Featured Links

• Hawaiʻi’s Territorial Period in Context
• Americanization through the School System
  Once Hawai‘i formally became a U.S. territory in 1900, White schoolmen (school administrators and local politicians) implemented an aggressive Americanization campaign in the territory’s public schools. By removing Hawaiian culture, history, and language in the schools and replacing it with American civics and the English language, schoolmen sought to rewrite Hawai‘i’s past by establishing the islands as an American possession since the arrival of American missionaries in 1820. They did so with the intent of justifying America’s presence in the minds of the local population and convincing a skeptical nation that Hawai‘i was American.
• Native Response
  Far from passive, many Native Hawaiians resisted Americanization efforts in the public schools. Each in their own way, Native Hawaiian students, teachers, lawmakers, and members of the community fought to preserve and protect their language, culture, and identity through their active participation in the very institution trying to assimilate them: schools. Explore their stories.
• Bills/Petitions
• Further Reading
• Images