A determined couple
and their children are sparking the renewal of a long-suppressed
part of their ancestors' culture
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Naoli Weller, a nursery
school teacher at Nawahi, leads her class in traditional songs.
In the room hang signs that help pupils master the Hawaiian
language. (photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Pelehonuamea Suganuma and Kekoa Harman were bright-eyed high schoolers
in Honolulu when they first crossed paths, in the 1990s. The two
were paired for a performancea ho'ike, as such shows
are known in Hawaiian. Both teenagers had a passion for hula
and mele (Hawaiian songs and chants), and they liked performing
at the school they'd chosen to attendKamehameha High School,
part of a 133-year-old private network that gave admissions preference
to students of Hawaiian Polynesian ancestry. Still, one part of
Hawaiian culture remained frustratingly out of reach for Pele and
Kekoa: the language.
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The Harmans
in their backyard. From left, Kaumuali?i, 14, Kalamanamana,
19, Pelehonuamea, Naliipoaimoku, 15, and Kekoa. The youngest
Harman, Hi'iaka, will turn 1 in January.
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Over many generations, the native tongue of the islands had been
systematically eliminated from everyday life, and even the Kamehameha
Schools weren't able to bring it back. Part of it was a lack of
intereststudents seemed to prefer learning Japanese, Spanish
or French. But more important, Hawaii's educators generally hadn't
yet figured out how to teach Hawaiian vocabulary and grammar, or
give eager youngsters like Pele and Kekoa opportunities to immerse
themselves in Hawaiian speech.
A few years later, Pele and Kekoa found themselves together again.
Both of them enrolled in a brand-new Hawaiian
language program at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. The two
former schoolmates became part of a pioneering cohort that was innovating
ways to bring Hawaiian back to life. They helped develop some of
the first truly successful Hawaiian language programs throughout
the state's islands. Along the way, they started dating, got married
and had four children, and raised them to speak fluent Hawaiian.
Today, Pele teaches at a Hawaiian-language K-12 school and Kekoa
teaches Hawaiian language and culture at the college they both attended.
At home, their family speaks almost exclusively Hawaiian. The Harmans
are proud of the revival they helped carry out in just one generation.
But Unesco
still lists the language as critically endangered, and there's
a long way to go before it's spoken again as a part of everyday
life. "There's a false sense of security sometimes," says Pele,
"that our language is coming back."
The Hawaiian archipelagoa string of islands born from volcanic
activitywas untouched by humans for millions of years. Polynesian
navigators discovered it as early as A.D. 400, and by the year 1200,
their descendants had organized themselves into settlements called
ahupua'a.
The first colonizers arrived in the late 1700s, led by Capt. James
Cook, who'd set out on behalf of the British Empire to find a northwest
passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. These explorers
were soon followed by Americansmany of them Protestant missionarieswho
settled the islands in large numbers throughout the 19th century.
As part of their efforts to convert Hawaiians to Christianity, missionaries
needed to teach them how to read the Bible in their native tongue.
And that meant introducing palapalathe written word.
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Students take
a lunch break at Nawahi, a Hawaiian-medium charter school
founded in 1994 and named for the 19th-century politician
and artist Joseph Nawahi. (photo by
Daniella Zalcman)
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For centuries, Hawaiian had been an oral tongueone steeped
in mo'olelo (story, legend, history). But after missionaries
helped create a written version of the language, the local people
took to it. They established more than 100 Hawaiian-language newspapers,
according to some records. By 1834, more than 90 percent of Hawaiians
were literateup from virtually zero just 14 years earlier.
Yet these strides in Hawaiian literacy were soon overtaken by efforts
to erase Hawaiian culture altogether. American tycoons had also
come to the islands, planting lucrative crops like sugar cane and
coffee. To work the fields, they brought in foreignersespecially
from Japan, China and the Philippines. (By 1896, people of Japanese
descent made up roughly a quarter of Hawaii's population.) A new
social and political hierarchy arose, largely with white Americans
at the top.
These outsiders helped to phase out the Hawaiian system of governance.
They replaced traditional foods like taro with rice and imported
wheat. They started issuing fines for performing hula, the ancient
Hawaiian form of dance and expression. And as the 19th century was
winding down, the Americans overthrew Queen Lili'uokalani, Hawaii's
last monarch. They annexed the archipelago as a territory in 1898.
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A hula dancer
in Honolulu in 1922. While hula remained a serious art in
the 1920s, hotels like the Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki started
putting on shows for tourists. (photo
by Daniella Zalcman)
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By the time Hawaii became a state, in 1959, fewer than 2,000 people
could speak Hawaiian fluently. Most of them were elderly; very few
were children. The language seemed on the brink of being forgotten.
But there were still people left who remembered. Both Pele and
Kekoa were close to their great-grandmothers women born in
the early 1900s, who spoke some Hawaiian, even though they were
raised to think of their mother tongue as inferior to English. The
great-grandmothers were the last members of each family to retain
any fluency. Pele's and Kekoa's parents were the first generation
to speak no Hawaiian at all.
Kekoa grew up on Mauian island named after a demigod who's
credited in Hawaiian tradition with pulling the entire archipelago
up from the ocean floor. When Kekoa was a kid, his grandmother,
who passed away a few years ago, used to take him to Hawaiian musical
and hula performances. She'd make leis for tourist-targeted luaus,
and he'd help her gather and string the flower garlands. "I loved
going to those events," Kekoa says. "They fostered a sense of 'It's
beautiful. It's fun. I want to be around that.'" Outside of these
excursions, he lacked an outlet. He was never drawn to sports or
other conventional activities foisted on American boys.
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A hula session
at Kekoa's parents' house. In this historic dance form, arm
movements can express an emotionor simply represent
a tree swaying in the wind. (photo by
Daniella Zalcman)
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Pele gets ready
to play the ukulele, an instrument brought to Hawaii in the
1800s by Portuguese immigrants. Its Hawaiian name means "jumping
flea." (photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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As Kekoa approached his teens, his parents gave him the option
of becoming a boarder at Kamehameha
Schools' main campusroughly a hundred miles and several
sea channels northwest of Maui, on the island of Oahu. Moving away
from home isn't easy for any 13-year-oldnot least for a Hawaiian
whose life is defined by family, or 'ohana. But Kekoa went.
Pele was drawn to Kamehameha Schools for similar reasons. One of
her grandmothers was Mary Kawena Pukui, co-author of the Hawaiian
Dictionary, the standard reference for the Hawaiian language.
Her grandmother had dedicated her life to the study and preservation
of Hawaiian cultureyet she was haunted by what Pele calls
"the trauma and disconnect" of forced assimilation. Seeing her grandmother
wrestle with this inner conflict made Pele hungry to "do Hawaiian
things in a school setting."
Kekoa graduated from high school in 1995. He spent a year at college
in Puget Sound, Washington, then transferred to the University of
Hawaii at Hilo. Pele, who graduated from high school in 1997, ended
up at the same campus around the same time. As it happened, 1997
was the year the Hawaiian legislature mandated a new program at
the Hilo campus. It was called Ka
Haka 'Ula O Ke'elikolani, named after Ruth Ke'elikolani Keanolani
Kanahoahoa, a woman from an ancient Hawaiian dynasty who was the
governor of Hawaii during the mid-1800s. She was a defender of Hawaiian
culturealthough she came from a wealthy family and understood
English, she lived in a traditional grass-roofed house and spoke
only Hawaiian. The new program at Hilo had the motto O ka 'olelo
ke ka'a o ka Mauli: "Language is the fiber that binds us to
our cultural identity."
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Seniors at the
Kamehameha School for Girls in 1899. The principal and teachers
who shaped the school's culture were white women from the
U.S. mainland. (photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Pele and Pine make
a pu'olo, or offering, to bring to Pele, the goddess
of volcanoes and Pele Harman's namesake. (photo by Daniella
Zalcman)
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A
view of the Pacific from the island of Hawai'i's southeast
coast, where Pele's family is from.
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Pele, Leha and Pine stop
at Punaluu Beach, known for its black sand, to find a few
lava rocks for an offering they're planning to make later
that day at Kilauea.
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Leha and Pine stop to
dip their feet in the ocean at a beach on the southeast side
of Hawai'i.
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Pele, Leha and Pine at
Punaluu Beach, known for its black sand.
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Tourists stand on the
rim of the Kilauea crater in Volcanoes National Park.
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Leha and Pine walk
through Volcanoes National Park with their pu'olo,
or offering, to find a quiet spot overlooking the Kilauea
crater. (photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Pine and Leha,
standing on the edge of the Kilauea crater, hold a pu'olo
for Pele, the goddess of volcanoes. They will throw the
offering into the crater after Pele Harman finishes chanting.
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Enrolling in this new program, Pele and Kekoa spoke Hawaiian as
much as they could outside of class to become fluent. They "talked
story" with their professors in the hallways. Their teachers hosted
little get-togethers every weekPau Hana Fridays, as
they were known, the local equivalent of TGIF. (Pau hana is
a popular colloquialism across Hawaii: Pau means finished, while
hana means work.) At these gatherings, the students fumbled with
the language over card games, with music in the background and snacks
on the table. "That's how we got comfortable," Pele says.
Those early days of the Hawaiian language renaissance had a sort
of free-for-all flair. With a shortage of fluent Hawaiian speakers
in the general population, the burgeoning network of Hawaiian-immersion
schools drew on undergraduates from the program Kekoa and Pele were
enrolled in. Kekoa started teaching at a preschool, part of a growing
network called Aha Punana
Leo, which means "nest of voices." Pele taught at Ke
Kula 'O Nawahiokalani'opu'u Iki, called Nawahi for shortthe
first Hawaiian-immersion K-12 charter school, tucked along the slopes
of the Big Island's Kilauea volcano, on the Hilo side.
Pele and Kekoa began dating in 1999 and married roughly two years
later, on a date that coincided with a full moon. "It was a good
day spiritually," Pele said. Hawaiian customs were integrated throughout
the gatheringfrom the pule (blessing) delivered by Pele's
great-grandmother and the couple's Hawaiian-language vows to the
lei exchange and the guests' ho'okupu (offerings) of music and dance.
Pele held a bouquet assembled by the professor who'd hosted the
Pau Hana Fridays, comprising various plants found on the Big Islanda
sprig from the koa tree, for example, which symbolized strength.
Pele performed hula for Kekoa, dancing to a song composed by her
great-grandmother.
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Kalamanamana often
paddles around Hilo Bay with her grandparents in an outrigger
canoe, an island tradition updated here with high-tech materials.
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Pele still teaches at Nawahi. Its enrollment has increased by 10
percent every year, expanding the student body from 30 to more than
400. She has served as the school's math and social studies teacher
as well as its elementary-level Hawaiian-chant and dance teacher.
She and Kekoa also run an after-school hula program there. Last
year, Nawahi celebrated its 20th class of high school graduates.
Kalamanamana, the Harmans' eldest daughter, was among them.
This past April, Kekoa earned his doctorate in indigenous language
and culture revitalization from the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Because of Covid-19, few people were able to be there in person
to see him defend his dissertation, about the late hula master Joseph
'Ilala'ole. But more than 100 people watched the proceedings over
Zoom, many of them wearing aloha shirts and standing against backdrops
of misty lawns.
The defense began and ended with melethe songs and chants
he and Pele were learning when they met. Each member of the Harman
family performed a dance, including Kalamanamana, who is now an
undergraduate at Dartmouth but had come home to shelter in place
with her parents. The defense itself, with questions from UH Hilo
scholars, all took place in Hawaiian.
A decade or so ago, strangers passing the Harmans at the mall or
grocery store used to be shocked to hear an entire family conversing
in Hawaiian. They sometimes asked with concern whether the children
spoke English. These days, the couple's three oldest children are
14, 15 and 19 (their youngest is not yet a year old) and they no
longer get "stalked" for speaking Hawaiian. If anything, the onlookers
are full of admiration. The number of Hawaiian speakers is markedly
on the rise now. The last official estimate in 2016 put the number
at 18,400. Back in the late 20th century, that number was around
14,000and that was when the last generation of native Hawaiian
speakers was still alive.
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A shoe rack
at the Nawahi school. Many students have Hawaiian-language
names. Kauanoe means "misty rain," while Hiapo means "firstborn."
(photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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Pele chats in
Hawaiian with her students. Dual-language signs around the
school remind students and visitors not to speak English except
in designated areas. (photo by Daniella
Zalcman)
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"Given our kids, our own programs, the students we've put out,
we've made a lot of waves, a lot of progress," Pele says. The fact
that their daughter and many other Nawahi students have gone on
to elite schools thousands of miles away "validates for a lot of
people our way of life, the path that we've chosen."
Still, the Harmans worry about the future. Fostering a love of
Hawaiian felt more intimate back when they were part of a small
band of students, laughing their way through the Friday night dinners.
Many of the students at Nawahi spend Friday nights on Instagram
and Fortnite and take their access to Hawaiian as a given. In fact,
there's still no guarantee they'll remain fluent. Students have
few opportunities to continue speaking Hawaiian after they complete
their K-12 schooling.
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Hawaiians perform
a traditional dance as they protest the construction of the
Thirty Meter Telescope atop the dormant Mauna Kea volcano
in 2019. (photo by Daniella Zalcman)
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As the Harmans see it, Hawaiian will survive only if people value
the culture around it. After all, Hawaiian doesn't have the same
marketing value as a massive international language like Spanish
or Mandarin. Hawaiian is a language that describes local geographical
features and captures an ancient worldview. It's the language Kekoa's
and Pele's older relatives used to speak as they brought little
gifts to friends' houses, or shared the mahi mahi caught on a fishing
trip, or went holoholotaking a walk and chit-chatting.
"Now we have a generation of Hawaiian speakers, but if we don't
also teach them those behaviors and beliefs, that fluency will only
go so far," Kekoa says. "Hawaiian isn't just a language but a way
of life."
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