Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 21, Number 4, 1 April 2004 — Q&A with Jon Osorio [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Q&A with Jon Osorio

New director of UH Manoa's Center for Hawaiian Studies

lnterview by Derek Ferrar /n January, historian anā wellknown contemporary Hawaiian musician Jon Kamakawiwo 'ole Osorio īook over from Lilikalā Kame'eleihiwa for a four-year term as director of UH Mānoa's Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. Osorio, who has been teaching at the center since 1992, grew up in Hilo — one offive children of former Hawai'i County CounciIman and three-time mayoraI candidate EIroy Osorio Sr. He graduated from Kamehameha ('69) and UH, where he eventually received his doctorate in history. His recent book, "Dismembering Lāhui," is a groundbreaking native history of the Hawaiian Kingdom, from its first constitution, proclaimed- by Kamehameha III in 1840, to the "bayonet constitution" forced- on King Kalākaua in 1887. Most readers, however, probab!y know Osorio best for his music. With his Iate partner, Randy Borden, he composed such island classics as Hawaiian Eyes and. Hawaiian Soul, a tribute to d.isappeared Kaho'olawe activists George Helm and. Kimo Miiehell. Recently, Ka Wai Ola grabbed. a few precious moments between classes to īoueh base with the new d.irector: KWO: How did you ever get from being a musician to being a scholar? JKO: Well, I think if you're an entertainer, it's kind of a natural progression to want to teach. Because if you sing in nightclubs long enough, you're going to have plenty of audiences that just eompletely ignore you. With teaching, they have to pay attention. You know, the songs I composed were always about what it means to be Hawaiian in this modern world. But I was writing them without any knowledge at all about things like what the kingdom was like, where our people eame from, what our religion was like. Even my language knowledge was sort of minimum. Then my music career began to fade, so I decided to go back to school. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I figured out somewhat quickly that I wanted to teach. It seemed like it was the most logical thing for me. I like to talk; I like to influence people, and I felt teaching was the best way to do this. But I never really anticipated becoming a scholar in that sense; my idea was to get a bachelor's degree and at the most teach high school. However, things kept breaking for me, and I just cannot tell you how extraordinarily lucky I have been. How do you feel about taking the director's seat, and what are some of your top priorities in the job? Frankly, I didn't really want this

job, but I took it because at some point all of us who eome through here need to give back by becoming an administrator for a few years. That's something I've eome to terms with, because I'm so appreciative of the camaraderie and support I've always experienced here. As far as priorities, number one is to get our master's program off and running. We've spent about three years planning for what will ultimately be five or maybe even more areas of concentration covering the whole gamut of Hawaiian-Pacific experience. We think it's going to be tremendously powerful as a native studies program. When are you hoping to get it going? Right now, we are in the process of trying to get the Faculty Senate to look at the proposal, approve it and get it off to the Board of Regents. We're hoping to offer the first courses this fall. At this point, we're too late to actually start accepting entrants then; that will have to wait until next spring. But we think we ean start by offering master's-level courses that people who intend to enroll in the program ean take. Right now, we have about 45 students who have indicated that they are basically holding off on getting their graduate degrees until our program comes out. Whal would the master's program add to the experience that Hawaiian studies undergrads are getting now? We hope that the B.A. students eome away from the program with a strong understanding of the eonneetion between the people and the land, and of the significance of Hawaiian cultural identity in its many forms — an appreciation for the religion; an understanding of Hawaiian language, whieh they have to take for three years; and certainly a grasp of history that none of us would have had as undergraduates 20 years ago. But for graduate students, we would want them to be experts in all of this. These people are not just going to be appreciating these things; they are going to be able to teach them. We would expect that graduates would have such a strong

familiarity with the archives that they are actually going to take the research we have done in the last few years, and they are going to make it look like child's play. They are going to begin doing their research in Hawaiian language sources, where for us it would take months and months to translate. Speaking of your own research: your book deals with the political history of the kingdom. What lessons from that time do you think are particularly applieahle to Hawaiians today? To begin with, I really do believe that the only entity that ean elaim my real legal title to the ceded lands is the kingdom. I absolutely believe that the kingdom has to be restored in order to elaim full title to these lands. However, I would not wish to restore a government that would do to us what our kingdom did to our people a hundred and fifty years ago. Frankly, I think our kingdom let the Kānaka Maoli down while pursuing sugar and commerce. And, yet, the people were still incredibly loyal to that government, because they believed that, collectively, they represented something great and wonderful in the whole world. And I think that is how Hawaiians today still feel about what we have to offer. I have always had a great kanalua — that is, a double view — towards the kingdom's government. Yes, it was a terrible thing that it was overthrown. However, it is also true that for the most part it did not do very well by its subjects. As we commit ourselves to self-determination, you cannot romanticize the kingdom. We should be really clear about what it was, and what were the good things that we should restore. One of the things we ean never forget in rebuilding our nation is the importance of having compassion, of feeling a sense of aloha for your own people and also for others. Whal do you think is needed to bring Hawaiians together behind this effort? A government might bring people together. But I've wondered a lot about this myself, because one of the things that I have been disappointed with is the extent to whieh some of the establishment Hawaiian institutions ean tend to keep grassroots activists at arm's length. I really think they should seriously consider whether they are best serving their people by spending their time and resources essentially trying to protect the status quo, rather than trying to be a real leader and paying more attention to what the people want. You know, if we could just eouple OHA's money, Bishop Estate's land and activists' experienee and passion, there is no politieal force in Hawai'i that could stop us. ■

"One of the things we ean never forget in rebuilding our nation is the importance of having compassion , of feeling a sense of aloha for your own people and also for o^/ie/^."