Reclaiming Civil Rights in Uncivil Times

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000

1998

ACROSS THE UNITED STATES TODAY, a growing number of nondominant ethnic students are entering the public schools, renewing policy debates surrounding educational excellence versus equity for marginalized people. A historical examination of educational politics reveals that when competing social and political forces argue over the pursuit of educational goals, issues eventually become politicized with the potential reward being access to and participation in the governance system. Recently, an increasingly diverse and vocal populace has focused new attention on the policymaking process and its relationship to the educational experience and subsequent life choices of Native Americans. The study of how educational policy has affected Native Hawaiians has been given little attention. Perhaps, not coincidentally, it has failed to receive attention because it has been somewhat lost in the history of the United States, which has focused on the politics of cultural domination through assimil...

The Contemporary Pacific, 2001

, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Rice versus Cayetano that the ancestry qualification for voters of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was unconstitutional because it violated the Fifteenth Amendment of the US Constitution.Although a politically narrow ruling, the court dispensed with one of the agency 's most significant political funct i o n s , namely, acting as a form of self-government for over two hundred thousand Hawaiians in the islands, while temporarily at least sustaining that agency's continued function of dispensing funds and services to Native Hawaiians. The significance of the ruling depends on one's point of view. There is no unqualified Hawaiian perspective on this issue, partly because of the history of Hawaiian sovereignty in Hawai'i and partly because of the perplexities among Hawaiian Natives and residents about race, nationality, and culture.

Tulsa Law Review, 2012

'i at Manoa. The author wishes to express her deep gratitude for the guidance and support of David H. Getches and Jon M. Van Dyke, two noted scholars and advocates for the Native Hawaiian community. Diacritical marks change the meaning of words in the Hawaiian language. Thus, in this article diacritical marks are used in Hawaiian words except in case names, certain titles, and quotations where Hawaiian words appear as they did in the original texts. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are the author's.

The Journal of Pacific History, 2014

US Commission on Civil Right Hawaii Advisory Committee, 2019

Micronesians in Hawaii: Migrant Group Faces Barriers to Equal Opportunity A Briefing Report from the Hawaii Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, March 2019, Honolulu, Hawaii. The Hawaii Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights submits this report detailing civil rights concerns associated with barriers to equal opportunities for Micronesians within the state. The Committee submits this report as part of its responsibility to study and report on civil rights issues in the state of Hawaii. The contents of this report are primarily based on testimony the Committee heard during hearings on August 20, 2015 and October 17, 2018, in Honolulu, Hawaii. This report documents a longitudinal study conducted by the Committee based upon concerns raised by panelists and members of the public regarding barriers to equal opportunity throughout the state of Hawaii for people migrating from Micronesia to Hawaii. Based on the findings of this report, the Committee offers to the Commission recommendations for addressing this issue. Hawaii State Advisory Committee Nalani Fujimori-Kaina, Chairperson, Amefil Agbayani, Eva Andrade, Alphonso Braggs, Vernon Char, Jennifer Dotson, Moses Haia, III, Luciano Minerbi, Kymberly Pine, Randall Roth, Wayne Tanna, Jacqueline Young - In Memorium.

History of Education Quarterly, 2003

Under the policies of the United States, it will be very difficult to prohibit schools of this kind unless it were definitely proven that they were teaching treasonable things.—P. P. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of EducationThis article critically examines how the 1919 Federal Survey of Education in Hawai'i, under the guise of a scientific study to guide educational reform, was used as the means to implement colonial policies over the territory's largest ethnic group, the Nikkei, people of Japanese ancestry. Furthermore, the survey was also used by various other political and religious parties and individuals to further their own objectives. Although there were many facets to the federal survey, this study focuses only on the debate surrounding Japanese language schools, the most sensational issue of the survey. The battle over the control of Japanese language schools among the white ruling class, educational authorities, and the Nikkei community in Hawai'i created the fo...

Encounters in Theory and History of Education, 2020

The Hawaiian kingdom, prior to the illegal overthrow of its monarchy (1893) and the subsequent English-only Law (1896), had boasted a 91-95% literacy rate. Within that learning environment learners had a clear sense of purpose because Hawaiians had a firm grasp of who they were, where they were, and what they had to contribute. Since the English-only Law and US annexation of Hawai‘i (1898), however, the settler colonialschool system has maintained levels of cultural dissonance that have manifested as inequitable student outcomes for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) across multiple academic and disciplinary student indicators (i.e., proficiency, suspension rates, etc). While western law and US compulsory education severed traditional sources of knowledge production that had provided a sustainable model of a‘o (teaching and learning), the ancestors of the Native Hawaiian community were diligent about preserving the keys to their genealogical legacies within more than 120,...