2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the ethnic studies program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. What began as a two-year experimental program during the civil rights, anti-Vietnam War, ethnic empowerment and students’ rights movements in the fall of 1970 has flourished into a department providing a quality education for its students and serving as a major contributor in the community.
“For 50 years now, ethnic studies has empowered Hawaiʻi’s peoples through research and teaching that serves our Native Hawaiian and local communities — ‘Our History, Our Way.’ Now in the current moment of racial reckoning and economic restructuring, we are working to ensure that a post-pandemic UH foregrounds social justice and Oceanic connections — ‘Our Future, Our Way,’” Department Chair Ty Tengan said.
Evolution of department
Inspired by political movements of the 1960s and ’70s, UH Mānoa community members advocated for the university to establish the Department of Ethnic Studies. After an experimental program was launched, classes were offered on the history of Hawaiʻi’s ethnic groups, and faculty actively engaged students with issues surrounding the communities they were involved in.
For the next several years, the program underwent frequent evaluation, but its faculty and students fought to keep it going. The program gained permanent status in 1978 with the appointment of full-time Director Franklin Odo.
Some of the prominent community issues in the 1970s included the political struggle over Kalama Valley, where local communities faced eviction, Department of Hawaiian Home Lands reform, the Hālawa Housing eviction struggle, the U.S. using Kahoʻolawe for military exercises, and the Waiāhole-Waikāne struggle, which resulted in long-term leases for farmers and residents.
Throughout the 1980s, its faculty continued to develop the program, which doubled faculty positions by 1991. The program then enhanced its national and international academic reputation by hosting and participating in worldwide conferences. Professor Marion Kelly, one of the program’s early leaders, worked to develop a pro-Hawaiian sovereignty working group as part of Kanaka ʻŌiwi organizations committed to sovereignty for Hawaiʻi.
In 1995, the UH Board of Regents transformed the program into a department offering a bachelor of arts degree. Since then, the department has hired the next generation of faculty members engaged with issues related to Hawaiʻi’s community.
The impact over five decades
Professor Davianna Pōmaikaʻi McGregor — a co-founder of the department, where she has been a faculty member since 1974 and current director of the Center for Oral History — has played an important role to stop the bombing of Kahoʻolawe, which was used beginning in World War II as a U.S. military firing range. She is currently working with the Molokaʻi community to designate the north coast of the island as a community-based subsistence fishing area and assisting other communities with protecting cultural resources.
“I look upon all of the students — more than one generation of students — who have come through our department and have gone on to play important roles in our communities,” McGregor said. “Those from my class are most familiar working with the Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana, some of them in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, or in private business in the Hawaiian community.”
McGregor added, “I look at all that we’ve done for and with communities, standing side-by-side with communities, to help them do background research to support their initiatives.”
Professor Ibrahim Aoude, who has written various texts on the department, recalled many important milestones in the department’s history and stressed that the community needs this discipline more than ever.
“Now, the matter that’s happening globally and in the United States in terms of Black Lives Matter and Pacific Islanders, it is all the more reason for the State of Hawaiʻi and the University of Hawaiʻi — since UH talks about a Hawaiian place of learning and the local place of learning — to connect those communities with the university and give more support than ever before,” Aoude said.
Assistant Professor Laurel Mei-Singh was born and raised in Honolulu before heading to the continental United States to attend college. It was then that she decided to eventually return home to give back to the community. In 2014, during a doctoral program in New York City, Mei-Singh moved back to conduct her dissertation research in Waiʻanae and landed a position in the department as a part-time lecturer.
“The faculty of ethnic studies see scholarly research and community engagement as wholly intertwined; they study the world in order to change it,” Mei-Singh said. “On our 50th anniversary, it is vital that we continue building on this important legacy educating our ʻōpio (younger) and developing public scholarship for Hawaiʻi‘s people and our world.”
Impact on students
Autumn-Raine Hesia, who goes by Kahōkū, is a first-generation college student, Windward Community College alumna and Kaʻieʻie Transfer Program participant who is proud to be Native Hawaiian and Hispanic. Hesia chose the department, because she desired a major that allowed her to think critically about cultures, systemic structures and social movements throughout history and the world today. Hesia is enrolled in the inaugural five-year Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree (BAM) Pathways in Ethnic Studies and Education cohort.
“My goal is to work in higher education and assist marginalized groups in their educational journey,” Hesia said. “The Department of Ethnic Studies has helped prepare me for that by teaching me the importance of using cultural references to enhance social, political and educational consciousness.”
Robert Teczon, who is from Stockton, California, said he and his peers faced struggles of race and class disparities growing up. Teczon was introduced to the study of ethnic cultures in high school and learned about the different histories and factors that contributed to the disenfranchisement of the community that he called home. It was then that he wanted to make a change in the world and pursue the area of study. However, when he searched for schools to attend, he realized that many only focused on cultures that he was already exposed to. He wanted more.
“That’s why I turned to Hawaiʻi and UH Mānoa’s Department of Ethnic Studies, where there’s a heavy focus on native populations and indigenous frameworks,” said Teczon, who is currently a BAM Pathways student. “I was brought up with the motto, ‘Know history, know self. No history, no self.’ But here, I can now expand on that and further my relationship with history with the motto, ‘Our history, Our way. Our future, Our way.’”
