08-24-2015, 01:36 PM
MTViewDude: "The kings and queens modeled themselves after european royalty. Kamehameha III opened english language schools and made english a preference. " Opening language schools so your citizens can do business with foreigners is not the same thing as changing the language of government and education to English, effectively disenfranchising Hawaiian speakers and cutting them off from all home of meaningful participation in government. Conflating the two is beyond disingenuous, it is fundamentally dishonest.
Just think about this scenario: you live in X country your whole life, your family has lived there as far back as anyone can remember, you family speaks the language of X and are all literate in this language, this language is the language of business and government. The language is an important part of your culture, and society, there are many newspapers, books, songs and religious tracts published in this language. Then newcomers from Y overthrow your government, make the language of Y the official language, and ban the use of language X in the schools and government. Your children and grandchildren are physically punished for speaking their own language in school and become so disillusioned, hurt and angry by their mistreatment in school that they reject education for the next several generations, only to have the descendants of the Y tribe tell them they are just a bunch of ignorant loser welfare bums who should just move to Las Yegas to be maids and busboys, and leave their beautiful island home to the Y tribe, who clearly deserve it since they are so hardworking and educated compared to the X tribe, for whom this is the only home they have ever known. How would that feel?
Conquered people have a particularly difficult time with education systems that are imposed on them by their conquerors. The education system is inherently steeped in the values, language and culture of the conquerors, and embracing education in that context feels like a betrayal of their own culture. The inequities of the post overthrow education system, and the Native American boarding schools, both have cast very long shadows on multiple generations of students. Both the Native Hawaiians and the Native Americans finally wrested a degree of control over their children's education in the recent past, and have seen a real upturn in educational participation at all levels.
I don't understand why so many of you can live here, claim to love Hawaii, and yet are so dismissive and insulting about the Native Hawaiians and their pain at being disenfranchised and displaced here in their own place. The attitude seems to be: tough luck, you lost, just get over it. They are Hawaiians, trying to live in Hawaii, no one else is entitled to tell them that their feelings of anger and pain aren't real, and certainly not someone who chose move here from somewhere else and now wants to dismiss the concerns of the Native Hawaiians because those concerns are inconvenient for the new transplant.
Just think about this scenario: you live in X country your whole life, your family has lived there as far back as anyone can remember, you family speaks the language of X and are all literate in this language, this language is the language of business and government. The language is an important part of your culture, and society, there are many newspapers, books, songs and religious tracts published in this language. Then newcomers from Y overthrow your government, make the language of Y the official language, and ban the use of language X in the schools and government. Your children and grandchildren are physically punished for speaking their own language in school and become so disillusioned, hurt and angry by their mistreatment in school that they reject education for the next several generations, only to have the descendants of the Y tribe tell them they are just a bunch of ignorant loser welfare bums who should just move to Las Yegas to be maids and busboys, and leave their beautiful island home to the Y tribe, who clearly deserve it since they are so hardworking and educated compared to the X tribe, for whom this is the only home they have ever known. How would that feel?
Conquered people have a particularly difficult time with education systems that are imposed on them by their conquerors. The education system is inherently steeped in the values, language and culture of the conquerors, and embracing education in that context feels like a betrayal of their own culture. The inequities of the post overthrow education system, and the Native American boarding schools, both have cast very long shadows on multiple generations of students. Both the Native Hawaiians and the Native Americans finally wrested a degree of control over their children's education in the recent past, and have seen a real upturn in educational participation at all levels.
I don't understand why so many of you can live here, claim to love Hawaii, and yet are so dismissive and insulting about the Native Hawaiians and their pain at being disenfranchised and displaced here in their own place. The attitude seems to be: tough luck, you lost, just get over it. They are Hawaiians, trying to live in Hawaii, no one else is entitled to tell them that their feelings of anger and pain aren't real, and certainly not someone who chose move here from somewhere else and now wants to dismiss the concerns of the Native Hawaiians because those concerns are inconvenient for the new transplant.