August 20, 2005
Contributed by Thomas Yoshida
Aloha mai kakou,
My name is Dee Jay Mailer, and I have the honor of serving our founder, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, as the Chief Executive Officer of the Kamehameha Schools.
Today, I have the honor of standing with all of you in support of Kamehameha Schools, the Hawaiian people and our rich heritage and culture. Looking at all gathered here today…I am reminded that no matter where Hawaiians gather, it's always a "kakou thing" – all of us…together!
Each of you has come for very personal reasons, I know…and yet I believe we share:
• A sense of injustice that a private gift can be taken away from its intended beneficiaries.
• A shared resolve to fight for the right we have exercised for over 100 years: to educate Hawaiian children about their language and culture
• So that they can thrive in their own homeland
Many of you gathered here today, know, only too well, the history of the Hawaiian people, and so kala mai…forgive me …for repeating it but the decision against Kamehameha Schools today greatly affects our history, our culture and our precious island home. And there may be supporters in the audience who wish to learn.
Therefore, our history bears repeating…
Our Hawaiian ancestors settled our Island chain some two thousand years ago. They built an advanced society, populated by healthy and resourceful men and women.
While some might view the ocean as a barrier, our people saw the Pacific Ocean as an incredible system of highways. Without the use of metal tools, our people created seaworthy vessels that brought us over thousands of miles of open ocean, guided only by nature and the heavens. Even NASA recognizes such travel as a feat of human achievement.
Some also may view small, isolated islands as limiting and lacking in resources …. And yet our people flourished in their islands, being innovative engineers and keen observers of all aspects of nature. They grew to be a population estimated between 400,000 and 800,000.
Early Westerners visiting our islands marveled at the sophistication of our irrigation systems, the bounty of our field systems, and the abundant harvests from our fishponds.
So vibrant and prosperous was our civilization that we were able to devote time, energy and human spirit to the arts and sciences, such as the Kumulipo, the 2000-line treatise that recounted, 200 years before Darwin, the relationships of environment and cosmology to our world.
These are the people Captain James Cook found when he sailed into Kealakekua Bay in 1778. His ship was greeted by a young chief named Kamehameha The Great, grandfather of the founder of Kamehameha Schools and a magnificent warrior who just 32 years later united the islands as an independent, Sovereign nation.
Hawaiians welcomed these Western settlers to their detriment. The Hawaiian population quickly succumbed to diseases introduced by these settlers. After Kamehameha's death in 1819, American missionaries began to arrive, and the change accelerated. As Western education and commerce grew, our people began to lose their culture, language and self worth.
By 1884, the year our founder and Princess died, the Native Hawaiian population – more than 400,000 strong had dwindled to just 46,000. The Hawaiian people, their language and their culture, were on the way to extinction.
During our time as a kingdom, the U.S. established treaties with our government, in order to promote commerce and diplomatic relationships.
However, in 1893, the Hawaiian people had their homeland, the islands of Hawai'i, taken from them by the U.S. We all still remember our Queen imprisoned in her own palace, seeing the demise of her monarchy, her government and her people. And since then, the Hawaiian people have suffered what many other native peoples have…dispossession and despair in their own homeland.
Before the overthrow, however, through her private Will, Princess Pauahi offered hope to her dying people. She saw education as the key to their salvation and asked that her Trustees form two schools – one for boys and one for girls –to be named for her great grandfather, Kamehameha.
Kamehameha Schools has served the Hawaiian people for 117 years and we have made much progress. We have served through the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, through the annexation of Hawaii to the United States five years later, and through Statehood in 1959.
And there is still so much to be done. As long as we see our children, families and youth falling behind others in their homeland…our mission is not accomplished. And we will not give up our mission, no matter what stands in our way.
Because Kamehameha Schools is a symbol to the Hawaiian people of hope….it is a symbol of a native people's heritage and culture and it must continue to be a school for native people.
We know this and so do many people who are not of Hawaiian ancestry but support Kamehameha Schools…..Listen to what Robert Witt, who heads the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools wrote:
"Private schools are at their best when their missions address issues of equity and justice in our society. That is, when a school with a unique purpose serves a population of students that are not otherwise well served, everyone benefits. Kamehameha is such a school. It stands alone, as a private school dedicated to providing urgently needed educational remedies for Native Hawaiians, a disadvantaged people struggling to achieve social and economic parity." There is no other school in the world like Kamehameha. There is no other school, funded by a private gift from a Sovereign monarch, a Princess, established to correct the harms suffered by an Indigenous people in their own homeland."
At home, I can't count the number of people who have approached me and asked, "how can the court make a decision that threatens the very fabric of our State – how can they think that depriving the Hawaiian people of their education is racial discrimination? We don't, so how can they?" ….and these people are not Hawaiian ….but they live in and love Hawai'i.
So, here we stand on the corner of Market and 7th, as many of our ancestors stood in Hawai'i centuries ago, to fight for the Hawaiian people….I believe our ancestors nod with pride, seeing all the shapes and colors we Hawaiians come in today; I believe they smile at all our keiki and kupuna, who represent our future and our foundation; and send a huge mahalo nui loa (thank you) for all who stand with us that are not of our blood but are one with our hearts.
Let this be a day where people found hope from tragedy. Let this be a day that the people of San Francisco will remember always….when Hawaiians came to the shores of San Francisco Bay to share their thousand year story and found understanding. Let this be the day where justice for the Hawaiian people was restored!
I mua Kamehameha! I mua Hawai'i!
Kamehameha Schools’ policy is to give preference to applicants of Hawaiian ancestry to the extent permitted by law.
