The Activism Haunani-Kay Trask: The Fight for Hawaiian Sovereignty
With the post-pandemic boom, tens of thousands of US tourists have flooded the island of Hawai’i in search of a paradisiacal escape. This has led to worker shortages, long wait-times at restaurants, congested roads, busy hospitals, and much more. A brief look into Hawaiian history reveals that US invasion on the island has been nothing but a pattern going on since the 1700s. Hawai’i was originally a monarchy from 1810, when Kamehameha I (1738–1819) brought all the islands under his control, to the time when the monarchy became defunct under Lili’uokalani. In 1893, the US played a major role in overthrowing the Hawaiian monarchy and forced Queen Lili’uokalani to surrender the throne. Following that, Hawai’i was annexed in 1898 and later became a state in 1959 (Kirkpatric, 2021).
Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask, a Hawaiian activist, was born on October 3, 1949 in California and died of cancer on July 3rd, 2021. Trask was a Native Hawaiian scholar, a poet, activist, and leader of the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement (Williams). She spent four decades dedicating her time to academic and activism work; and in doing so became a critical voice for the Hawaiian movement. She was born ten years before Hawai’i transitioned into statehood which no doubt had an impact over her life. As the fight against mass tourism and Hawaiian sovereignty continues, it is crucial to analyze what kind of actions/agency the indigenous people have been doing.
As an academic Trask worked as a professor of Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa with Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies (Williams). Overall she encompassed a variety of roles such as documentarist, writer and author. She also represented Native Hawaiians in the United States, and she was a part of other global networks ( Kirkpatric). Trask is often described as the most influential activist from Hawai’i in modern times. The activism of Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask, through various forms literary and oral, helps us understand the critical issues impacting Hawai’i since statehood and the Natives people’s response as it continues to affect their economy and health of Hawaiians today in their fight for sovereignty.
During her lifetime, Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask was a part of many activist movements. With her sister, She co-founded Ka Lahui Hawai’i, which is an “organization that promotes Hawaiian self-determination for Native Hawaiians and Hawaiian self-governance”. She was also a leader of the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement (Kirkpatric). During her activism work, Dr. Trask’s mission is clear in addressing the issues that have impacted the Natives people for the past 100 years.
With the rise of indigenous activist movements in the 1960s and 1970s, The Hawaiian Sovereignty movement was started by Native Hawaiian activist organizations and individuals passionate about the critical issues affecting Hawai’i. Some of the issues included urbanization and commercial development of the islands, corruption in the Hawaiian Homelands program, and the appropriation of native burial grounds and other sacred spaces. By the 1980s the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement had some traction culturally and politically. As a result, the Natives were successful in their resistance to urbanization and native disenfranchisement but they still struggled with the commercialization of the islands.
During her involvement with the movement, Dr. Trask was a leader in the fight for indigenous rights, commercialization, American occupancy of the islands, and the hypocrisy of the US policy. In 1993, she led a march of 15000 Native Hawaiians in the aim of regaining the land withheld by the state trust (Kirkpatric). Not only was this march one of the first major protests on the island but it also took place 100 years after Queen Lili’uokalani was forced to surrender the throne. As she walked the steps of Iolani Palace, which is the former residence of Hawaiian royalty and a government building, she said “I am so proud to be angry. I am so proud to be Hawaiian” (Kirkpatric).
Her ability to lead Native Hawaiians to revolutionary moments makes her so crucial to the development of modern Hawaiian activism. Through her activism, Hawaiians were able to better understand their history and their right to demand change. Her life was dedicated to raising awareness to the issues impacting the Natives people and also educating them. At UH, she “is credited with co-founding the contemporary field of Hawaiian studies, and later became the founding director of the UH Mānoa Center for Hawaiian Studies” (Williams). Such work goes to show that she was dedicated to creating a lasting legacy for her people.
One attribute of Trask that relates to our class discussions is her strong sense of nationalism. At the time, Dr. Trask was a tenured professor at University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She also co-founded the contemporary field of Hawaiian studies, and later became the founding director of the UH Mānoa Center for Hawaiian Studies (Williams). In 1990, Trask received a lot of attention for her remarks to one of the students at the University of Hawai’i (Williams). The student, in a letter to the school newspaper, accused Native Hawaiians of holding racist attitudes toward white people on the island. In response to the student, Dr. Trask said the student “does not understand racism at all” and should leave Hawai’i. The student in question did leave and return to Louisiana, as reported by the New York Times (Williams). After this interaction, Dr Trask faced a lot of criticism from faculty members and other students who deemed her comments unnecessarily harsh. Her response was “I am a nationalist. I am asserting my claim to my country” and that “I am not soft, I am not sweet, and I do not want any more tourists in Hawai’i ”(Williams).
Dr. Trask has seen the effect of imperialism on the indigenous people and how tourism has fortified the damage. Her response to the student is one that reflects the core values of the activism she leads and inspires. While others might find her reaction “unnecessary”, it is precisely the kind of action she knows is necessary to dismantle the ignorance of the student and her peers.
The commercialization of the Hawaiian islands remains a crucial issue for the indigenous people. Tourism, just like statehood, rights, etc. was sold to Hawaiians as an economic savior and has been nothing but a lie to advance the profits of the West. At statehood, Hawai’i residents outnumbered tourists by more than 2 to 1. Today, tourists outnumber residents by 6 to 1; they outnumber Native Hawaiians by 30 to 1. Additionally the cost of living is much higher now due to the higher inflation as a result of the increase in foreign investments from tourism. This has led to an increase in homelessness all over the islands(Trask). In thinking about Dr. Trask’s response to the student, she is coming from a place where her country is being sold out for money. Where 5 million tourists crowd the islands yearly only to continue the mass destruction (Trask). The beautiful land, sacred to her people, is now filled with megaresorts “on thousands of acres with demands for water and services that far surpass the needs of Hawai’i residents” (Trask) The shorelines used for fishing are now made exclusive for jet skiing, and sunbathing with restricted or regulated access for the locals.
Dr Trask has written several works. Her first book was “Eros and Power: The Promise of Feminist Theory” (1981) which was an adaptation of her dissertation. It was followed by her best-known book “Notes from a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii” in 1993. She also wrote two poetry collections “Light in the Crevice Never Seen” (1994) and “Night Is a Sharkskin Drum” (2002). She was co-producer and scriptwriter of the award-winning film, Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation (1993).
“Notes from a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaii” focuses on how the colonization of the Hawaiian islands have been recorded through an imperialist lens. She discusses how the history she knows has been told differently between her parents and the textbooks. The textbook stories were written by haole, non-white Hawaiians who “had ever learned our mother tongue” and based their stories on other haole stories(Trask, 114). The ways that white colonizers chose to recount the colonization of Hawai’i is done for their own benefit. In their recounting, the natives were “a primitive group” who “had been ruled by bloodthirsty priests and despotic kings who owned all the land and kept our people in feudal subjugation” (Trask, 114). While in reality Dr. Trask describes the lives of the natives before colonization: the people did not own land and could simply fish and plant and “the chiefs were good and loved their people.”(Trask, 114) Painting the native history in such a manner allows white imperialist powers to justify their need to be involved in the “development” of the islands and while covering their real intentions.
In one of her article’s “Lovely Hula Hands Corporate Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture”, Trask talks about how most Americans dream of visiting the paradisical islands in their lifetime but have never stopped to question the powers that made the same islands “territorially incorporated, and economically, politically, and culturally subordinated to the United States.” (Trask, 136) Additionally they are unaware of the fight against oppression of the natives. The tourists see Hawai’i as something that exists simply to be enjoyed, appropriated, and exploited. Dr. Trask adds that such privileges are part of the American standards of living. They get to live in ignorance yet have power over the lives of Natives people.
This can also be seen within her poetry particularly with the poem “Tourist”. The short poem illustrates how American greed has destroyed the islands. “The flourishing hand of greed” seems to address how successful the white invaders have been in fulfilling their needs. She ends the short poem with “glittering knives of money, murdering the trees” which makes me think of the allure of the megaresorts and commercialization of Hawai’i and how their attraction is mainly a covering act for the exploitation of the Natives islands.
To many, Dr. Trask was simply an inspiration. She dedicated her life to the fight for Indigenous rights and Hawaiian Sovereignty. On July 3rd 2021, She passed away from cancer. Even after her death, the lasting legacy she created will continue to inspire generations after her. Despite the constant efforts of the West to ignore the history of violence against Hawai’i and its Native people, her literary work challenges the dominant tropes we attach to Hawai’i. She reveals to us the history that she is familiar with and why that story matters. The erasure of the voice of the Natives people hides their agency in the fight for independence from neo-colonization and the remains of imperialism. The marketing of the Hawaiian islands as a paradise, attracting 5 million tourists yearly for the foreseeable future, is truly damaging to her culture, history, and society.
Works Cited
Kirkpatric, Rebecca. “Remembering a Hawaiian Hero: Haunani-Kay Trask and Her Fight for the Rights of Native Hawaiians.” Cultural Survival, 11 Aug. 2021, www.culturalsurvival.org/news/remembering-hawaiian-hero-haunani-kay-trask-and-her-fight-rights-native-hawaiians.
Trask , Haunani-Kay. “Tourism and the Prostitution of Hawaiian Culture.” Cultural Survival, 1 Mar. 2000, www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/tourism-and-prostitution-hawaiian-culture.
Williams, Annabelle. “Haunani-Kay Trask, Champion of Native Rights in Hawaii, Dies at 71.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 July 2021, www.nytimes.com/2021/07/09/us/haunani-kay-trask-dead.html.
