Native Hawaiian scholar and activist (1949–2021)
Haunani-Kay Trask (October 3, 1949 – July 3, 2021) was a Native Hawaiian activist, educator, author, poet, and a leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. She was professor emerita at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where she founded and directed the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies. A published author, Trask wrote scholarly books and articles, as well as poetry. She also produced documentaries and CDs. Trask received awards and recognition for her scholarship and activism, both during her life and posthumously.
Early life and education
Trask was born to Haunani and Bernard Trask.[1][2] She was born in San Francisco, California[3] and grew up on the Koʻolau side of the island of Oʻahu in Hawaiʻi.[4]
Trask graduated from Kamehameha Schools in 1967.[5] She attended the University of Chicago, but transferred to the University of Wisconsin–Madison[6] to complete her bachelor's degree in 1972, master's degree in 1975, and Ph.D. in political science in 1981.[7] Her dissertation was published into a book, Eros and Power: The Promise of Feminist Theory, by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 1986.[5][8]
Career
Trask founded the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.[9][10] The center emerged as an evolution of the university’s American Studies program after Trask “charged the department with sex and race discrimination.”[11] Trask protested the American Studies curriculum’s lack of racial, ideological, and gender diversity.[11] She served as the center's director for almost ten years and was one of its first tenured faculty members.[10] Trask helped secure the building of the Gladys Brandt Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, the permanent center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.[10] In 2010, Trask retired from her director position but continued teaching native political movements in Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, the literature and politics of Pacific Islander women, Hawaiian history and politics, and third world and indigenous history and politics as an emeritus faculty member.[12]
Trask hosted and produced First Friday, a monthly public-access television program started in 1986 to highlight political and cultural Hawaiian issues.[10] Trask co-wrote and co-produced the award-winning 1993 documentary Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation.[10][13] She also wrote the 1993 book From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, which has been described by Cynthia G. Franklin and Laura E. Lyons as a "foundational text" about indigenous rights.[10] Trask published two books of poetry, the 1994 Light in the Crevice Never Seen and the 2002 Night Is a Sharkskin Drum.[10] Trask developed We Are Not Happy Natives, a CD published in 2002 about the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.[10]
Trask was a fellow at the International Institute of Human Rights in 1984, a research fellow at the American Council of Learned Societies in 1984, a Rockefeller fellow at the University of Colorado from 1993-1994, a "National Endowment for the Arts writer-in-residence" at the Institute of American Indian Arts in 1996, a fellow at the Pacific-Basin Research Center at Harvard University from 1998-1999, and a William Evans visiting fellow in Maori studies at the University of Otago.[14]
Trask represented Native Hawaiians at the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Geneva.[10] In 2001, she traveled to South Africa to participate in the United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance.[10]
Awards and recognitions
In 1991, Trask was named “Islander of the Year” by Honolulu Magazine and one of ten Pacific women of the year by Pacific Islands Monthly Magazine.[14] In 1994, she was awarded the Gustavus Myers Award for her 1993 book From a Native Daughter.[14] In March 2017, Hawaiʻi Magazine recognized Trask as one of the most influential women in Hawaiian history.[15] In 2019, Trask was awarded the “Angela Y. Davis Prize” from the American Studies Association in recognition of her application of her “scholarship for the public good.”[16]
Political beliefs
While earning her undergraduate degree in Chicago, Trask learned about and became an active supporter of the Black Panther Party.[citation needed] While studying at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Trask also participated in student protests against the Vietnam War.[citation needed] Trask later wrote about how these experiences as a graduate student helped develop her theories about how capitalism and racism sustained each other.[citation needed]
During her graduate study on politics, Trask began to engage in feminist studies and considered herself to be a feminist.[17] Later in her career, Trask denounced her identification as a "feminist" because of its mainstream focus on Americans, whiteness, and "First World 'rights' talk."[18] She later claimed to align more with transnational feminism.[17]
Trask opposed tourism to Hawaiʻi[19] and the U.S. military's presence in Hawaiʻi.[20] She personified paradise (Hawaiʻi) as a woman, helping her claim that protective militarization relies on this sexist imagery.[21][22] In 2004, Trask spoke out against the Akaka Bill, a bill to establish a process for Native Hawaiians to gain federal recognition similar to the recognition that some Native American tribes possess.[23] Trask believed this bill was an injustice to Native Hawaiian people because it allowed the United States government to control Native Hawaiian governing structure, land, and resources without recognizing Hawaiʻi's sovereignty.[citation needed] She clarified that the bill was drafted ex parte and that hearings were withheld to exclude native community involvement.[24]
Trask challenged the traditional understandings of the Asian American, particularly Japanese, experience in Hawaiʻi.[25] She believed the Japanese occupying Hawaiʻi “like to harken back to the oppressions of the plantation era, although few Japanese in Hawaiʻi today actually worked on the plantations during the Territory (1900–1959).”[25] Trask’s critique of Asian settler colonialism is cited as a foundational development in both Asian American and decolonial justice studies.[11]
Personal life
Trask's longtime partner was University of Hawaiʻi professor David Stannard.[26] Trask came from a politically active family. One of her two sisters, Mililani Trask, is a Hawaiian language immersion teacher, attorney, and a leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.[27][28][29] In 1987, Trask founded Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi, one of Hawaiʻi’s largest and most prominent indigenous sovereignty movements with Mililani.[4] Trask descended from the Kahakumakaliua line of Kaua‘i through her father, who was a lawyer, and the Pi‘ilani line of Maui through her mother, who was an elementary school teacher.[11][28][30] Her paternal grandfather, David Trask Sr., was chairman of the civil service commission and the police commission in 1922, served as the sheriff of Honolulu from 1923 to 1926, and was elected a territorial senator from Oʻahu in 1932.[31] He was a key proponent of Hawaiʻi statehood.[32] Trask's uncle, Arthur K. Trask, was an attorney, an active member of the Democratic Party, and a member of the Statehood Commission from 1944–1957.[33] David Trask Jr., another uncle, was the head of the Hawaiʻi Government Employees Association.[33]
Legacy
Trask died from cancer on July 3, 2021.[2][34] In September 2021, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa issued a posthumous apology to Trask for attacks she received from the university's philosophers in the past.[35] In her obituary, the New York Times noted her fight for Indigenous sovereignty and cited her quote, “We will die as Hawaiians. We will never be Americans.”[34]
