Summary

I traveled to Hawaiʻi for two weeks in late July and early August 2025 with the intention of bringing back connections and learnings that would benefit my students at Boston Green Academy and potentially grow opportunities for solidarity between our community in Boston and communities in Hawaiʻi. I visited the islands of Oahu, Kauai, and Maui for several days each. I was privileged to experience several agricultural and historical sites; connect with various practitioners, community members, teachers, and students; and, witness many cultural practices during my time in Hawaiʻi.

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Together, these experiences helped me understand the role of colonial domination in shaping the land and communities of Hawaiʻi — as expected. However, I was more excited to understand the forceful and vital ways in which Hawaiian sovereignty activism and community care push back against domination. The Hawaiian people’s deep connection to their land (ʻāina) inspires and sustains indigenous resistance in Hawaiʻi, and therefore, sustainability, circularity, and biodiversity (mālama, meaning care) are at the center of anti-colonial struggle. All of the following experiences served to educate me and convince me that indigenous resistance in Hawaiʻi is even more vital than I had imagined. In 2025, it is alive and formidable, facing long odds to be sure against antagonists like the US military and the global billionaire class. However, resistance is the living heart of those islands and an inspiring model for any liberation struggle. And I think it will win someday.

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If it is to win, the ethic of resistance and the stewardship of ʻāina have to be conveyed to the next generations. As such, mainland teachers have much to learn from Hawaiian educators. I hope to maintain the contacts I made with educators in Hawaiʻi, from high school teachers to outdoor educators who are trying to teach teens how to maintain land and take the torch of stewardship from their elders. I’ll be forever grateful for these connections and for the support of the Pat Cooke Fund in helping to forge them.

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In the short term, from a content perspective, my teaching will benefit from a more complete account of the American takeover of the Hawaiian islands — a key part of my US History II unit on Imperialism. I will also be able to weave into my teaching examples of how encounter with the United States transformed the Hawaiian economy, especially with respect to the advent of the sugar industry in Maui (on view during my visit to the Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum) and the tourism industry on each island (enlightened by my volunteer experience with Mālama Kauai). [My photo album provides more detail on these activities.] I also have a much stronger understanding of the role of New England missionaries and the international whaling industry in the colonization of Hawaiʻi, particularly the impact of people from Boston.  In the long term, I hope to further cultivate my relationship with educators in Hawaiʻi and begin connecting them and their students with my classes in Boston. We can start modestly, possibly with pen pal-type activities between our students, expanding perhaps to shared reflection and design of social change strategies in our respective communities. I am looking forward to establishing connections between our Boston community and communities in Hawaiʻi, particularly in light of the early colonial connections between our two parts of the world.

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Questions

 

How have your knowledge, skills, and capabilities grown? 

I came into direct contact with several of the most important sites and artifacts in my curriculum, including: the ʻIolani Palace, canoes and capes of the Hawaiian royal families, churches and printing presses of early Protestant missionaries, the vestments and writings of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the quilt that Queen Liliʻuokalani crafted while she was imprisoned during the annexation crisis, and an array of artifacts from the early territorial period on display at a temporary exhibition at the world-renowned Bishop Museum of Natural and Cultural History in Honolulu.

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More important, however, was being able to bear witness to the ongoing resistance that is the Hawaiian indigenous sovereignty movement. I was able to attend an annual day-long festival commemorating Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea. The day marks the anniversary of the restoration of Hawaiian sovereignty after a brief occupation by the British in the 1840s. However, the celebration has become much more than that: an opportunity for young people who want to restore Hawaiian sovereignty, biodiversity, and cultural dignity in the American-dominated era.

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All of the above will inform the curriculum and instruction I deliver to my students. However, I believe my teaching practice was most influenced by conversations I got to have with fellow educators, such as members of the National Education Association Hawaiʻi union locals that I met at Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea panels, and educators like Joe Wat, a Community Development Coordinator at KEY Project. Mr. Wat, who used to work at Boston Green Academy, now teaches young people on the eastern shore of Oahu how to restore and maintain connections with their land (aina) and take ownership of their futures and their community.

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As a result, in what ways will your instructional (or other) practice change?

Beyond strengthening my content, this trip gave me the opportunity to think deeply about my posture as an educator, my own identity, and how to help students situate themselves in identity and community with the ultimate goal of helping them find liberation and empowerment in life. Ideally, I want to help create connections between my students and high school students in Hawaiʻi. At the very least, I want to help my students see how much they share with similarly situated people thousands of miles away. Those similarities stuck out to me on this trip. In my conversations with educators, it became clear that their students are at risk of being crowded out of land, rights, and a cultural inheritance that should be theirs. Even when those young people are more connected with that legacy, many of them struggle to develop the basic skills they will need to maintain their inheritance and grow it for the sustainable sovereignty of their community. On the eastern shore of Oahu, this means that educators who are grounded in liberatory teaching try to teach students the skills, habits of mind, awareness of rights, and care that will help them sustain the land and each other. As I learned, something as simple as learning how to use a weed wacker can be so empowering and lead to more learning and curiosity. Young people who are empowered in this way can help elders maintain their land and take charge as leaders and advocates for their communities. What this means is that we, as educators and adults, are responsible for teaching our students the essential skills they will need to claim and maintain their birthright. In Hawaiʻi, the land has been stolen and used to generate wealth for big corporations and real estate interests. This is similar to the situation in Boston. Big money is claiming so much of our community, and people who belong to this place feel less and less welcome to thrive and build homes here. Just like the youth in Hawaiʻi, my own students deserve to be educated on their birthright. They also need skills and habits of mind to maintain and grow what they can hopefully reclaim. This is true even if what they are claiming is their own potential and earning power as a successful adult. However, I hope that learning about their own history in dialogue with their peers in Hawaiʻi will help my students realize that they have even more to win than their own success. I will strive to build this notion of dialogue and analogue into my teaching, helping students to see their story in conversation with others. This could entail “pen pal” arrangements, culturally proficient readings, collaborative research projects, and sharing stories.

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What is the greatest personal accomplishment of your fellowship? 

Forging connections with local practitioners, and in so doing, learning about the Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea festival, was the most important thing I did during my time in Hawaiʻi. I met so many people from all parts of Hawaiʻi engaged in land sovereignty (ʻāina) work: cultural practitioners, teachers, anti-military activists, dancers, storytellers, designers, and technologists. I will keep those connections and hope to find places of common interest between my work and theirs. The event also helped me to understand land sovereignty struggles in Hawaiʻi beyond the moment in time that I teach in my US History 2 class (the annexation crisis), hopefully allowing me to make that story more current and relevant for my students.

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How will your experience positively impact student learning in new ways? 

I hope to re-orient some of my teaching around encounter and dialogue with the stories of others, especially youth in Hawaiʻi, as I described above. I hope this will make my teaching about US imperialism more engaging and grounded in my students’ own experience. I also came to understand more deeply the connection between Hawaiʻi, imperialism, and our community in Boston. So many of my students come from diaspora communities that were affected by American imperialism. Many are also subject to displacement in our own communities. Making direct connections between our students and students in Hawaiʻi will help our students locate their own stories in time (history) and space, and find another way to connect with historical material that can sometimes seem remote. Images, artifacts, and stories I gathered in Hawaiʻi will also help me make this history more relevant and engaging for students. All of this is welcome in my practice because engagement is a constant challenge in history classes.

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What are your plans to work collaboratively with colleagues? 

I hope to make more connections with educators in Hawaiʻi to effectuate and enrich what I have discussed above. I believe there is also potential for crossover with Spanish language teachers. I have already discussed with colleagues areas where we can collaborate on American imperialism content. My colleague teaches the War of 1898 (aka the Spanish American War) and its impacts on Cuba and Puerto Rico. I usually focus on the same war from the Hawaiian perspective — annexation happens just before 1898 and is accelerated by the impending war. Working cross-curricularly on Hawaiʻi and American imperialism will help make the work more engaging, relevant, and culturally sustaining.

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Are there issues or challenges in your school, community, or the world that you feel better prepared to address with your students? 

Please see answer above.

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How would you describe to a friend the most fundamental ways in which your fellowship has changed your personal and/or professional perspective?

I was able to make connections with other teachers, experience cultural artifacts and sites, and witness firsthand the ongoing legacy of indigenous resistance in Hawaiʻi — all of which I will endeavor to bring back to my students and make relevant in their own lives. This was one of the most profound experiences of my professional life.