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kateelliottIn Hawaii, in the 19th century, great efforts were made by the missionaries to discourage and even eradicate the local lifeways, language, and culture because they weren't proper. In the 20th century, after Hawaii became a territory, this process turned more to Americanization of the local population, which included (again) forbidding students to use any language at school except English. The view of Hawaii that entered the popular American Mainstream was actually a kind of Americanized bastardization, whose music is usually called "hapa haole" (that is, half Hawaiian-half Caucasian) and whose hula style focused around a smiling young woman who swayed her hips and fluttered her hands.
In the late 60s and really exploding in the 1970s, a movement called the Hawaiian Renaissance spread throughout the islands: it was a time, in the words of George S Kanahele, when Hawaiians, as individuals and groups, showed an increasing concern for their political rights and grievances and their cultural identity.
The text of an important talk Kanahele gave in May 1979 about the Hawaiian Renaissance can be found here if you're interested. It's long, but well worth reading.
But that's not what I'm posting about today, specifically.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Eddie Aikau, who is such an iconic figure here that he has his own phrase that anyone with the slightest familiarity with Hawaiian culture would recognize would immediately.
I wanted to flag this front-page article from today's Honolulu Advertiser on Aikau.
And, you know, it's a good motto when it comes to our fears and doubts about tackling big challenges: Eddie would go.
In the late 60s and really exploding in the 1970s, a movement called the Hawaiian Renaissance spread throughout the islands: it was a time, in the words of George S Kanahele, when Hawaiians, as individuals and groups, showed an increasing concern for their political rights and grievances and their cultural identity.
The text of an important talk Kanahele gave in May 1979 about the Hawaiian Renaissance can be found here if you're interested. It's long, but well worth reading.
But that's not what I'm posting about today, specifically.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the death of Eddie Aikau, who is such an iconic figure here that he has his own phrase that anyone with the slightest familiarity with Hawaiian culture would recognize would immediately.
I wanted to flag this front-page article from today's Honolulu Advertiser on Aikau.
And, you know, it's a good motto when it comes to our fears and doubts about tackling big challenges: Eddie would go.