HISTORY OF THE HAWAIIAN CULTURAL CENTER PROJECT

The Hawaiian Cultural Center Project (HCCP) is a Strategic Planning initiative that promotes Hawaiian cultural education, practices, and traditions.

In January of 1994, the board of trustees gave conceptual approval for the construction of a cultural center on the Kapālama campus. In addition, it established Kamehameha Schools as a "Hawaiian cultural education center" and approved $50,000 to retain an architect for preliminary design work. A planning committee was convened, a series of large-group work sessions was held, and several sub-committees engaged in detailed planning of the center and its programs. Some 300 members of the community participated in the planning process. This was the beginning of the Hawaiian Cultural Center Project (HCCP).

However, over the course of the succeeding two years, members of the Schools’ leadership questioned the planning process which involved a high level of inclusivity and community involvement. As a result, in June of 1996, the HCCP was immobilized for an indefinite period of time.

In July of 2000, with the support of the newly-appointed CEO, an interim plan was approved which revived the HCCP and revitalized the community-wide effort to construct a cultural center and implement Hawaiian cultural programs. The planning committee was charged with re-engaging the community to revise and update the proposal. Subsequently, the HCCP was placed under Strategic Planning. As the work of the Strategic Planning Enhancement Group (SPEG) progressed, the HCCP was transformed into a Proposal Development Team (PDT). Over the course of the year, the HCCP planning committee held a series of community-wide work sessions which involved nearly 300 more people.

On June 11, 2001, the first HCCP plan was submitted to the CEO and chief executives. Proposals for cultural programs and a potential center site were identified. One year later, on June 11, 2002, a second, more comprehensive report was developed. It contained a philosophical framework for community reach called ‘Aha Kaiaulu, and conceptual architectural designs created by INK Architects, Inc.

To date, over 600 members of the community have directly contributed to the cultural center initiative. The plan, which is highly-congruent with the Schools’ Strategic Plan, reflects many years of perseverence as well as hundreds of hours of work, dedication, and aloha.

As the CEO and the board of trustees continue to chart the future of Pauahi’s legacy, there will be an increasing focus on reaching more Hawaiians. Community collaboration and involvement will help Kamehameha Schools to successfully achieve this goal.

HISTORICAL PREMISE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS

Overview

Some two millennia ago, Polynesian voyagers discovered and settled the islands of Hawai‘i, giving birth to the Hawaiian culture. Centuries of innovation and refinement enabled this culture to attain some of the highest levels of achievement known in the Pacific. A conservative estimate indicates that the Native Hawaiian population may have totaled 400,000 prior to foreign contact. However, recent studies show the likelihood of a much higher number of inhabitants as evidenced by the agricultural and aquacultural infrastructure which had a carrying capacity capable of supporting between 800,000 and 1 million people.

Western Influences

The initial impact of Western intervention was traumatic. New diseases ravaged the population. Between 1778 when Capt. Cook arrived, and 1823 when a census was taken by American missionaries, the Hawaiian population had dropped from 400,000 (a conservative estimate) to 132,000. By 1853, the native population declined further to 70,000. In addition, imperialistic actions resulted in a devastating sense of material and psychological loss. Throughout the 19th century, Hawaiians became increasingly disenfranchised from their land and its resources which had sustained them in isolation for nearly 2,000 years.

In an effort to stabilize and maintain Hawai‘i as a sovereign nation, the Hawaiian monarchy created social and political alliances with royalty and heads of state from throughout the world and ratified treaties with foreign governments. It established constitutions that it hoped would protect the Hawaiian kingdom from foreign control. It was precisely these historical circumstances that inspired Ke Ali‘i Bernice Pauahi Bishop to establish Kamehameha Schools in 1884. It was her hope that education would help Hawaiian people to cope and survive in an increasingly non-Hawaiian world. However, by 1893 America's burgeoning political and economic interests in Hawai‘i and its resources peaked, and Hawai‘i’s last monarch, Queen Lili‘uokalani, Pauahi’s hānai sister, was unlawfully overthrown. By this time, the population had dwindled to about 40,000. Though opposed by the majority of Hawaiians via petition, Hawai‘i was annexed as a territory of the United States in 1898. Over a century later, the legality of this action continues to raise questions in contemporary times.

Downward Spiral

From the turn of the 20th century to the dawning of the 21st, Hawaiians endured a hundred years of forced assimilation into mainstream American culture and lifestyle. Despite evidence that the Hawaiian kingdom was one of the most highly literate nations in the latter half of the 19th century, the Hawaiian language was banned from the public and private school systems in 1896. It remained an unrecognized language by the government for nearly a century. The English-only legislation was among the most destructive colonial acts against Native Hawaiians — it resulted in a precipitous decline in the indigenous understandings of their own culture, history, values, spirituality, practices and identity as a people. The effects of colonialism and institutional racism continued into the 1920s (when only 24,000 Native Hawaiians were left), became imbedded in Hawai‘i’s system during World War II, and remained through statehood in 1959.

Toward Cultural Stability: Restoring the Values, Soul and Psyche

In the years following statehood, a surge in tourism and an influx of new residents drastically altered the social and natural landscape of Hawai‘i, threatening the survival of the Hawaiian culture.

Then, the tide began to turn during the decade of the 1970’s, a time marked by a dynamic movement by Hawaiians to hold fast and reconnect to their cultural roots found in the environment, in themselves and in their past. Hawaiian language, arts, values, perspectives, and socio-political activism, became widespread – it was an era of great cultural pride. And yet even the colorful and festive Hawaiian Renaissance could not upstage the debilitating effects of 200-plus years of political, social, cultural and psychological trauma. Today, in 2003, as Hawaiians continue to be disproportionately represented in social statistics regarding poor health, unemployment, incarceration, education, and so forth. Hawaiians also remain, for the most part, culturally illiterate as a people and many are disconnected from their ancestral heritage and lifestyle.

The values and practices of our ancestors, shaped by an island home and subsistence economy, nurture an understanding of the need for sustainable resource management and of the importance of placing community benefits above self interest. These values are as relevant - or more so - in the 21st century as they were when Polynesians made their first landfall in Hawai‘i Nei.

KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS’ KULEANA*

Given the premise of history and the promise of our future, it is the goal of Kamehameha Schools to:

• Work towards the reestablishment of social and cultural stability through the restoration of Hawaiian cultural literacy for Native Hawaiians of all ages;

• Facilitate Hawaiian cultural learning throughout the Hawaiian community;

• Institutionalize Hawaiian cultural perspectives and practices throughout the Kamehameha Schools system;

• Promote the globally accepted understanding that the condition of indigenous peoples is directly impacted by their access to resources, their positive feelings of self and group esteem, their sense of identity, and grounding in their own native culture.

Collectively, these goals form an important catalyst for the success and the rightful advancement of Kānaka Maoli, Native Hawaiians, in their own homeland in the 21st century. Kamehameha Schools, by virtue of its history and educational and cultural mission, is committed to the education of Native Hawaiians not simply for education’s sake, but ultimately to improve the conditions of Native Hawaiians and to ensure their longevity as the indigenous people of Hawai‘i.

* Kuleana means "responsibility" and we use it to refer to Kamehameha Schools’ cultural obligations to its beneficiaries, the Native Hawaiian people.