He kuleana kō kākou: Hawaiian-language learners and the construction of (alter)native identities

Abstract

This article examines the various language ideologies and cultural models that inform Hawaiian-language learners' experiences, language practices, and socio-ethnic identity as they attempt to become speakers of their heritage language. While Hawaiian-language education is often noted as a revitalization success story, and certainly is in terms of its rapid growth and enrollment numbers, many broader outcomes remain unclear, despite their potentially enormous impact on the continued perpetuation of the Hawaiian language. In particular, I focus on the meaning that learning the Hawaiian language has for new speakers and learners, and the ideologies that influence these understandings. Because peoples' ideas about language and identity are so influential for the process and outcomes of language revitalization efforts, I examine the instances and effects of both Western and indigenous ideologies – specifically those authenticity and kuleana (or responsibility, right, and charge). This latter understanding of their relationship to the Hawaiian language and culture, wherein the perpetuation of their native language is both their right and charge, corresponds with their persisting indigenous model of identity as performative and, I argue here, may help to alleviate some potential conflicts in revitalization efforts that are often found with more common uses and interpretations of an ideology of authenticity, while motivating new speakers to learn and use the native language.

Keywords:

• Hawaiian
• language revitalization
• identity
• language ideology
• vernacular education
• Hawaiʻi

Notes

According to the 2010 US Census, there are just under 300,000 self-identified Native Hawaiians in the state of Hawaiʻi, a figure which includes part-Hawaiians. About 80,000 individuals reported to be full Hawaiian on this same census, although other estimates have been much smaller (see Schmitt, 1996).

Niʻihau is the only one of the major islands in the Hawaiian archipelago that is privately owned, purchased by the Robinson family from King Kamehameha V in 1864. There are currently between 100 and 200 Native Hawaiian inhabitants living there, who comprise the only population who continue to have Hawaiian as their mother tongue and for whom it is the dominant language of daily interaction, including in the schools. Because of very limited access from outsiders (Niʻihau is nicknamed the ‘Forbidden Isle’). Hawaiian has been allowed to thrive without interruption, and remains the vernacular language.

This emphasis on performance and inclusivity does not, however, mean that it is entirely flexible, and not all claims to Hawaiian identity are accepted. Trask (1985) points out that while social identity may be perceived as dependent upon created relationships and behavior, Sahlins (1985) overstates the ‘“interchangeability” of being and doing’ – that is, the extent to which Hawaiian identity is available to ‘outsiders’. This distinction is important, as Hawaiian culture aficionados do try to take on a Hawaiian identity, making claims to being as ‘Hawaiian at heart’ based on their appreciation of Hawaiian culture, or even ‘more Hawaiian than Hawaiians’ because they have greater cultural or linguistic knowledge (Hall, 2005).

In Hawaiʻi, ethnicities are widely referred to as ‘nationalities’, and it is not uncommon to be asked, ‘What's your nationality?’