Settler Colonialism in Hawaiʻi: Settlers

Ignorance...is not a passive state of absence--a simple lack of information: it is an active dynamic of negations, an active refusal of information.

Shoshana Felman

As the saying goes, "ignorance is bliss," and indeed, the ignorance of the colonization and continued occupation of Hawaiʻi has been a privilege to settlers in Hawaiʻi.

Shavonn Matsuda and Kawena Komeiji

Felman, 1982, pp.29-30.

Matsuda & Komeiji, 2023.

Our state of Hawaiʻi and the University of Hawaiʻi system which includes Leeward Community College are settler-colonial institutions where the logic of elimination shapes our guiding and working documents.

Eiko Kosasa

Kosasa, 2024, p. 7.

Recent strategic plans at the University of Hawaiʻi include goals aimed at Native Hawaiians and becoming a Native Hawaiian place of learning. 

UH System Strategic Plan 2023-2029

• Imperative 1: Fulfill kuleana to Native Hawaiians and Hawaiʻi 
  • Model what it means to be an indigenous-serving and indigenous-centered institution: Native Hawaiians thrive, traditional Hawaiian values and knowledge are embraced, and UH scholarship and service advance all Native Hawaiians and Hawai‘i.

UH Hilo Strategic Plan 2025-2035

• Value Based Goal 1
  • Demonstrate that UH Hilo is a Native Hawaiian place of learning, deeply connected to the history of Hawaiʻi Island's diverse communities

Leeward CC Strategic Plan 2023-2029

• Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Pillar
  • Create a visible and celebrated connection to the ʻāina for the betterment of Hawaiʻi's indigenous people and all campus community members.

How can we achieve these goals if settlers remain ignorant of the settler-colonial political structure they work in?

What are the settler's responsibilities for decolonizing?

Settlers have a distinct role in decolonization initiatives that differs from Native Hawaiians. First, settlers must understand they cannot decolonize themselves because they are not colonized here in Hawai‘i. "The United States has not taken our ancestral lands in these islands. We [settlers] may be oppressed, but [we] are not colonized." (Kosasa, p.9)

While only Native Hawaiians can decolonize themselves in this place, settlers can work to decolonize colonial institutions.

According to Kosasa, Native Hawaiians have the additional burden and responsibility of uplifting their people as a nation while working within a settler-colonial structure that is "simultaneously working to erase them as a nation." (Kosasa, p. 9)

A role for settlers

• Need to understand that they have benefited from predatory colonial structures.
• Need to take responsibility for understanding contemporary Hawaiʻi and the implications of the settler-colonial political structure in their everyday lives.
• Be aware that they cannot decolonize themselves because they are not the colonized people in Hawaiʻi. 
• Have an obligation to alter colonial institutions and systems if they support the vision of Hawaiians.

Settlers within the UH System who support the university's indigenization vision need to understand their role in the decolonization process to avoid perpetuating harm on their Native Hawaiian colleagues. If you support indigenization, you can help Native Hawaiians by working to decolonize the university's policies and practices that seek to erase them.

As settlers, we do not carry that heavy weight. Even if Hawaiians decide not to do anything for Leeward CC, we settlers still have the obligation to alter the colonial institutions and system to support the vision of Hawaiians. After all, we are residing on Hawaiians' ancestral lands and benefiting from their loss. (Kosasa, p. 9)

Britzman, D. P. (1998). Lost subjects, contested objects: Toward a psychoanalytic inquiry of learning. State University of New York Press.

Dion, S. D.(2004). (Re)telling to disrupt: Aboriginal people and stories of Canadian history. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies. 2(1), 55-76.

Felman, S. (1982). Psychoanalysis and Education: Teaching Terminable and Interminable. Yale French Studies, 63, 21–44. https://doi.org/10.2307/2929829

Kauanui, J. K. (2016). “A Structure, Not an Event”: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity. Lateral, 5(1). https://doi.org/48671433

Kosasa, E. (2024). Notes regarding difficult knowledge, from one settler to other settlers (on US imperialism and settler colonialism in Hawaiʻi.

Matsuda, S., & Komeiji, K. (2023). Kuʻu ʻāina kulāiwi. up//root. https://www.uproot.space/komeiiji-matsuda

Wolfe, P. (2006). Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native. Journal of Genocide Research, 8(4), 387–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623520601056240