“Girls Carry on the Lineage”
The Writings of Haunani-Kay Trask and Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner as Exploration of Indigenous Women’s Resistance to Colonial Legacies
In their written works, Haunani-Kay Trask and Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner explore the unique and complex experiences of being women native to Hawai’i and the Marshall Islands, respectively. In her book of poems, Night is a Sharkskin Drum and her essay “Women’s Mana and Hawaiian Sovereignty,” Trask provides insight into the role of women in native Hawaiian culture historically and in the present. Similarly, Jetn̄il-Kijiner’s poetry book Iep Jāltok follows many of her own experiences of womanhood and growing up Marshallese. As part of exploring their own upbringings and history, each poet also examines the impact of American imperialism on their respective homes, as well as how those harmful legacies have impacted the roles of native women. This combination of subject matter ultimately showcases the particular importance of indigenous women in resisting imperialism and keeping cultural histories alive.
{Historical Background}
The islands of Hawai’i were first settled by Polynesian peoples as early as 400 C.E. Over the next millennium, the Hawaiian people lived in small communities led by chieftains. Eventually, the entire archipelago was united into one kingdom. In 1778, the first Europeans arrived, and by 1820, Christian missionaries and Western traders were already coming to the islands. With them, they brought European diseases that decimated the native population (“Hawaii — History and Heritage”). Over the course of the 19th century, American colonists took more and more land in order to use it for sugar plantations, which ultimately became a major part of Hawai’i’s economy. The growing number of American colonists and missionaries and the increasing reliance on sugar trade made the indigenous Hawaiians fearful of America exerting further control over the islands (Shepardson). In order to prevent any native resistance and ensure further economic control, white American settlers forced King Kalakaua at gunpoint to sign a new constitution that stripped the monarchy of its power, replacing it with a settler-friendly legislature. This constitution, signed in 1887, would come to be known as the “Bayonet Constitution,” due to its coerced nature (“Bayonet Constitution”).
Over the next four years, American and European colonists enjoyed growing control over Hawai’i’s political and economic affairs. In 1891, King Kalakaua’s successor, Queen Liliuokalani, renounced the Bayonet Constitution. In 1893, a group of American sugar planters, with the knowledge of the U.S. Minister to Hawai’i, overthrew Queen Liliuokalani and the monarchy, replacing it with their own government. The United States then recognized this government and declared Hawai’i a U.S. protectorate. The new president Sanford Dole submitted “a treaty of annexation to the Senate” (“Americans Overthrow”), despite it being against the wishes of the majority of the indigenous Hawaiians at the time. The Spanish-American war and usefulness of Pearl Harbor as a military base led to the formal annexation of Hawai’i in 1898.
Even before Hawai’i was officially annexed, the United States government made concerted efforts to “Americanize” (Gershon) native Hawaiian children through the public education system. In these schools, “administrators pushed students and teachers to speak standard American English and fought against Asian influences in the classroom” (Gershon). Indigenous Hawaiians were expected to conform to “white, Anglo culture” (Gershon). This type of education led to a suppression of Hawaiian culture and language that is now being reclaimed by native Hawaiians.
The Marshall Islands were first settled by Micronesians between 20 and 50 C.E. After first making contact with the islands in the 1520s, Spain officially claimed the two archipelagos as their own in 1592. Over the next several centuries, the islands were occupied by several imperial forces. Germany annexed the islands and established a protectorate there in 1886. In the early 20th century, Japan captured the Marshall Islands. During World War II, the United States took the islands from Japan, then began using them as a site for nuclear testing. The U.S. government evacuated all residents of Bikini Atoll under the agreement that they would be able to return once testing had ceased. After the war ended, testing continued as fears of communism and the Cold War began to grow. In 1948, the testing sites expanded to Enewetak Atoll, which was then also evacuated. The United States detonated the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever tested on Bikini Atoll in 1954 (Ciste).
Though nuclear testing officially ended in 1958, the U.S. did not begin the nuclear clean-up process until 1969. Indigenous islanders were told they could return to Enewetak Atoll in the 1970s, though this was revoked after dangerous levels of radiation were found in their residents’ bodies. Many Marshallese people also began to develop health problems as a result of radiation exposure. The United States officially recognized the independence of the Marshall Islands in 1979 (Ciste). Despite the U.S. government promising to have Bikini Atoll cleaned of radiation by 2000, a 2001 Nuclear Claims Tribunal found that the U.S. still owed the Marshall Islands billions in damages. However, the Marshall Islands still have only received a fraction of that amount (Rust).
Since the United States once occupied and still maintains close ties with the Marshall Islands, education follows a U.S.-patterned system. The U.S. government also had a high level of control over the education system in the Marshall Islands, since the majority of its funding came from the U.S. Office for Education and the U.S. Department of the Interior (Devine). Even currently, classes are taught in English, rather than Marshallese (Freeman). Because of the large role that the United States as a colonial force played in the formation of the current Marshallese education system, indigenous Marshallese culture and systems of knowledge have historically been de-emphasized or excluded.
{Carrying on the Lineage}
The start of Iep Jāltok contains a note from Jetn̄il-Kijiner, which reads, “my mother once told me girls represent wealth for their families. ‘Girls carry on the lineage’” (3). This quote from her mother establishes how the book will examine the roles of women in Marshallese culture. Similarly, Trask also delves into the experiences of women through the lens of her native Hawaiian culture. The idea of girls carrying on lineage can refer to motherhood, which Jetn̄il-Kijiner explores extensively throughout her poetry collection. However, viewing it only through the lens creates a rather narrow view of indigenous womanhood. Rather, the idea of girls being the ones to carry on the lineage can also apply to the role of native women in resisting the legacy of imperialism and preserving the legacy of their cultural identities. Thus, the very works themselves of these writers become acts of resistance and carrying on their lineages.
In each of their poetry, Trask and Jetn̄il-Kijiner explore the idea of resisting the erasure of their cultures. In “On the Couch with Bubu Neien,” Jetn̄il-Kijiner discusses her relationship to her grandmother, who had throat cancer. The illness impacts her ability to talk: “Words / are ripped / from the belly / of her throat / before they can be born” (Jetn̄il-Kijiner 42). Bubu Neien’s loss of speech reflects how the aftereffects of nuclear testing have robbed this woman of her ability to communicate, highlighting how American imperialism is a force of domination and erasure of native women. During the poem, Jetn̄il-Kijiner expresses disappointment at being unable to speak to her grandmother in her native Marshallese. Her frustrations build and build, but “before my thoughts / can implode / Bubu Neien’s hand / reaches over / pats / my knee” (Jetn̄il-Kijiner 43–44). This small moment functions as a powerful action of resistance to the attempts of American imperialism to erase Marshallese culture. Even though Jetn̄il-Kijiner and her grandmother cannot communicate in Marshallese, Bubu Neiein ensures that their intergenerational bond cannot be severed through non-verbal means of connection. Maintaining the relationships of this line of women functions as a rejection of colonialist goals of breaking Marshallese youth off from their roots in order to assimilate them into American culture.
Trask also incorporates female figures who fight against the subjugation of native Hawaiians and their land into her poetry. Her poem“Nâmakaokaha‘i” discusses the elder sister Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes Pele. Toward the end, Trask writes, “Nâ-maka-o-ka-ha‘i, / eyes flecked with fire, / summoning her family from across the seas. / … From the red rising mist / of Kahiki, the Woman of the Pit: / Pele, Pele‘aihonua, / traveling the uplands, / devouring the foreigner” (7–8). Trask portrays Nâmakaokaha‘i as being part of a family of women that includes her sister. Similar to Jetn̄il-Kijiner’s representation of her grandmother as keeping alive the family lineage, Trask shows Nâmakaokaha‘i as the one who calls her family together in order to fight for their land. The representation of these goddesses as “devouring the foreigner” also places them in direct opposition to colonial powers in Hawai’i. Rather than the land being consumed by tourism and resource extraction, the goddesses instead consume the colonists. This poem reflects how Trask utilizes her position as an indigenous Hawaiian woman to not only keep alive important elements of her culture, but to use those elements as resistance against colonial legacies in Hawai’i.
{Political Resistance}
While each author discusses symbolic colonial resistance in their writing, they both also use their works to discuss how indigenous women fight against these harmful structures in a directly political way. “Campaigning in Aur” follows Jetn̄il-Kijiner’s mother as she campaigns to become a Senator for the Aur Atoll, which would make her the only female Senator in the Marshall Islands. Jetn̄il-Kijiner immediately establishes the campaign as a female endeavor: “so she disembarks on her motherisland flanked / by a campaign army / of women” (60). The use of “motherisland” links these women and their mission to their connection to the land as indigenous people. It establishes them as being part of a matrilineal history that ties them to the islands, demonstrating that the battle that this “campaign army” is fighting is one for the lineage of this land and its people.
Later in the poem, Jetn̄il-Kijiner speaks from her perspective as a child observing this campaign: “We fall asleep as girls / listening to the women the women the women / talkingwhisperinglaughing / we fall asleep and dream / the women we hope to be” (63). The repetition of “the women” shows the role of these indigenous women as a collective in pushing for political representation. Combining “talkingwhisperinglaughing” into one word draws attention to communication between the women and turns it into an entity in itself. These means of connecting with each other is a source of power for these native women, since it is part of their political campaigning. Since the goal of colonial influence has been to divide and disrupt the relationships of Marshallese culture, this emphasis on communication in pursuit of political power is also a form of resistance. Jetn̄il-Kijiner also emphasizes the power of these relationships by describing how the girls observe the woman and aspire to be like them. Their political organizing inspires the younger generation of Marshallese girls to also pursue it, in effect carrying on this lineage of activism and cultural connection.
Haunani-Kay Trask very explicitly addresses the role of indigenous women as political actionaries in her essay, “Women’s Mana and Hawaiian Sovereignty.” Trask defines mana as “the ability to speak for the people and the land, to command respect by virtue of this ability” (95). According to Trask, mana is a vital quality of leaders in Hawai’i, since it “opposes the American system of electoral power while reclaiming a form of political leadership based on Hawaiian cultural beliefs” (92). Mana is a critical element of the modern sovereignty movement in Hawai’i, but Trask specifically points to the mana of native women as a driving force. While native men may be rewarded for colluding with the colonial power, Trask argues that women do not face the same incentives since their only reward is to “stand adjunct to men” (94). Thus, women have taken on the most active roles in the push for sovereignty. One reason that Trask cites for women’s vital role in this activism is “women have not lost sight of the lahui, that is, of the nation” (94). Trask argues that native women still embody a cultural responsibility to care for the future of the Hawaiian nation that includes the land and people. The concepts of mana and lahui that Hawaiian women embody give them a cultural authority to pursue political power and activism for the sake of the nation. Trask’s exploration of these concepts demonstrates how the idea of indigenous women carrying on lineages goes far beyond just motherhood: it has clear connections to cultural preservation and colonial resistance.
The harmful legacies of American imperialism and colonialism on native Hawaiians and Marshallese have impacted the way in which women of these islands relate to their cultures. While the responsibility placed on indigenous women to carry on lineages applies in straightforward ways, like motherhood, it also extends to the political and cultural spheres. In their poetry and writings, Haunani-Kay Trask and Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner each explore the role of women in preserving the legacy of their cultures by rejecting and organizing against attempted erasure by colonial powers. The very nature of these women’s works also carries through this idea, since their creations also serve as a method of sustaining their own cultural histories. Within their poetry collections, they each include their native languages at certain points, which is a direct rejection of colonial attempts to squash out the indigenous languages of Hawai’i and the Marshall Islands. The art of Trask and Jetn̄il-Kijiner demonstrates the unique power and burden of indigenous women as guardians and advocates for their respective nations, as well as their cultural and political futures.
Works Cited
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Jetn̄il-Kijiner Kathy. Iep Jāltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter. The University of Arizona Press, 2017.
Rust, Suzanne. “How the U.S. Betrayed the Marshall Islands, Kindling the next Nuclear Disaster.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 10 Nov. 2019, https://www.latimes.com/projects/marshall-islands-nuclear-testing-sea-level-rise/.
Shepardson, Peter. “Annexing Hawaii: The Real Story.” Cultural Survival, 1 Dec. 1998, https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/annexing-hawaii-real-story.
Trask, Haunani-Kay. Night Is a Sharkskin Drum. University of Hawaii Press, 2002, Catalog, https://catalog.lib.unc.edu/catalog/UNCb9245197.
