BP#3

Culture influences the way we identify ourselves and the way we interact with the world around us. This can be said for the Hawaiians as their culture includes orality and years of experience on the land passed on by generation to generation. Though literacy allows for lasting record of information, orality preserved that information through the people. With the emergence of literacy, the “richness” of a culture can be affected in that without the understanding of the language, practices and purpose the history cannot be properly documented as the people are left out. Trask, Rath and Gee discuss the significance of orality within a culture and its history.

Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian who talked about how she learned the history of her people in two ways, from her parents and in academia. That the information in school was vastly different and that what was documented did not include the true voices of her people. According to her book “From a Native Daughter” she stated “But why did scholars, presumably well-trained and thoughtful, neglect our language? Not merely a passageway to knowledge, language is a form of knowing by itself; a people’s way of thinking and feeling…” (p.120). Historians neglected the Hawaiian language, instead they turned to what they had written and perceived the culture to be. However, to fully understand a culture and its people is to understand the language as it is connected to the practices. Richard Cullen Rath related with this idea in that without the review of orality the cultural history of its people is incomplete. In “Hearing American History,” Rath stated, “A third justification for sensory history, which guides my research, is that if we are to understand people from the past on their own terms and if they perceived their worlds differently than we do, then we need to understand those differences in perception in order to understand the people at all” (p.419).

In “The Literacy Myth and The History of Literacy” by James Paul Gee, he stated “The literacy myth is, in fact, one of the ‘master myths’ of our society; it is foundational to how we make sense of reality, though it is not necessarily an accurate reflection of that reality, nor does it necessarily lead to a just, equitable, and humane world” (p.51). This explains though literacy is seen to be the greatest achievement within society it is also has detrimental effects. The Hawaiian culture was treated without respect for the people as their language and practices in connection to the land were disregarded. They were viewed as uncivilized or savage simply because they followed a different system and due to this, the writing of their history inaccurate as it is told by people who didn’t understand the true relationship between the Hawaiians and the land. “From a Native Daughter,” Trask stated “Our story remains unwritten. It rests within the culture, which is inseparable from the land. To know this is to know our history. To write this is to write of the land and the people who are born from her” (p.127). This speaks to the fact that in order to understand and write the history of others without erasure, it is important to connect with them through the ways in which they navigate life.