Hawaii Dean Works at Preserving Hawaiian Culture - Higher Education

Hawaii Dean Works at Preserving Hawaiian Culture - Higher Education: The word kuleana is a Hawaiian word for responsibility, which Native Hawaiians feel toward their culture, the environment and each other. For Maenette K.P. Ah Nee-Benham, inaugural dean of the Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM), a strong sense of responsibility is what is driving her and her team as they work to not only preserve Hawaiian culture in the 21st century, but to also establish the Hawaiian nation as a pillar in higher education.

One of the great tragedies of Hawaiian colonization was the intentional undermining of indigenous education. Prior to colonization, natives communicated through oral traditions, but they were quick to embrace the written word when Christian missionaries introduced it in the 1820s. The first public education system was established by King Kamehameha III in 1840 and, at its apex, Hawaiian literacy was as high as 75 percent. But as the movement toward American annexation grew, occupiers viewed this as a threat. So, in 1896, an English-only law was imposed, banning the Hawaiian language from being taught in all schools. Native Hawaiians have struggled to recover ever since.