RIP: Native Hawaiian educator and activist Haunani-Kay Trask

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII

Haunani-Kay Trask, 1950-2021

By Anita Hofschneider

Reprinted from CIVIL BEAT

Haunani-Kay Trask, a staunch advocate for her Native Hawaiian community, died in Honolulu early Saturday, July 3 at age 71.

Trask was known for her powerful speaking and persistent advocacy on behalf of the Native Hawaiian community, her nationalism and her writings.

“We are not American!” she told a crowd in 1993 in front of Iolani Palace on the 100th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom. “We will die as Hawaiians, we will never be Americans!”

At the time of her passing, she was a professor emerita at the University of Hawaii Manoa, where she helped found the Center for Hawaiian Studies and taught for decades.

One of her former students, University of Hawaii political science professor Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, described Trask as “one of the most influential and prominent and internationally renowned Hawaiian scholars and activists of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries.”Trask inspired Pacific Islander poets and advocated against the destructive impacts of the military and tourism industries in Hawaii as well as colonization and white supremacy globally, Goodyear-Kaʻōpua said.

“She has for decades fearlessly been thinking about the importance of the restoration of land to Native Hawaiians and the ways that land is central to politics,” she said.

Kumu Hinaleimoana Wong said Trask also inspired her and many of today’s grassroots Hawaiian leaders.

“I consider her to be one of the most staunch teachers and aloha aina advocates that Hawaii has ever seen,” Wong said. “Her work will remain one of the most honored in terms of how much inspiration and how much empowerment she gave us by all the things that she espoused and all the things that she taught.”

Her younger sister Mililani said Trask died peacefully around 2 a.m. in a Honolulu care home after years of battling Alzheimer’s.

Mililani Trask said her sister would have wanted to be remembered as a poet and teacher.

“When she was asked to introduce herself, she always started to say she was a poet, a Hawaiian woman poet,” Trask said. “She considered her greatest accomplishment was the work she did to found the Center for Hawaiian Studies.”

The two grew up together in Kaneohe, their father an attorney and their mother a public school teacher, just walking distance from Kaneohe Bay. As children, they’d walk to collect clams and bring them back in buckets.
Global Condolences

Haunani-Kay Trask attended the University of Wisconsin where she helped found a feminist campus organization, her sister said. After returning to Hawaii, Trask was first hired by the American Studies Department at the University of Hawaii and from there advocated to create a department dedicated to Native Hawaiians.
Jonathan Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio, dean of the Hawai‘inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge, said that Trask “inspired people everywhere.”

“Professor Trask was a fearless advocate for the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) and was responsible for inspiring thousands of brilliant and talented Hawaiians to come to the University of Hawai‘i,” Osorio said in a statement. “But she also inspired our people everywhere to embrace their ancestry and identity as Hawaiians and to fight for the restoration of our nation. She gave everything she had as a person to our Lahui and her voice, her writing and her unrelenting passion for justice will, like our Queen, always represent our people. E ola mau loa e Haunani Kay Trask, ‘aumakua of the poet warrior.”

U.S. Rep. Kai Kahele, in a press release, said Trask “inspired and empowered generations of young scholars. Mahalo nui loa for your immeasurable contributions to the advancement of Native Hawaiians and indigenous people everywhere.”

Sen. Mazie Hirono tweeted: "Haunani-Kay Trask was an outspoken, thought-provoking educator and a fierce advocate who played an undeniable role in bringing to light the more painful parts of Hawaii's past, inspiring countless others to advocate for Native Hawaiians. My aloha to her family."

Mililani Trask said since the news broke about her sister’s passing, she has been fielding countless calls from Indigenous people in New Zealand, the Amazon, North America, Puerto Rico and elsewhere sharing their condolences and appreciation for her sister’s international influence on global Indigenous rights.

“My sister’s greatest legacy was her fearless advocacy, her strong loyalty to our people and culture and the rights attached to it,” Trask says. “Her understanding of our history was paralleled by her ability to understand modern issues impacting Indigenous peoples.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: Additional information from prepared statements from Sen. Mazie Hirono, Rep. Kai Kahele and Jonathan Kamakawiwo‘ole Osorio.