The colonial campaign for English-medium education

Abstract

Foreign influence and control in Hawaiʻi's early educational history allowed for the brutal subjugation and denial of the Hawaiian language. From the arrival of foreign missionaries in 1820, Hawaiian knowledge systems, including our mother tongue, were oppressed while foreign systems and western models were empowered. From 1824 to 1896, a shift occurred in which language was used in the schools of Hawaiʻi. This shift was the result of a deliberate plan to supplant the Hawaiian language with the English language, a colonial agenda that would guarantee control and conversion. Ultimately, this colonial tool to control Kānaka Maoli by degrading and making irrelevant the mother tongue was the most sinister and effective form of colonization in Hawaiʻi.

Foreign influence and control in Hawaii's early educational history allowed for the brutal subjugation and denial of the Hawaiian language. From the arrival of foreign missionaries in 1820, Hawaiian knowledge systems, including our mother tongue, were oppressed while foreign systems and Western models were empowered. From 1824 to 1896, a shift occurred in which language was used in the schools of Hawaii. This shift was the result of a deliberate plan to supplant the Hawaiian language with the English language, a colonial agenda that would guarantee control and conversion. Ultimately, this colonial tool to control Kaxnaka Maoli by degrading and making irrelevant the mother tongue was the most sinister and effective form of colonization in Hawaii.