Contradictions

“The first step in the colonizing process…was the deculturation of a people (114).” 

In part three (The Colonial Fronts: Historians, Anthropologists, and the Tourist Industry) of her book, “From a Native Daughter”, Haunani Kay-Trask mentions how the Hawaiian people, culture and image has been defined and reiterated by historians, anthropologists and the tourist industry. Split into three parts, this part of her book has been the most interesting to me.

From the section, “From a Native Daughter,” Trask mentions how the Hawaiian history has overlooked Hawaiian ideas, some reasons mainly from the lack of interest for historians to learn the Hawaiian language and appreciate the culture. Trask said that, “none of the historians had ever learned our mother tongue (116).” As a result of such, historians were not able to fully understand the actions and culture of the Hawaiian people. Thus, due to the idea that the language was of no value to learn, a lot of history has been lost and misrepresented through a Western perspective. In example, Trask continues deeper in stating that, “if the historians had bothered to learn our language (as any American historian of France would learn French), they would have discovered that we show possession in two ways: through the use of an "a" possessive, which reveals acquired status, and through the use of an "o" possessive, which denotes inherent status...land, like one's body and one's parents, takes the "o" possessive (koʻu ʻāina). Thus, in our way of speaking, land is inherent to the people (116).” Since majority of historians come from a Western perspective (and where the English language is more important than Hawaiian), it is obvious why none of the Hawaiian history (that was told and written by Hawaiians, in Hawaiian) was recognized. As stated, “by a kind of perverted logic, [colonialism] turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it (116).”

From unlimited examples of Western dominance in academia, this section causes me to wonder if the Hawaiian language or even written historical events (in Hawaiian) will ever be referenced and held to the same legitimacy as past historical book written by Westerners?

While continuing into the section, What do you mean, “We”, White Man?, I came across this passage which reads that, the “Hawaiian culture and people are dominated by a long-distance power, the United States of America, whose settlers flood our land (124).” I cannot deny what this passage says. We are all very much affected and impacted by the Western world. As much as we try to push our Native views as the truth, and share our culture through our perspective, Hawaiians have been criticized and published according to their outside perspectives. As known, “the denial of Native history, culture, and humanity is central to the colonial endeavor (132),” thus, the perpetuation of this “Hawaiian image” is crucial to ensure the longevity of our Western history. As a Hawaiian daughter, I agree when Trask stated that, “there needs to be some internal discussion among anthropologists and archaeologists about the impact of their work on living Hawaiians and the ethical conflicts that spring from their research (131).” I have been judged as a person who lives in a grass shack just because I’m from Hawaiʻi. Once people find out that I’m Hawaiian, they ask me if I can “dance a hula” for them. The research from Western perspectives has engraved a lasting mark of being “lustful, carefree and ignorant” on me.

Of course, as Trask also mentions in the last section, “Lovely Hula Hands”: Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture”, one vivid way of perpetuating this “image” is found in Hawaiʻis tourist industry. “The point, of course, is that everything in Hawaiʻi can be yours, that is, you the tourists', the non-Natives", the visitors". The place, the people, the culture, even our identity as a "Native" people is for sale (144)”. The tourist industries sell everything about Hawaiʻi; its beautiful beaches, its beautiful women and its beautiful language. It is “paradise”. “Tourists flock to my Native land for escape, but they are escaping into a state of mind while participating in the destruction of a host people in a native place (137).” While working part-time as a hula dancer at a hotel, I’ve been told that I live in a beautiful place, where I don’t have to worry about anything and can just lose myself in the beauty of the islands. The truth is exactly as mentioned above. Just because I live in a beautiful place does not justify that my life is any easier than anyone else. Instead, I was working so that others, like these visitors, could enjoy Hawaiʻi. It wasn’t however, till later that I came across this same idea where “as colonized people, we are colonized to the extent that we are unaware of our oppression. When awareness begins, then so, too, does decolonization (145)”. This idea came to me about less than six years ago. However, now I wonder if awareness truly causes some form of decolonization?

I ask this question only because I know people who are aware of their cultural oppression as Hawaiians, but choose not to change or “fight the system” because there is no way in doing so. They rather decide to continue their lives knowing that they are oppressed and exploited. Why is this? And how can we (if we so desire) change this way of thinking?

A final reading from this section I found interesting is on page 142 stating that “...the Hawaiian language, has undergone a tremendous revival, including the rise of language immersion schools. The state of Hawaiʻi now has two official languages, Hawaiian and English, and the call for Hawaiian language speakers and teachers is increasing every day.” During the time that this book was first published, and even after its revisions, the Hawaiian language movement was a great step forward in fighting against Western language dominace. However, in today’s society, are we still making pivotal changes where the social norms are being shifted in respect to our native Hawaiian perspectives? In example, has the making of the Hawaiian language an official state language really affected a change in our western society, or has it only helped generate more profit for our tourism (i.e. Aulani Resort: Hawaiian Langauge Room)?

From a Native Daughter part IV. Racism against Native Hawaiians at the University of hawai’i: A Personal and Political View

This part, “IV. Racism against Native Hawaiians at the University of hawai’i: A Personal and Political View”, is personal but historical record of Haunani-Kay Trask. As a Hawaiian and a female, haole-dominated university is a vigorous opponent. Trask defined University of Hawaii as follows:

“UH is the educational pyramid of public school in Hawai’i.”

“UH serves as American military command center, support the state economy and provide a training ground for future technocrats.”

“UH function is to maintain haole American control.”

“The violence of educational colonialism, where foreign haole values replace Native Hawaiian values; where schools, such as the UH, ridicule Hawaiian culture and praise American culture, and where white men assume the mantle of authority, deciding what is taught, who can teach, even what can be said, written, and published.”

In sum, at that time (1980s) UH was an educational institute which justified American white male dominance in Hawaii.

Trask had struggled against haole culture for academic freedom as a scholar and an activist. She shared two important experiences. One was her agonizing recollections in the course of hiring process and attaining tenure job in UH. Her long and winding struggling for tenure took 5 years.

“She was transferred to the Hawaiian Studies program and became the first full-time faculty member. However, she had spent nearly five years under terrible employment conditions because she was both a Hawaiian nationalist and a critic of the US.”

“Only resistance is answer. Without it, institutions wear us down by petty bureaucratic procedures and the force of inertia.”

The other experience was using of the word “haole” argument in 1990 and 1991.

A student, Joey Carter complained using the term “haole” was racist. People are individuals who “classify” themselves as they like.

Trask refuted a few reasons.

“Haole” is in fact one of the few surviving Hawaiian language descriptions in common use in Hawaii’i.”“individual” exemption from the power and privilege of whit hegemony is itself a typical American ploy to avoid responsibility for an ugly and vicious history that visited genocide on American Indians, slavery on Africans, peonage on Asians, and dispossession of bout lands and self -government  on Native Hawaiians. ”

"hatred and fear people of color have of white people is born of experience, the experience of whit violence. Therefore, it is for self-protection and in self-defense that people of color feel hostility toward the haole. This hostility, I went on, is not “haole-bashing” but a smart political sense of survival.”

Surprisingly, Trask was sanctioned by school and she subsequently received physical and psycological threats from haoles.  

I have two questions.

First, to hold hegemony of UH, what should we do? Is it the best way to improve the ratio of Native Hawaiian faculties? Or, should we find alternatives?Second, Hawaiian values are perceived simply through Hawaiian language. Currently, conserving and expanding our language is most urgent issue. What is a clear and detailed strategy of expanding Hawaiian language curriculum in public education system?

"From a Native Daughter." Summaries on: Politics in the Pacific Islands: Imperialism and Native Self-Determination & The New World Order

Trask, Haunani-Kay. 1999. From a native daughter colonialism and sovereignty in Hawaiì. Honolulu: University of Hawaiì Press.

In From a Native Daughter, Haunani-Kay Trask is very provocative in discussing Hawaiian issues of colonialism, sovereignty, tourism, institutional racism and indigenous feminism.  She traces historical colonialism in Hawaii that has brought oppression to Hawaiian people in a process and a combination of physical, political, economic, religious, and cultural forces.  She describes historical impacts of the contact with haole, introduction of disease, Christianity, land seizure, capitalism and plantation economy, military occupation, tourism economy and cultural imperialism from Native Hawaiian perspectives and experiences.  She criticizes how American colonization have cheapened Hawaiian culture and reduced ability of Native Hawaiians to decide and control their lands, waters and lives (3). 

Then, Trask contextualizes Native Hawaiian struggles in international decolonization and human rights movements of indigenous peoples. She describes that Hawaiian experience of oppression is shared with many other indigenous peoples in the world.  She thinks that the commonalities in colonized experiences and cultural values of taking care of nature among aboriginal peoples would help to link people together and create alternative future. 

Throughout the book, Trask takes indigenous feminist approaches and believes in women’s mana as a core value and strength of resistance that challenges the current bureaucrat and patriarchal world.  She uses this Hawaiian cultural value to support Hawaiian woman initiative organization for sovereignty, Ka Lahui Hawaii, and “to fashion new ways of resisting” (108).  At the same time she certainly criticizes the Office of Hawaiian Affairs as an institution under an umbrella of a larger imperial power and paternalistic control of Hawaiian “self-governance.”
It leads to Trask’s argument on cultural prostitution.  By threading cultural and political assertion together, Trask aims to decolonize the mind in every aspect.
In a chapter, Politics in the Pacific Islands: Imperialism and Native Self-Determination, Trask maps out colonial experiences of Pacific Islands. This chapter is helpful for my project to see what can be common topics or arguments to support and strengthen articulations of indigenous self-determination.  For example, nuclearization and militarization are common issues and struggles that Okinawa also shares with Pacific Islands although historical and current political attributions are different. 

Trask describes colonized experiences of small islands, their continuous struggles for self-determination, and the militarized Pacific.  In the next chapter, the New World Order, Trask emphasizes culture and knowledge of indigenous peoples as the base of resisting the existing World Order.  Comparing politics of different indigenous peoples, these two chapters made me think how native culture has been political although these two are often discussed separately or culture are often disregarded in political claims.  How natives can use culture as a tool for political articulation and actions?  How important it is to revitalize language and culture in a way to reset indigenous ontology?  Similarly with a book by Epeli Hau’ofa, this book can be an useful example of using decolonizing methodologies in research.  

Part III: “From a Native Daughter”

            The chapter entitled From a Native Daughter demonstrates how historians distort Kānaka Maoli history in order to present a “perfected” image of itself.  In addition, Trask highlights that historians are perceived to be the dominant authority within their field of knowledge. Therefore, every aspect of historiography, especially that which is written, can only be issued and owned by historians. Not by those they are writing about. Ultimately, Trask argues that these ideologies are problematic because historians perpetuate Western/ Eurocentric models of thinking, and writing which further oppresses the people that they are writing about. In the next chapter, Trask expresses the same views towards Anthropologists and how they too exploit culture, and peoples through the promotion of these same modes of thought.

            Trask introduces the chapter by setting up a dichotomous relationship between what she had learned about her people’s historical past through the eyes of her ʻohana, and what she had been taught in school. On one side, her moʻolelo calls forth positive images of the people of old and how they worked together as a unit and celebrated the natural world. On the other side, Trask recalls her experiences entrenched in a colonial educational system as she “learned that the ʻpagan Hawaiians’ did not read or write, were lustful cannibals, traded in slaves, and could not sing. Captain Cook had ʻdiscovered’ Hawaiʻi, and the ungrateful Hawaiians had killed him. In revenge, the Christian god had cursed the Hawaiians with disease and death.” (114) This dichotomy is important because it is still perpetuated today. Trask believes that this system will continue to repeat itself as curriculum instruction upholds dominant Western theory and practice. Trask goes on to explain how she articulated both worlds, that of the Kānaka and that of the haole, by furthering her education to pursue a Ph.D. It seems that it was not until she fulfilled a higher education outside of her homeland that she was able to come to grips with these two worlds.

            Upon realizing how she had been so indoctrinated by the haole world, she quotes Fanon to describe how her culture had been stripped from her through U.S. assimilation as well as through written historical text. Her interpretation of historians had then become synonymous with “part of the colonizing horde.”(114) Not only was Trask forced to comply with these false written histories, but she was also forced to think within this same Euro-centric/Western framework. The Western view of history unlike her Native perspective, is interpreted as a chronological progression of time which incorporates ideals such as modernization. As a consequence, Hawaiʻi’s history is illustrated as fatalistic in nature due to the inevitable spread of imperialism acting under the guise of modernization.

           

            Another relationship that Trask highlights through her first example is the written word vs. oral traditions. The written word, or history that is written, was thought to be evidence of truth. Therefore, all the moʻolelo that had been passed from her kūpuna to her generation had been false according to historians who are allegedly considered to be the gatekeepers of historical knowledge. This was yet another issue that Trask had to deal with because she was being educated to shun her own value system instilled in her by her parents in exchange for the accommodation of a Western value system.

            Trask also contends that historians at the time did not speak ‘Ōlelo Hawaiʻi so how could they write about a people or culture without using the Hawaiian Language as a valuable resource to obtain a concrete depiction of their ways of life. For instance, Trask gives an example of an academic who believed that “there was no real evidence” (pg. 118) that supports that there was resistance at the time of the annexation of Hawaiʻi to America.  In order to provide “evidence,” Trask gives him the lyrics to Kaulana Nā Pua, which directly speaks to Native resistance to American hegemony, and should be considered a primary source.  Furthermore, she says that this song continues to be a symbol of resistance at political functions. This academic then refused to believe that this could be considered evidence because it was not written by a noted historian and because it was written by a Native person. In addition, the academic probably perceived it to be an “oral tradition” which also does not fall into the category of history.

            In order to challenge historians, Trask acknowledges that the Kānaka Maoli need to return to the land and they need to know their genealogies. Not just the genealogy of their family, but also their connection to Papahānaumoku and Wākea. One needs to go beyond the Western literary canon, to re-write our own history. I would also add that we need to learn our mother tongue to initiate this journey to tell our moʻolelo.

From a Native Daughter, Part II, Chapter 6, Neocolonialism and Indigenous Structures

In Neocolonialism and Indigenous Structures, Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask addresses a conference of indigenous women leaders about the common issues indigenous peoples around the word face despite their differences. While she highlighted several large problems such as: “environmental poisoning, nuclear radiation, and high infant mortality to land dispossession . . .” to name a few, Dr. Trask focused on neocolonialism and co-optation.

NEOCOLONIALISM
Dr. Trask defines neocolonialism as “the experience of oppression at a stage that is nominally identified as independent or autonomous.” Dr. Trask also discusses the nuances of actual neocolonialism explaining that independent/autonomy may not be practical due to economics. A more concrete example of neocolonialism offered by Dr. Trask however, is the situation where there is an appearance of decolonization or where the effects of colonization have been remedied, but actually still exists (or that decolonization has not happened). Trask summarizes this issue succinctly describing indigenous peoples as “dependent and subjugated” which has resulted in an “unequal relationship to our numerous colonizers.” For practical purposes, Natives cannot be independent because they have been made economically dependent.

CO-OPTATION
Trask next discussed areas of co-optation: definitions of indigenous peoples, families becoming mere consumer units, cultural degradation, so-called complicitous natives, and political co-optation. Of the two parts, I considered this one more interesting because it requires readers, especially Native Hawaiian readers, to engage in self-reflection; we must examine whether and to what degree we may be what Trask describes as “complicitous” natives. The discussion of definition and self-definition of natives is well-known with the Native Hawaiian community. The “n”ative Hawaiian definition imposed on the community has effectively divided the community where some Natives with 50% or more blood quantum have argued in court that they, rather than those with less than 50% blood quantum, are entitled to monies managed by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The co-optation of Native Hawaiian identity through a legal identity has negatively impacted the community even though a Hawaii federal court recognized that monies for native Hawaiians, as defined by the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (HHCA), still benefits the native Hawaiians when used on programs for Native Hawaiians. Although I do not personally feel comfortable committing (or requiring) Native Hawaiians to more traditional ways of living, it is impossible to ignore the effect of capitalism on Native Hawaiian families; primarily removing them as providers and producers within their families.

DISCUSSION
Dr. Trask briefly mentions “complicitous natives” without giving any real examination to any moral or cultural dilemmas such natives might have before complying with colonial programs and objectives. 

With this in mind, I’m wondering, if there are two natives who have the same moral or cultural dilemma, to which a decision in one direction may result in that native person becoming a so-called complicitous native, if both natives experience the same painful feelings of making such a decision, can either be considered complicitous if they make two different decisions?

Would the answer be different if one of the natives completely casted aside his cultural and moral beliefs and community in reaching a decision? I cannot help but to perceive Trask's description of so-called complicitous Natives as suggesting that there is only one Native Hawaiian identity and that you're either one of us, or you're complying with the colonizer.

Is there more to Native Hawaiian identity than Trask indicates? Is it not possible for individuals to be Native Hawaiian in different contexts.  For instance, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner would obviously be a Native Hawaiian under a cultural context.  But if that Native Hawaiian chose not to engage in political activities on behalf and for the Native Hawaiian community, they may instead have an identity where they are Native Hawaiian for cultural purposes, but not for political purposes.  In the alternative, you could have someone who is a native Hawaiian for HHCA and living on the homestead, but neither participates in civic or political Native Hawaiian activities, nor does s/he participate in cultural activities.

Can a Native Hawaiian belong to the collective and larger group of Native Hawaiians while also maintaining an individual identity separate from the collective group?  

"From a Native Daughter" PART IV- NATIVE HAWAIIANS IN A WHITE UNIVERSITY

I, too, chose to concentrate on Part IV of "From at Native Daughter" by Haunani-Kay Trask.

How can you not be caught up in this vivid portrait of Trask's indomitable fighting spirit tackling racial and gender injustices here on our own turf, the University of Hawai'i?

I had not come across this text in my other classes, so it was a ground-zero, honest refresher of old policies that dominated UH not so long ago.

Colonist-controlled education systems were still very much on the playing field during Trask's day in the 1980s. As she does throughout much of the book, Trask references other countries facing the same plight-- "Public education in Hawai'i is similar in purpose to Francophone education in French-controlled Tahiti and English education in Commonwealth New Zealand." (151) So far, the University of Hawai'i looked to be another instrument for colonist influences to hold their sway over the timeline of history, much in the way my own elementary school education depicted Columbus as a great and heroic explorer who the Native Americans were happy to make the acquaintance of. However, after Trask entered the workforce-- "sent to the metropole to become (an) assimilated professional" --she worked tirelessly to break the manacles of prejudice shaping the education system and transform the university into the model we think of today: a grounds for debating controversial issues and protesting against injustice. (152)

A common theme in our readings has been the concept of "fear" lurking in the minds of white colonists, who sought to assimilate or exterminate the colonized, lest they come to a position of threatening power. Trask faced a silent version of this war, one in which her superiors refused to confront her directly, but instead pulled every trick in the book to ensure she and her "radical" viewpoints would never be promoted to that position of influencing power. When Trask first applied for a position in the newly-born American Studies Department, despite earning the majority of faculty votes in the second round, the chair tried to quietly sweep her under the rug, voicing vague concerns that she was "unqualified." (156) The only way to win such a war is to vocalize that these undercurrent tensions do exist, and bring the public's attention to them, which finally prompted an awkward confrontation with the chair and supporting faculty members. However, bringing the spotlight to these racial tensions once isn't enough-- Trask had to remain as stout as an oak in the storms to come and persist. What Trask was fighting was a haole-wide mindset that could only be changed through time and successive generations-- the white woman who replaced the previous chair informed her that she should be "grateful" she had received the assistant professor position at all. (160) Finally, after Trask and her supporters refused to cave, the Hawaiian Studies department was founded, a battle which included "endless lobbying of two university administrations and of three state legislative sessions for funding." (186)

Student Joey Carter wrote a letter, in what he thought was a "safe" forum for him to condemn the use of the word haole and have a bunch of supporters to back him up. Trask was among the most vocal to inform him of the word's history, and why it wouldn't be leaving the table any time soon. Indeed, in modern day, haole is one of the most widely used terms from the Hawaiian language-- surfers joking about being haole, political movements using it out of anger. How has the word's connotation changed today?

For discussion, I'm curious about how education and textbook curriculums have changed--or haven't changed--in the recent millennium, not just in university settings, but as far back elementary school, as well. I mentioned how my own education praised America as settlers fleeing from persecution, and while great attention was paid to white people who suffered injustices (Salem witch trials, the heroic Martin Luther and his revolutionary Protestant reformation), a huge jump was made over whatever happened to the Native Americans. Indeed, from reading those old textbooks, you'd think we took a huge break from the Native Americans, and then came back to find them living peacefully on their allotted reservations. There was an attempt to tell the demise of Captain James Cook neutrally; the Hawaiians were still cast in a disapproving, "savage" light-- Cook had been helping his crew when one of the Hawaiians struck him "from behind" and stabbed him to death. Region has a great influence over the viewpoint from which history is told, there is no doubt. To my fellow students who grew up in Hawai'i, thinking back, how did your textbooks and teachers convey these stories?


Favorite Trask Quote: "Resistance is its own reward." (168)

“From a Native Daughter”, Summary of Part Five: A Native Woman in a White University

In part IV of “From a Native Daughter”, Haunani-Kay Trask shares a few of her personal struggles as a native woman in a white dominated University to demonstrate how the University of Hawaii serves as a guardian of white dominance, which functions to maintain white American control over Hawaiian culture.  For instance, the School of Travel Industry, the Hawaii Real Estate Center and the East West Center all function to maintain the status quo in Hawaii under American control.  At the time of publication (1993) 75 percent of the school’s students were of color, while 75 percent of the faculty was white and overwhelmingly male.

During Trasks time at UH she witnessed first-hand the attempts to silence her critical views and also witnessed persistent racism by faculty members towards Hawaiians for not speaking “standard English” or for lacking knowledge about American cultural institutions.  Trask’s five year fight for tenure started in 1981 when she applied for a position within the American Studies Department.  During certain meetings with faculty members her political views were openly discussed and deemed “radical”.  Nevertheless, Trask made it to the second ballot, but the decision regarding who to hire was split and the position was subsequently “frozen”.   Eventually, Trask inquired about the reasoning behind this decision and was informed that she was deemed unqualified with no reasons explaining why. 

Trask decided to organize a group of student/community supporters, as well as attorneys, researchers, and photographers to strategize the claim that the chair’s refusal to hire Trask was fuelled by racism and not her ostensible lack of collegiality.  Things got out of control and the faculty eventually hired Trask.  The threat of public exposure through an extensive support committee persuaded the faculty to hire her.  Even after being hired her critical stance toward the U.S. made the faculty uncomfortable and they even tried to censure some of her comments.  The faculty did not allow her to teach graduate courses, which were required for tenure.  Finally, due to the public nature of this controversy, an agreement was found and Trask was transferred to the Hawaiian Studies Department. The most “important truth” that Trask realized during this struggle was that institutionalized racism and sexism must be fought with help from a coalition of supporters, which will create the public exposure needed.  Ultimately, unions are needed for people functioning within a racist institution.

Similarly, white-controlled institutions like the media and the faculty senate condemned Trask as a racist when she responded to a public letter written by a white student claiming, among other things, that the usage of the word haole is racist.  Trask argues that due to the history of colonialism, Hawaiians have the right to feel hostile toward their oppressors.  Subsequently, for some the myth of racial harmony in Hawaii was undermined by Trask’s comments which caused waves of condemnation and investigations against her.  Viewing racism as simply a matter of color versus one of history and power facilitated the misinterpretation of her statements by some.  The ultimate message from this experience is the irony that in Hawaii, when a native Hawaiian decides to exercise “the right to argue a position that is contrary to, and critical of, white ideology, they will be investigated.” (238)

An issue that I would like to open up for discussion is firstly how the University of Hawaii has changed since the time of Trasks struggles.  Are there departments within the University that maintain the white hegemony described by Trask?  (It’s telling that a photo of Haunani Trask is among the first things you notice on the homepage of the American Studies Department at UH)  Secondly, American society has had a long tradition of cultural-paradoxes regarding which claims are deemed acceptable and which ones ought to be automatically condemned without reason.  Trask’s fight for academic freedom to make certain claims deemed “controversial” parallels the current academic stance towards the Palestinian-Israeli issue where within academia criticism of Israel is limited to certain realms of acceptability while no such norms exist for the Palestinians.  Various professors have faced denials of tenures, threats, and near universal criticism for crossing this realm of acceptability, as Trask supposedly did.  Perhaps in modern academia there need not be a distinction between the roles of “citizen” and “professor”, as long as they adhere to the normative rules?