KĆ«lia i ka NuÊ»u: Hawaiian Youth and Language Revitalization Through Competition
I ka âĆlelo nĆ ke ola, i ka âĆlelo nĆ ka make; In language there is life, in language there is death. This is a Hawaiian proverb made popular by King KalÄkaua during his reign, when he successfully restored Native Hawaiian cultural practices and traditions that were suppressed by Christian missionaries for decades. In HawaiÊ»i in the late 1800s, the Native Hawaiian LanguageâÊ»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»iâwas outlawed; the medium of education and church was switched over to English, children were punished for using Hawaiian and it was made illegal to use and teach Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i in the classroom. However, in the 1970s, nearly a century later, Hawaiian had begun to make its way back into schools, and back into the Native Hawaiian community. Now, fifty years after that, there are even competition categories where HawaiÊ»i students can compete in Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i, using Hawaiian as their medium for research and presentation. So the question arises, how does competition promote the revitalization of âĆlelo HawaiÊ»i in Hawaiian youth? Through modern ways of practice, competition promotes the revitalization of Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i in Hawaiian youth by creating spaces for students to interact in Hawaiian across different islands, encouraging culture-based research, and increasing intrinsic motivation by giving youth the opportunity to strive for the highest and celebrate their excellence.
To create spaces for native language to thrive among HawaiÊ»i youth, it is needed to first look at the state of language survival, and how it is connected to an indigenous model. In the lecture on Language in Schools/Youth given by Henry S. Fesuluaâi at the University of Auckland in 2020, he talks about the concept that if there is no language, there is no culture; and if there is no culture, the people cease to exist. This underlines the value and importance of language knowledge for the individual.
If [Pacific youth] do not know their language, their connection to their culture is not as strong, and if their connection to their culture is not as strong, then you will find that that person is in a âdark placeâ of uncertainty. By losing your language, you will slowly lose the identity and the essence [of the culture]â (FesuluaÊ»i, Pacific Language 2020).
Using this as a framework, the development and practice of language skills becomes increasingly important in a globalized world. As referenced in âTO LET DIEâ: The state of the Samoan language in New Zealand, âThe higher the number of those who speak an ethnic language, the more likely it is that the language and its attendant values are strong. Language loss suggests a weakening of these values and a questioning of ethnic identityâ (Hunkin 2012, 204). Since the 1980s, programs such as immersion schools and Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i classes have developed, maintained, and continue to sustain Hawaiian language skills in communities across the Hawaiian islands. Understanding that Hawaiâiâs history is grounded in âĆlelo Hawaiâi (Hawaiian language), therefore makes learning âĆlelo Hawaiâi an imperative part of Hawaiâiâs future and the survival of Hawaiian culture.
Hawaiian serves as a carrier of both local and international ideas and concepts. From the 1850s to the 1950s, English and Pidgin replaced Hawaiian in all domains with the exception of NiÊ»ihau, a privatized island protected for the reason of language and cultural survival. The growing imbalance in the status of English and Hawaiian speakers, and the increasing pressure of English-only language ideology were two important factors pushing Hawaiian out of use (Brenzinger 2013, 7). To bring about the value of competition to Hawaiians, Makahiki season is a well-practiced cultural example. In ancient HawaiÊ»i, Makaihiki became a time to showcase skills and strategies that were developed during the year. While being an event to show the pride of Native prowess, it was still a tournament of HawaiÊ»iâs fittest. In a space such as a competition--especially one that attracts students from different schools and different cities--participants get the opportunity to use their skills with others and compare the differences in dialects, fluency, and find a community in which they can interact academically. It is important for any language learner to find speaking partners, and for Hawaiian youth, networking across islands creates a unique learning experience and can entice further study and participation in similar environments.
In regards to my research and capstone project to wrap up my studies on the Pacific Islands, I had the pleasure of interning with the HawaiÊ»i History Day competition, a program of the non-profit organization, HawaiÊ»i Council for the Humanities. The mission of the council is to connect people with ideas that enrich lives, broaden perspectives, and strengthen communities in a way that creates a brave and safe space for diverse voices and experiences to actively share and listen (hihumanities.org.) They are an organization that creates connections that build up communitiesâ resilience and ability to change, an aspect most well fit to the growing language community in HawaiÊ»i.
As for HawaiÊ»i History Day, the focus of the competition is to mÄlama i ka moÊ»olelo; to care for history. Hawaiâi History Day, a state affiliate of National History Day (NHD), is a year-long history education program that invigorates the teaching and learning of history in grades 4-12 (hihumanities.org.) At the local level, HawaiÊ»i History Day promotes a theme-based, research-centered model for history and civics education. Students present their projects in an exhibit, performance, documentary, essay, or website project. History Day culminates in the presentation and evaluation of these projects at school, district, state and national history days.
In working with the HawaiÊ»i Council for the Humanities and HawaiÊ»i History day, I addressed my internship in a number of ways. HawaiÊ»i History Day has connected with, and utilized the Ê»ike (knowledge) of cultural practitioners, Kumu, forever haumÄna (students), and past participants of the program to shape their Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i category into the opportunity it is now. Beginning my internship, I knew there were some methods of research and participation I could implement to add to my experience as well as to better support them and my project. Personally, I leaned most on observation, and taking in all the manaÊ»o (experience) from my supervisors and the language leaders they had to shape their program. Through them, I was granted the opportunity to interview Kumu and judges in a casual talk story fashion true to Hawaiian cultural values. In the scope of Pacific research and the practice of the Talanoa, I focused mostly on Faka'apa'apa, the act of being respectful, humble, and considerate to those with whom we interact. It is âto see, not just look; to hear, not just listen, and to observe; to know the culture and context they are engaged in and then behave accordingly.â (Vaioleti 2006, 30)
In a spoken interview with Kumu ;Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i Kalae Akioka of Kailua High School, she explains that opportunities such as HawaiÊ»i History Day, allows students as well as teachers to engage with the Native Hawaiian language in a way that cannot always be accessible in school. She says âif we donÊ»t engage then, you know, not gonâ get. And so, the kids need to see that Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i is everywhere, not only in [school]â (December 2021). For young Hawaiian language students, having the opportunity to speak Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i outside of school adds to the longevity of hoÊ»Ćla Ê»Ćleloâthe revitalization of Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i. In education, Hawaiian is no longer seen as a problem, and in the past five decades has become seen as an asset and a resource.
In 1984 the Hawaiian movement followed the Maori example of KĆhanga Reo immersion schooling for young children, and offered an exclusive Hawaiian-speaking environment. At that time, a group of Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i scholars had lobbied for the removal of the ban on the use of Hawaiian language as a medium of education, which was in place since the 1890s. When the ban was lifted, the group established the Hawaiian-medium PĆ«nana Leo pre-schools (NÄmÄhoe 2007). Three years later, the State of HawaiÊ»i board of education approved the formation of the Papahana Kaiapuni Ê»Ćlelo Hawaiâi (Hawaiian Language Immersion Program), and two immersion kindergarten/first grade classes were formed to receive the preschool graduates of the PĆ«nana Leo Schools (Warschauer & Donaghy, 1997.) Now, second-language speakers of Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i who then pass it on to their children as their first language sustain Hawaiian families as they move from one generation to the next. This decision to do with the creation of immersion education has transformed the lives and families of Hawaiians in ways that could not have been expected nearly fifty years ago (KawaiÊ»aeÊ»a 2007).
The higher the number of those who speak an ethnic language, the more likely it is that the language and its attendant values are strong. Language loss suggests a weakening of these values and a questioning of ethnic identity. No Native languages are immune to the effects of globalization, thus the struggle between the utility of a common language (such as the one this author is employing to write this paper) versus the profound nuances found within a mother tongue. Both deserve equal status, today as much as ever. In an interview with Bruce Torres Fischer, a Hawaiʻi History Day judge and Graduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, he talks about how the development and practice of language skills becomes increasingly important in a globalized world, and how a program such as Hawaiʻi History Day can expand that potential.
My philosophy is just to do everything we can to get into all the nooks and crannies of society. It's important that Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i students get to go in the mainstream in the sense that they can also have a place to participate in [HawaiÊ»i History Day], a program that before was mostly in English. It's really amazing that this is starting to happen, that we have Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i getting into larger programs. I think it's important that immersion students and Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i speakers have the chance to enter into these types of competitions and programs that were predominantly in English before. Seeing that HawaiÊ»i has two official languages, it's starting to tip the scales a little bit more so that it is more kaulike, more equal. And so the world knows, and makes it feel that we really do have two languages (November 2021.)
In an attempt to refocus, I want to talk about the Hawaiian youth who kĆ«lia i ka nuÊ»u, who strive for the highest. Bruce had mentioned that HawaiÊ»i History Days creates the opportunity for students to fill a previously English-dominant space with Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i, and show the world that HawaiÊ»i has two languagesâEnglish and Hawaiianâand that they can thrive anywhere. If not previously mentioned, HawaiiansâKanaka Maoliâare the native, indigenous people of the islands of HawaiÊ»i. Just three generations above todayâs youth, such as the ones who compete in HawaiÊ»i History day, were the KĆ«puna (elders) who were beaten and punished for using Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i in the classroom, and we (Hawaiians) can still see the effects of language suppression in present time. However, through generations of language loss and surviving cultural oppression, Hawaiians today are taking pride in learning and using our native languageâparticularly the youth. In competitions, such as HawaiÊ»i History Day, students from across several Hawaiian Islands are taking the opportunity to take their language skills to the next level, competing in Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i categories to showcase linguistic prowess, cultural pride, and advancement of the Hawaiian Nation.With competition, there is intrinsic motivation; young Hawaiians finding pride in their identity and culture.
Competition promotes the revitalization of Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i in Hawaiian youth by creating spaces for students to interact in Hawaiian across different islands, encouraging culture-based research, and increasing intrinsic motivation by giving youth the opportunity to kĆ«lia i ka nuÊ»u, to strive for the highest and celebrate their excellence. By finding their own identity in their work and research building up to competition, students are further motivated to do their best, not just to succeed. In the scope of native language, students arenÊ»t just representing their school or city, they are representing themselves as part of a suppressed people; they represent with them our people and indigenous excellence. In an interview with Kumu MÄhealani Lono, she explains how competition pushes students to succeed; not just to win, but to succeed within themselves and motivate them to do better in their language and share that pride with their people.
Competition is really healthy for growth because it pushes them to achieve something, and it gives them that expectation to reach a level that classroom work can't touch at allâŠI appreciate [HawaiÊ»i History Day] so much because there are not a lot of opportunities for students. We donât have a lot of those things that bring the Ê»aukahi Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i (Hawaiian Language Community) together and push them, or bring them together and use each other to bring themselves up and build up the lÄhui (Hawaiian Nation) (December 2021.)
Despite all the good things that come from the opportunity that HawaiÊ»i History Day offers Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i students, there are still inevitable gaps to consider. First, finding Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i fluency in Kumu, judges, students, and in all parts of the program to create a knowledgeable and well-versed.
Since Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i is still an endangered language despite the strides we have madeâŠin regards to the reemergence of the languages into a living language, we still have a long way to go. Despite English and Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i having equal legal status in the state, they still aren't equal because we just don't have the resources or speakers in the numbers we need (Bruce Torres Fischer, December 2021).
Another gap, briefly mentioned by Bruce above, is the lack of resources. In the Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i community alone, accessing resources, and creating a mutual standard amongst teachers and learners is a big matter to be addressed. Hawaiian courses in public schools have not produced much fluency in Hawaiian, as they were never considered a priority in the curriculum (Brenzinger and Heinrich 2013, 304). At present, there are several thousand students enrolled in Hawaiian language classes in the state public high schools as well as in private multi-ethnic high schools, however Kumu Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i often have to write their own curriculum which can often mean a difference in language skills amongst Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i students.
We just donÊ»t have the resources in Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i that we do in English. Even in schools, and teachers have to make their own curriculum. You canât buy textbooks on Amazon and have them shipped to you in Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i, so it's definitely a challenge as far as revitalization goes. We can see that we have a ways to go in providing Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i resources for students so that they donât have to always find English texts, and English interviews, and English sources (Bruce Torres Fischer, December 2021).
One last final gap worth mentioning, is where the students themselves actually struggle during the preparation phases of HawaiÊ»i History Day. When picking a topic for their projects and beginning their hunt for resources, many students realize they do not know how to properly research. Especially for students at the highschool level, there is a gap in the development of âcollegeâ level skills, such as researching.
The students' need area is learning how to research. What I see for my ninth graders is that they don't know anything about researchingâŠIt's down to the basics, so there's a lot of lack of experience. When they choose their topics I feel like it's deep and meaningful, and they get really connected once they get into the research of it, but it's that initial, âgetting them to learn how to researchâ in the beginningâbecause it's such a new thingâthatâs a struggle (Kalae Akioka, 2021).
Part of my internship with Hawaiʻi history was to learn about and understand these gaps, and find ways to address them.
When looking at areas of struggle in the Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i community and the youth within that compete at HawaiÊ»i History Day, I had found ways to somewhat aid the filling of these gaps, and develop a stronger foundation for the program. In a way, these solutions became part of my work as well as my reflection of my time supporting HawaiÊ»i History Day and the HawaiÊ»i Council for the Humanities. First, everyone as a community needs to encourage the learning of Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i, and bring the language into every outlet possible. While HawaiÊ»i History Day is not necessarily an event for the revitalization community by the revitalization community, it is one of the rare opportunities for students to showcase their language skills outside of school. Without the help of the Ê»ohana and the local community, the opportunity could disappear, and students may not be able to learn about further opportunities such as this. To encourage a child is to raise their motivation, and push them to kĆ«lia i ka nuÊ»u.
Next, is to find, create, and make accessible more listening content, web content, school language programs, and mobile apps for language learners. This includes introducing students to Hawaiian language podcasts like Lohe Ê»Ia, Hawaiian at Home, or Ka Ê»AlalÄ, for second-language speakers, or Ka Leo HawaiÊ»i recordings for Native Speakers. Supporting school language clubs, Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i community-built programs and extracurriculars like hula or kalo/salt farming can cultivate cultural spaces for students to connect with their heritage as well as the language. Though I am unfamiliar with the Department of Education policies and how private/charter schools function, should teachers find a mutual standard across the state for levels of learning Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i (as with other languages taught in schools), increased access to these types of resources could supplement the classroom.
Finally, would be to support the kumu and haumÄna as an Ê»ohana through workshops, and webinars to develop their skills and ready them for opportunities like HawaiÊ»i History Day. This is where my personal reflection comes in. Through my internship, I was able to help host a research workshop alongside Na HawaiÊ»i Ê»Imi Loa and Awaiaulu to help students and teachers navigate Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i databases for research. This included learning about Ulukau.org, WeheWehe.org, Papakilo database, NĆ«pepa.org, among other Hawaiian-serving web programs. I had crafted flyers for the event, conducted outreach for the teachers and judges to participate, and connected with the hosts to build a webinar that would best support the students. As one of the main aspects of my internship, this workshop allowed me to both network with teachers, students, judges and language leaders in the Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i community of HawaiÊ»i History Day, as well as address one of the biggest stressors for students in the program.
Overall, my internship felt more like supporting a group of friends through a project, rather than working with an office. It was wonderful to meet many Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i speakers, and even see a few students work on their project during the workshop. In the last few weeks of my internship, I was also able to make a second flier promoting HawaiÊ»i History Day and calling for Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i volunteers to judge for the competition. As simple as it was, I was asked to create a version of the flyer in both English and Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i. The work in itself, I feel, addressed a gap in making resources available for Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i speakers; I was the first intern asked to create a bilingual flyer, and having that Hawaiian language version of the document spoke volumes to bringing up Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i as a living language, and having that version as an option for volunteers to view. In all, It occurred to me that I, too, was supporting the language community with this project, and that flyer was even shown to students so that they too could see Hawaiian language in action.
In conclusion (and some reiteration), I want to share another phrase. InÄ Ê»aÊ»ohe leo, Ê»aÊ»ohe olaâif there is no voice, there is no life. Since the 1980s, immersion schools and Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i classes have developed, maintained, and sustained Hawaiian language skills in communities across the Hawaiian islands. Understanding that Hawaiâiâs history is grounded in âĆlelo Hawaiâi (Hawaiian language), therefore makes learning âĆlelo Hawaiâi an imperative part of Hawaiâiâs future and the survival of Hawaiian culture. Competition promotes the revitalization of Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i in Hawaiian youth by creating spaces for students to interact in Hawaiian across different islands, encouraging culture-based research, and increasing intrinsic motivation by giving youth the opportunity to strive for the highest and celebrate their excellence. In addressing these gaps, supporting our students, and pushing the language forward in even the smallest ways, we can holomua and kĆ«lia i ka nuÊ»u for hoÊ»Ćla Ê»Ćlelo HawaiÊ»i.
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