mean that you have a place on the campus.

And they all work. Working campuses mean less time for studies, less time for discussion. For example, hanging around after class - nobody hangs around after class. And I personally really miss that, because then I don't have any time with them. So all my time with my students is organizing time.

Notes

(1) colonialism: “Behaviors, ideologies, and economies that enforce the exploitation of Native people in the colonies.” This definition by Haunani-Kay Trask is built upon the larger context of imperialism.

Trask defines imperialism as “a total system of foreign power in which another culture, people, and way of life penetrate, transform, and come to define the colonized society.  The function and purpose of imperialism is exploitation of the colony. Using this definition, Hawaiʻi is a colony of the United States.” (Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, revised edition. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1999. page 251)

(2) 200 years of colonization: The process of colonization began in Hawaiʻi with the arrival of the English navigator and explorer, Captain James Cook, in 1778. He and his crew knowingly brought and spread fatal diseases that would devastate the Hawaiian population. Just as Columbus mapped the way to the Americas for other white explorers, Cook located the Hawaiian Islands on the European map. By the 19th century, hordes of European and  American explorers, traders, missionaries, and businessmen had settled in the islands. By 1898, Hawaiʻi was a sugar planter American outpost. After the second world war, Hawaiʻi became the command center of American military control of the Pacific.  

Today, Hawaiʻi remains an occupied country under American control, with Native Hawaiians as legal wards of the state and federal governments. While white and Asian settlers have thrived in Hawaiʻi, the socio-economic statistics for Hawaiians remain similar to that of other colonized peoples around the world. For example, Hawaiians endure higher rates of unemployment, poverty, under-education, illiteracy, homelessness, substance abuse, domestic violence, disease, mortality rates, and suicide than any settler group. (statistics from Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Native Hawaiian Data Book, 1998. http://www.oha.org/databook/)

(3) sovereignty movement: A decades long struggle by Hawaiians to reclaim their nation, land, and resources from their colonial overseer, the United States. Haunani-Kay Trask writes:

More akin to the American Indian Movement than to the Black Civil Rights Movement, the Hawaiian Movement began as a battle for land rights but would evolve, by 1980, into a larger struggle for native Hawaiian autonomy. Land claims first appeared, as in Kalama Valley, as community-based assertions for the preservation of agricultural land against resort and subdivision use. By the mid 1970s, these claims had broadened to cover military-controlled lands and trust lands specifically set aside for Hawaiians by the U.S. Congress but used by non-beneficiaries. (Haunani-Kay Trask, "The Birth of the Modern Hawaiian Movement: Kalama Valley, O'ahu, The Hawaiian Journal of History, Honolulu: Hawaiian Historical Society, 1987, p.126.)

During the 1980's and 1990's, the sovereignty movement continued to evolve. In 1993, over 15,000 Native Hawaiians marched to the ʻIolani Palace, the site of the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.  Under the leadership of Mililani Trask, Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi created a comprehensive plan for achieving sovereignty, the “Hoʻokupu a Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi:  The Master Plan” (1995) which can be found in Haunani-Kay Trask’s From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi.

(4) Lāhui: A nation, people, or race.

(5) Hawaiian students at UH: Although Native Hawaiians are 23% of the student population in the public school system, a smaller number continue on to the University of Hawaiʻi system. The retention rate for Native Hawaiians, like other colonized peoples, is very low. By the end of their second year, 30% of the Native Hawaiian students have left, primarily because of high tuition costs. The graduation rate for Hawaiians from the university system with a four-year degree is only 48%, while the rate for settlers is 75% for Japanese, 68% for Chinese, and 62% for Filipinos. Another reason for the low retention rate is the presence of settler racism against Native students by settler faculty members. 

Excerpt from Racism Against Native Hawaiians at the University of Hawaiʻi: A Personal and Political View.

...it is only within the context of colonialism that formal education in Hawaiʻi can be understood. Indeed, public education in Hawaiʻi is similar in purpose to Francophone education in French-controlled Tahiti, and English education in Commonwealth New Zealand. The University of Hawaiʻi stands atop the educational pyramid of public schools as the flagship campus for the State. With over 40,000 full- and part-time students, it is a living symbol of colonization. In many ways, the university is an educational equivalent to the American military command center in Hawaiʻi. Both serve as guardians of white dominance, both support the state economy, and both provide a training ground for future technocrats. Just as universities in other colonies function to legitimate and entrench the power of the colonizing culture, so the University of Hawaiʻi functions to maintain haole (white) American control. (Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi,  revised edition. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1999. pages 151-152.)

(6) Hawaiʻi is very expensive: A U.S. continent and foreign-dominated economy has contributed to a cost of living index almost 40% higher than the national average (U.S. average = 100, Honolulu = 138). Combined with a job growth rate around half the national average and housing costs over twice the national average, “the cost of living” in Hawaiʻi continues to be among the highest in the United States.