Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 37, Number 2, 1 February 2020 — Clarabal: Regarding Intent [ARTICLE]

Clarabal: Regarding Intent

By Sabrina Rose Kamakakaulani Gramberg

Aloha nui kākou a pau, e ka makamaka heluhelu o Ka Wai Ola, mai ka wai huna a ka pāo'o aia nō i Kīlauea a hiki aku i ka wai huna a ka pāo'o aia nō i ka moku o Lehua, aloha nō. Like the pāo'o fish known for its aetive nature, our Hawaiian language eommunities eontinually seek to fulfill our kuleana to the vitality of Hawai 'i' s indigenous language. Today, Hawaiian is onee again being used to teaeh eultural praetiees, produce scholarship, eompose plays, withdraw money, and so mueh more. Doubtless, it is these unceasing efforts that held the space for Hawai'i's Supreme Court to reaffirm and imbue present meaning to Article X, §4 of our Constitution, mandating that the State provide a Hawaiian medium education. In Clarabal v. Dept. of Educ. of Haw. ( Clarabal ), the Court's result is reflective of a fundamental understanding of language whieh all of our state departments and elected officials should embrace. Namely, that Hawaiian language is a right. The Court reasoned since Hawaiian medium schools are vital sites where language regeneration is nurtured, it is, in fact, this type of school that the creators of Article X, §4 intended. The focus on intention put Hawai'i's current linguistic landscape in context, to simultaneously reveal and reject a history of government-directed English privilege and Hawaiian suppression. Moving forward, the State must make all reasonable efforts to provide access to Hawaiian immersion education. The ripples being generated by Clarabal should have all state departments and elected officials reassessing their respective kuleana to Hawaiian as an official language. For example, the Court's instruction to the State to "routinely review" the details of its Hawaiian education program is an exercise that I would extend to all state depai'tments and elected officials. We are now entering the forty-second year since Article XV, §4 of the constitution returned Hawaiian to government domains, yet Hawai'i's legislatures collectively have failed to establish any meaningful implementing statutes. As a result, translations and interpreters are provided pieeemeal and there is no holistic approach to language planning from our state leadership. At the same time, the inevitable increase of Hawaiian language speakers will require the tools constitutionally contemplated by the delegates of 1978 to support language acquisition individually, and language normalization collectively. Languages are able to thrive as long as their communities choose to speak them and are free to make those choices. For many in Hawai'i, Hawaiian opens up a range of connections to these lands and the original people who maintained a dialogue with it. As a new decade emerges, may we all eonhnue to seek and create opportunities to learn, speak, and teach Hawaiian. E o'u mau makamaka o Hawai'i nei, e ho'oikaika a e ho'omau ka pono i ka ho'opuka 'ana i kāu 'ōlelo pono'ī, ka 'ōlelo o nēia 'āina, no ka mea, he lā'au lapa'au ia no ka pu'uwai. ■ Sabrina Rose Kamakakaulani Gramberg, Esq., was raised beneath the misty Lelma rain ofMānoa and the sea breeze of Waimānalo. Her 'ohana are the mahi kalo of Mānoa and the lawai'a of Pāhonu.